StophJS

Recipes 

Does anyone know what the yield of the midwest sweet mead kit is? the website doesn't say..

dummkauf

Recipes 

Looks like 5 gallons since it comes with 12Lbs of honey.

You could always just call them and ask too??

StophJS

Recipes 

Yeah that probably would have made more sense. I ended up doing that and they said either 5 or 6 gallons depending on the carboy size. Weird.

fatbloke

Recipes 

Especially as it would vary the end result i.e. with the amount of honey per gallon etc.

I generally make mine with 3.5lb per gallon, which I'd guess would be close to 3lb per US gallon (the difference being approx 3.7 litres in a US gallon as opposed to the 4.55 litres of the Imp gallon). Whereas a 6 gallon batch with the kit you mention is 2lb per gallon or 2.4lb per gallon with a 5 gallon batch, so I'd have thought that they'd both hit dry, but a 5 gallon batch would be higher in alcohol.

Strange when I read about these kits (not available here anyway). As they seem to all be likely to produce a dry mead, which isn't to everyones taste (certainly not mine). Maybe, depending on what you want to make, you might need to get some more honey for which ever version you choose to make.......

__________________
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away". Tom Waits.

Oh, and here's some blog stuff!

huesmann

Recipes 

That was my thought--12 lb seems a little low for 5 gal of anything but dry mead.

StophJS

Recipes 

Yeah just about everything I'm reading online recommends about 16 lbs or more for a 5 gallon yield. Very strange that they would say it depends on the size of the carboy.. same ingredients with a variation of a full gallon of yield would undoubtedly have a huge impact on the final product.

dummkauf

Recipes 

I agree 6 gallons seems a bit excessive, but depending on the yeast used, 12Lbs in a 5 gallon batch could result in a sweet mead if it only hit 8%-10% ABV. However if it's including a wine yeast that's good to 15%-18% ABV range, well then yes i would agree that would come out dry. Most sweet mead recipes I've seen tend to range from 12-16Lbs of honey for a 5 gallon batch of mead, so 12Lbs very well could produce a sweet mead, but again that will probably depend on the yeast used. It also sounds like you might just want to consider ordering up the honey you want and skipping the kit, this site has a bunch of mead recipes on it, you could just pick a sweet mead recipe and order the necessary honey/yeast/yeast nutrients too.

That said, the answer of 5 to 6 gallons sounds like you got a beer brewer on the phone. When I first started making mead and was in the store, the person I asked usually went and found someone else to answer my questions as they didn't know much about mead, I suppose it's entirely possible whoever answered the phone didn't know mead, but they usually find someone who does in those situations.