How much honey?

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CowboyBrewer

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I am getting ready to make my first batch of Mead. I am trying to find out the best amount of honey to buy for a 5 gal batch. I have the White Labs Sweet Mead yeast- WLP720 and yeast nutrient. I am trying to buy local honey from bee keepers but need to know how much I should buy. I have been told that 3 gal (25lbs) of honey with 1 1/2 gal of water would be good. Any advice for a 1st timer would be much appreciated.
 
I think maybe you've got your proportions backwards. Anywhere from 1 to 4 pounds of honey per gallon of water is what I use. I'd say I average about 2 pounds per gallon for an off-dry mead. If I want a very sweet mead I go for the 4 pounds per gallon. That is a very strong mead by the way. I try to use spring water also, but I've also used things like orange juice, heather blossom tea, and the like.
 
I have to say that 25lb honey with 1. 5 gal water would not work. Not sure where you saw that.

Good place to start is 3lb per gal
 
Hello and welcome. I'm guessing you want a sweet mead, since you bought sweet mead yeast?
 
With 2.4 lb of honey/gallon (1 gallon/12 lb) and with the Wyeast labs sweet mead yeast, it still finished dry. Those yeasts seem to go into the 11% range, I'd recommend 3lb/gallon or about 15 lb in plus water to 5 gallons.
 
I would suggest something like 3lb per gallon i.e. 15lb made up to 5 gallons with water.

Now all the suggestions thus far have forgotten a few things, that to achieve a sweet mead with the White Labs yeast (and whoever it was that mentioned the Wyeast version is wrong, thats a different yeast with a much lower tolerance), you'd need to either mix the batch for a higher gravity or start lower and then when it gets to something like how you'd want it to be, to cold crash it, then hit it with stabilising chems (sulphite and sorbate).

The White labs sweet mead yeast, has, from memory, a tolerance of 15% ABV. To get that, you'd need a drop of 110/111 gravity points (110 equates to about 14.94% ABV, and 111 to about 15.08% ABV). So if you mixed it to something like 1.118 (presuming 1.000 is taken as dry/finished) you'd be left with about 1% worth of residual sweetness.

It's fair to point out that it's far easier to ferment dry, then to back sweeten to your desired level, than it is to start higher on the gravity front, so that it should finish with some residual sugars.....

The choice is yours but I'd suspect that if you got 15lb of the honey, you wouldn't be far wrong.....
 
I would suggest something like 3lb per gallon i.e. 15lb made up to 5 gallons with water.

Now all the suggestions thus far have forgotten a few things, that to achieve a sweet mead with the White Labs yeast (and whoever it was that mentioned the Wyeast version is wrong, thats a different yeast with a much lower tolerance), you'd need to either mix the batch for a higher gravity or start lower and then when it gets to something like how you'd want it to be, to cold crash it, then hit it with stabilising chems (sulphite and sorbate).

The White labs sweet mead yeast, has, from memory, a tolerance of 15% ABV. To get that, you'd need a drop of 110/111 gravity points (110 equates to about 14.94% ABV, and 111 to about 15.08% ABV). So if you mixed it to something like 1.118 (presuming 1.000 is taken as dry/finished) you'd be left with about 1% worth of residual sweetness.

It's fair to point out that it's far easier to ferment dry, then to back sweeten to your desired level, than it is to start higher on the gravity front, so that it should finish with some residual sugars.....

The choice is yours but I'd suspect that if you got 15lb of the honey, you wouldn't be far wrong.....

shoot, I read that a few times and I'm sorry, most of that read like greek to me. You seem to really know what to do..... so I'll get 15lbs of honey and get it going. I don't know how to back sweeten. I'm pretty noob to all this still, I've mostly been brewing beer through extracts. If you could possibly dumb that down for me I'll follow your lead. Thanks
 
1. Boil 5 gallons of water then turn off the heat
2. Stir in the 15 lbs honey
3. Stir in 2 tsp yeast nutrient
4. Cool it to 65-70F
5. Pour it into your fermenter
6. Stir it up real good to get some air into it
7. Pour the yeast in, cover the fermenter with the lid or plastic sheet
8. After 2 weeks siphon it into a 5 gallon carboy
9. Put an air lock on keep it cool and dark
10. After six months bottle it with 250 ml wine conditioner
12. Let the bottles age 1 or 2 years
13. Success!

(Have I left anything out guys?)
 
1. Boil 5 gallons of water
2. Stir in the 15 lbs honey
3. Stir in 2 tsp yeast nutrient
4. Cool it to 65-70F
5. Pour it into your fermenter
6. Stir it up real good to get some air into it
7. Pour the yeast in
8. After 2 weeks siphon it into a 5 gallon carboy
9. Put an air lock on keep it cool and dark
10. After six months bottle it with 250 ml wine conditioner
12. Let the bottles age 1 or 2 years
13. Success!

(Have I left anything out guys?)

so for the first 2 weeks I don't put an airlock on it?
 
1. Boil 5 gallons of water then turn off the heat
2. Stir in the 15 lbs honey
3. Stir in 2 tsp yeast nutrient
4. Cool it to 65-70F
5. Pour it into your fermenter
6. Stir it up real good to get some air into it
7. Pour the yeast in, cover the fermenter with the lid or plastic sheet
8. After 2 weeks siphon it into a 5 gallon carboy
9. Put an air lock on keep it cool and dark
10. After six months bottle it with 250 ml wine conditioner
12. Let the bottles age 1 or 2 years
13. Success!

See my revisons above^ Devil's in the details.
 
You can also taste the mead as you are adding sweetener to get it the way you want. 250 ml gives me enough sweetness to balance the alcohol but your preference will likely be different.
 
personally I'd only boil 4 gallons of water and then stir in the honey. Check the volume after combining to try and get to 5 to 5.5 gallons with the honey - adding water if needed. I trust my water so the real reason I'd heat water is to mix the honey in.

If you add 15 lb of honey ot 5 gallons of water, you will have about 6+gallons of must (must is the name for unfermented wine/mead).

Granted boiling the 5 gallons reduce the water volume because you boil off some, but I doubt 1 gallons worth off a boil.

I've also airlocked at the beginning, and then do a couple of other steps that help the ferment (like some more yeast nutrient, and 'thumping' the fermentor to help degas in the early ferment. I do this by hitting the fermentor with the side of my fist. The goal is to vibrate the wine a little and encourage some CO2 to exit and ease yeast stress.) BUT neither of those 2 things is needed.
 
thank you that is also very helpful. How much water would you boil then? I only have a 5 gal carboy available for mead as my other 6 gal ones are currently fermenting beer. Would 4 gal of water and 15lbs of honey be alright?
 
thank you that is also very helpful. How much water would you boil then? I only have a 5 gal carboy available for mead as my other 6 gal ones are currently fermenting beer. Would 4 gal of water and 15lbs of honey be alright?

I would err on less water. If the water is even warm it's pretty easy to dissolve the honey into it, and you can always add water afterwards if you still have volume to fill. But if you start with too much water and dissolve the honey into it, you're sorta hosed and you lose out on some honey.
 
If you're planning on making carboy size batches of mead regularly, just invest in one of those double wing wine aerators. Oh that thing saves so much time in mixing honey into water and aerating the ?$$%@ out of it. I use that on a 1/2" cheapie Harbor Freight variable speed drill and within maybe 30 seconds it mixes the honey so well nothing dissolves out. Crystallized honey is always a challenge, if you can heat it to like 110F in the container you want to pour it from a funnel into the carboy it is easiest. My rough estimates seem to be that honey takes roughly roughly 1/6 to 1/4 of the volume of the carboy.
 
12lb of honey is roughly 1 gallon of liquid, so 15lb should be about 1.25 gallons (5 quarts) I'd look to initially mix that with about 3 to 3.5 gallons of water and then topoff after it was all in the carboy
 
DON'T BOIL THE HONEY!!!!

Unless the honey is heavily crystalized, you won't even need to heat the water at all. I would also seriously advise the OP goes to the Got Mead? forums/site for information, tips, tricks, and assistance. There's a calculation tool on the site too, to give you a decent idea of what to mix up. You'll need to have some idea of the sugar concentration of the honey, or just use the default values.
 
Thank you everyone for the advice and info. This is how it turned out. 15lbs of honey, nutrients, and plenty of oxygen due to the cordless drill paint stirrer attachment I picked up. It has been doing well in the primary now for 6 days.

1105121514.jpg


1105121514a.jpg
 
Just wait until it starts to clear. :D

There's nothing quite like making your first mead and seeing it progress. But, once you've done a few batches, you care less about seeing how it's doing. I've gotten to that stage. I'm letting mine go the amount of time needed, and then racking when appropriate. Cleaning a couple of my reserve fermentation vessels now, so that I can transfer a batch into one, and use another to make a new batch.

I also have the latest batch sitting on a rug with keglove on it, with a heating pad between the keg (what I ferment in) and the glove. This is so that I can maintain the temperature the yeast likes to be at during fermentation. It's progressing well, but I'm probably a good month away from fermentation being complete (using RC-212).

Something to keep in mind... Be patient with your mead. Don't rush it along and you'll get something GREAT out of it. :rockin:
 
Something to keep in mind... Be patient with your mead. Don't rush it along and you'll get something GREAT out of it. :rockin:

This bears repeating over and over. Case in point: a mead I made in 2008 from orange/tangerine juice and orange blossom honey--a considerable investment--was tremendously disappointing after a year in the fermenter and a year in the bottle. Last week I opened a bottle on a whim--it is spectacular.
 

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