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sgraham602

sgraham602

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So i just made my first mead. Heated 12 lbs of honey @ 145 for 15 minutes and topped it up for a total of 5 gallons of added water. Took a gravity reading and its 1.063. Also added 3lb of blueberry puree...went to 1.067. Seems awful low. Does that sound right? Did I add too much water?


I'll be adding 8 lbs of fruit in the secondary, so maybe it'll pick up some gravity points there?
 
Meh! it'll work, but will likely end up dry. Even with the secondary fruit, unless you stabilise after primary, then the sugars would back sweeten rather than ferment.
 
That gravity sounds low. I would have expected something closer to 1.086. Is it possible that the honey isn't fully dissolved? There could be a layer of honey in the bottom of the bucket or carboy.

I wouldn't expect a fruit addition to raise gravity. Fruit does contain sugar, but it also contains water. The gravity of the juice of most fruits is lower than that of your mead.
 
Well I ended up with close to 6 gallons total, so it might be possible I added too much water. In retrospect I should have taken a gravity reading before I topped up with the last 2 gallons of water. I didn't take into account that 12 lbs of honey would add volume of its own
 
sgraham602 said:
Heated 12 lbs of honey @ 145 for 15 minutes and topped it up for a total of 5 gallons of added water.
Click to expand...

Ignore my earlier OG estimate. I misread your first post. I thought it said "total of 5 gallons".

You can estimate gravities before you add all the water. Honey averages about 36 points of gravity per lb. Twelve pounds of honey would contain approx 432 points (12 x 36 = 432) Just divide 432 by batch size (432 / 6 = 72 or 1.072 estimated OG)
 
Would heating the must for too long or too high of a temp affect the gravity? There was a very sugary krausen like material left in the walls of my kettle
 

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