I did some reverse usage of the calculator to find the water and honey required for a desired sweetness and ABV.
The yeast I'm using has a stated alchohol tolerance of 14% by volume which is also the ABV I want to end up with. The "mead fg" guide says that the minimum sweetness for the "dessert" level is represented by a FG of 1.020.
The final calculation is that 25 cups of honey and 59 cups of water will give that FG and ABV with a final volume of 5.25 gallons which gives me a quarter gallon of slack when I rack to secondary, which will happen in a 5 gallon carboy.
So here are my questions:
1. This looks a little less strong than what is considered sack mead; does that mean that I can add all the honey at the beginning and not have to worry about too much honey causing stuck fermentation?
2. Is a quarter gallon of slack the right amount to avoid sucking up lees when racking from a 6.25g primary carboy?
3. This is about 3.5 pounds of honey per gallon of final volume. The "mead sweetness" guide places 3.5 lbs/gal at the low end of "sweet" when it seems like this mead would be at the high end. Did I miss something?
The yeast I'm using has a stated alchohol tolerance of 14% by volume which is also the ABV I want to end up with. The "mead fg" guide says that the minimum sweetness for the "dessert" level is represented by a FG of 1.020.
The final calculation is that 25 cups of honey and 59 cups of water will give that FG and ABV with a final volume of 5.25 gallons which gives me a quarter gallon of slack when I rack to secondary, which will happen in a 5 gallon carboy.
So here are my questions:
1. This looks a little less strong than what is considered sack mead; does that mean that I can add all the honey at the beginning and not have to worry about too much honey causing stuck fermentation?
2. Is a quarter gallon of slack the right amount to avoid sucking up lees when racking from a 6.25g primary carboy?
3. This is about 3.5 pounds of honey per gallon of final volume. The "mead sweetness" guide places 3.5 lbs/gal at the low end of "sweet" when it seems like this mead would be at the high end. Did I miss something?