Mead question

Never brewed mead before and got a recipe that asks for ~12lbs, however I've seen a lot of others that only use about 5. Should I just split this into two batches?

A friend of mine uses 15 to 20 lbs in a 5 gallon batch. So its according to how sweet you want it in my opinion.

How many liters is your batch?

Im thinking around 15 liters. 4.5 gallon total including honey and water. Its in a 5 gallon carboy.

12 is good for 4.5 gal...5 is weak

see here

http://www.stormthecastle.com/mead/mead-recipes.htm

Just looked that site up. Nice recipes. I noticed a orange mead recipe sais do not use plastic carboy. Why is that if you know?

richard3589 said:

Just looked that site up. Nice recipes. I noticed a orange mead recipe sais do not use plastic carboy. Why is that if you know?

Click to expand...

Could be a couple......

Originally it was frowned on using plastics as there was an issue with the plasticisers leaching out into the liquid.

These days its been found that many plastics are slightly air permeable over time so you can use a bucket made from hdpe for fermenting or the "better bottle" plastic carboys which are made from PET. But its still recommended to get and longer term ageing done in glass.

Or of course if you intend using any vacuum during the processing then most plastics are a no-no.....

Could be something to do with those...

Thanks for the replies, good info!