OG 1130 ok?

new to the place, and to brewing honestly - have spent hours reading great info from everyone, but still learning.

I just put together a sour cherry melomel; EC-1118 and nutrient to go in soon.

the gravity measured out at 1130, which is a little high compared to my experiments up until now - surprised me I guess, did not think the tart cherry concentrate I used would have that much sugar. generally speaking, could this turn out overly sweet, or is the capability of this particular yeast going to make this overly, well, strong?

thanks for any replies and can't wait to learn more

EC-1118 could theoretically take 1.130 dry. However, if your gravity is higher than expected, make sure you are well mixed, and consider rechecking gravity...occasionally you get a crazy reading...make sure to spin the hydrometer a bit to knock off any bubbles, and don't forget to compensate for temperature.

Regardless, assuming your reading is OK...having a cherry melomel end somewhere in the semi-sweet range (~1.010-1.020) and ~15% ABV is probably about right for my tastes. Between now and the end of your fermentation, consider picking up some tannin powder and acid blend, and try some samples with proportional amounts of these additions...melomels often 'pop' a little more with some acidity added before bottling; same with tannins. I often add the tannins up front, but always add the acid to taste before bottling...

cheers, thanks

pitched yeast and partial nutrient (considering doing every-other-day thing?) and it looks good so far, yay me.

I do wonder about pilot error (as always ha) but checked gravity a couple times and it seemed to be well mixed and hydrometer not sticking, house temp. here pretty consistent. picking up some re-supplies so may top off a bit anyway as this ended up being only ~2.25gal in a 11L carboy (did I mention about the pilot error lol)

from my notes:
- 32oz honey, Ambrosia Colorado brand, raw+unfiltered
- 23oz honey, White Gold brand, untreated, opaque!
- 32oz sour cherry concentrate, Tart is Smart brand
- + water to ~9qt
- 1/2t+ EC-1118
- 1/2t Fermax (- add 1/2t more every other day, up to 2t?)

ok so I have some time to look into tannins, acids - it seems a bit advanced for me but again always willing to learn, thank you. also if the above is out of proportion in anyway, any advice much appreciated.

(also also, mention of tannins amuses me mainly because lately I have to consider resurfacing iron-tannate aka rust-converters for my car (seen here: http://www.hemmings.com/hsx/stories/2006/09/01/hmn_feature4.html ) - ok, not my photos or words, but it is now my car, so now who's laughing?! (probably not me given repair costs))

anyway, I am also concurrently brewing a 100% gur/jaggery (aka gul/gud) concoction more or less the same gravity as the above melomel. this one really scares me.

So it was actually a concentrate rather than a fruit puree...I didn't catch that from the orig. post. That being the case, not surprised it had a significant quantity of sugar...got to figure you're supposed to just mix that with water to make a drinkable beverage. Actually, I've heard of people priming their cider for bottle carbonation using a measured quantity of apple juice concentrate -- you can calculate how much you need based on the listed amount of sugar in the nutritional box... I would also wonder whether or not you will really need the acid addition or tannin, since this was a concentrate presumably able to create a ready-to-drink beverage, rather than just fruit puree (which is what I had assumed in the beginning)...

At any rate, the honey amounts for an ~ 2 gal batch look OK. Definitely keep up on the nutrient additions. Regarding your yeast...did you add less than a packet? Not sure what exactly '1/2t+' comes to, but if you didn't pitch the whole pack, you probably have under pitched, especially if you didn't rehydrate the yeast. No big worries...you'll still make mead, but next go-around, look into pitch rates and such...

biochemedic said:

Regarding your yeast...did you add less than a packet? Not sure what exactly '1/2t+' comes to...

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I think that might mean the partial nutrient addition along with the yeast but I could be completely wrong.

Your process looks good, so far, keep up with the nutrient additions, degas/aerate for first few days (or 1/3 fermentation) and you're on your way to a decent mead, probably close to dry using the beast 1118.

The only thing I really forsee you maybe running into adding your cherry concentrate to the primary and using 1118 is that it is notorious for blowing off flavors and aromas of fruits during primary so you will still have the nice color and probably the tartness which will be real nice but the actual cherry flavor may get a lost. Thats easily resolved aswell by adding some fresh dark cherries just split in half and depitted or some more cherry concentrate to the secondary, just have a light hand with concentrates in the secondary so you don't go too high with more sugar/acid, you'll most likely get a little secondary fermentation that way, raise your abv% a couple points but not astronomical. But it will help bring more intensity to the cherry flavor which in turn will help mask the harsher aspects of 1118 and help get you to a pleasant drink sooner...I made a cherry vanilla melomel for my first mel and it tastes great but the cherry is very very hard to detect, like if I didn't know to look for it I wouldn't know, I only used fruit in primary as I didn't know any better at the time lol

I believe your cherry concentrate is around 68 Brix, which means that 68% of the weight is sugar. Without doing the math, I'd guess that's equal to a little more than two pounds of honey.

With 32 oz concentrate and 3 1/2 lbs honey in a 9 quart batch, I'd expect your OG to be around 1.090. The 1.130 might have been off because it wasn't mixed well.

A 32 oz jar of cherry concentrate is equal to something like 15-20 lbs of cherries. That's a lot of cherries in a 9 quart batch. I've used the same amount in 5 gallon batches. I'm gonna guess that you will have plenty of cherry flavor.

GinKings said:

I believe your cherry concentrate is around 68 Brix, which means that 68% of the weight is sugar. Without doing the math, I'd guess that's equal to a little more than two pounds of honey.

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With 32 oz concentrate and 3 1/2 lbs honey in a 9 quart batch, I'd expect your OG to be around 1.090. The 1.130 might have been off because it wasn't mixed well.

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He remixed and checked his OG a couple times so not sure he is really off by that much....

A 32 oz jar of cherry concentrate is equal to something like 15-20 lbs of cherries. That's a lot of cherries in a 9 quart batch. I've used the same amount in 5 gallon batches. I'm gonna guess that you will have plenty of cherry flavor

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It does seem like more than enough for the size batch but using the 1118 I don't think he has any concerns of overwhelming cherry flavor, and very likely may want more.

TheBrewingMedic said:

He remixed and checked his OG a couple times so not sure he is really off by that much....

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Maybe I missed something, but I don't believe 1.130 is possible given the recipe.

The recipe lists about 6.25 lbs of fermentables. 6.25 lbs of pure sugar in a 2.25 gallon batch would not even be 1.130. Honey is usually about 80% sugar, so the OG would be lower than that.

aurelius said:

the gravity measured out at 1130,

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Reading a hydrometer can be confusing. Could it have been 1.113?

be easier to figure out if we had the nutritional guide for that particular brand of concentrate, see what the actually sugar content is instead of guessing based on similar products

wow, thanks for all the great replies!

apologies for lack of precise language. by "1/2t+" yeast, I meant a little more than 1/2 teaspoon - in this case about 1/2 the packet, or ~2.5g. I just now pitched the rest of the packet to be safe.

I could well have gotten the gravity wrong - definitely did not misread it, I was floored how little liquid it took to float the hydrometer. but I certainly could have mixed less well than I thought. at this point I guess just wait, watch and see what happens.

nutritional data for this concentrate: 15g sugar per ounce (total 480g sugar - i.e. just shy of 17 ounces of sugar by weight) - no additives, just concentrated juice. I guess that's ~53 brix for the sugars - but how accurate that is dividing mass by volume...?

TheBrewingMedic said:

be easier to figure out if we had the nutritional guide for that particular brand of concentrate, see what the actually sugar content is instead of guessing based on similar products

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From the bottle of Tart Is Smart Cherry concentrate in my refrigerator, there are 32 servings containing 15 g of sugar. That's even less than I estimated. OG should be around 1.080ish.

Do you believe 1.130 isn't possible yet?

It's kind of moot at this point, but we could call its somewhere in the middle, his hydrometer got 1.130, you're math got 1.08? And gotmead calculated 1.102....guess this one will have to come down to the only real important piece of information, how it tastes when its all done.

Ate you supposed to have much lower pitching rates with mead and wine then beer?
5gram at 8litre dont seem like a lot on that high gravety

janivar123 said:

Ate you supposed to have much lower pitching rates with mead and wine then beer?
5gram at 8litre dont seem like a lot on that high gravety

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Lalvin yeast packets state that a 5 gram pack is good for up to 23 liters. I'd pitch a little more in high gravity musts, but 5 grams is plenty for 8 liters.

TheBrewingMedic said:

...we could call its somewhere in the middle, his hydrometer got 1.130, you're math got 1.08? And gotmead calculated 1.102...

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The recipe contained:
55 oz honey
480 grams sugar (using the concentrate nutritional info)
2.25 gallon batch

Using those numbers, the gotmead calculator comes up with 1.076. I don't know how you could get 1.102.

1.076 is what I got from the calculator too. obviously did a very bad job mixing when I took the readings!

the jug could still be topped off by quite a lot (~3qt) so I ordered some more honey and hopefully get that done in a couple days from now - considering whether to keep about the same gravity or maybe bring it up to 1.100.

All this talk of theoretical OG's and I think something has been missed...How are we measuring the ounces?

Liquid ounces means a much higher weight of honey. If you take the honey as ounces in weight (which calculates out to 3.44 lbs), the honey alone will yield ~1.065 assuming 1.038 pppg.

However, if the honey is 55 oz liquid volume....recall that 32 oz (1 quart) of honey is approximately 3 lbs. If you crunch the numbers, 55 liquid ounces of honey is actually 5.15 lbs, not 3.44. This will yield 1.098 in 2 gallons volume. Adding the ~ 1 lb of sugar from the concentrate will easily put you over 1.120 at least.

So, OP, are we talking liquid ounces or did you weight out your honey and list that in your stated recipe?

janivar123 said:

Ate you supposed to have much lower pitching rates with mead and wine then beer?
5gram at 8litre dont seem like a lot on that high gravety

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I have to disagree...wine yeasts are still (most of them anyway) Saccharomyces cerevisiae, so why shouldn't the same pitch rate rules apply?

GinKings said:

Lalvin yeast packets state that a 5 gram pack is good for up to 23 liters. I'd pitch a little more in high gravity musts, but 5 grams is plenty for 8 liters.

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Saying a certain amount of yeast is good for a certain number of liters of must is useless unless you know the OG. Randomly substituting the numbers I used above (1.120 OG), 5 grams in a 2 gallon batch at 1.120 is actually under pitched if you run the numbers using a calculator like Mr Malty. It's not horrible (like using a single packet of dry yeast in a 5 gallon batch), but not optimal...

biochemedic said:

So, OP, are we talking liquid ounces or did you weight out your honey and list that in your stated recipe?

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ounces by volume - looking again at the gotmead calculator, I notice now that they have an entry for ounces and one for fl ounces - in which case it predicts the gravity at 1.103.

EDIT - no, nevermind, scratch that - just pulled the bottles out of recycling and they say "net wt"/EDIT

I made the mistake if basing quantities off fluid ounces and entered total volume as 2.25 gallons as stated in an earlier post into the calculator which resulted in the OG of 1.102