Help me use my honey...

I've got 37.5lbs of wildflower honey left. My father wants to do a big melomel in the vein of what I've done with my 2 strawberry ones. He'd like to do something with pineapple and coconut. I have a couple of packets ofr 71b and d47 in the house and I have a free 7.9 wine pail and free 6.5 gallon and 6 gallon carboys. Other than stopping by the supermarket on the way to his house today, I would prefer to use what I have in stock. Whatever he doesn't use of the honey, I'd like to put together for a recipe. So, first priority is putting together a big pineapple/coconut melomel.. any suggestions?

I would suggest a more conventional mead than you've been making. High gravity meads are okay, but I wouldn't want all my meads to be over the top. For one thing, higher gravity usually means longer aging time. 22 lbs of honey in 5 gallons is really high. 12-15 lbs is typical.

A pineapple/coconut melomel sounds like a great idea. I've made both a pineapple and a coconut mead. My coconut mead was the better of the two. I started by making a sweet mead. After primary was complete, I took some unsweetened shredded coconut and spread it in thin layers on cookie sheets and toasted it in an oven at approx 180 degrees until it was light brown. I put the coconut in a carboy and racked the mead on top. I racked off the coconut after about a month. It didn't have enough coconut flavor, so I repeated the process. I don't have my notes handy, but I believe I used about 3 lbs total in 5 gallons. I would start out a little low and add more if you need it. Shredded coconut is small, so you will need some kind of mesh over your racking cane.

I made a pineapple mead after hearing people rave about one they had. I added the pineapple to a sweet mead in the secondary. I think I added too much because it ended up too acidic. I'll probably blend it with another mead before bottling.

I think he had his heart set on something higher octane, but I have no problem toning it down. I thought 22lbs for 5 gal was a lot. So, how about something in the middle of high octane and a regular batch? What should I use for the primary mead itself? 3-5lbs per gallon of water? Then add crushed pineapple and toasted coconut in the secondary? Or can I add some pineapple in the primary as well. Which yeast, 71B or D47?

Bump...

Ok, I really wan to get this recipe together for him, so I can inventory what I will have left for my next batch(es).

I understand that you don't want to always make high octane stuff, but Dad wants a strong/specialty batch and agrees to tone it done for future batches.

That being said, he's looking for a pineapple/coconut melomel. Anyone have suggested amounts for a stronger recipe?

What do you think about 24lbs honey & water to 6 gallons as a base mead, add the fruit to secondary. You might check with Freezeblade, he's done some fermentations with pineapple, not sure about coconut. He might be able to give you some actual numbers on pineapple additions. Regards, GF.

janzik said:

...22lbs for 5 gal was a lot. ...Which yeast, 71B or D47?

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Using those values, your OG will be ~1.156, which would get you over 20% ABV (if you could manage the fermentation down to 1.000).

In my experience, managing a mead fermentation whose OG is near 1.150 is going to require extra effort and care. It can be done, just recognize it will not be a "pitch & go" fermentation.

If you want to work out various "what if" scenerios like what combinations of honey & water will produce what final volume, OG, and ABV, then I suggest you download the Mead Calculator Spreadsheet (assuming you have Excel on your computer) from the Mead FAQ topic. You will then be able to quickly find a recipe combination that works for your needs...

If you have any questions about using the spreadsheet, start a general topic like "Mead Calculator Spreadsheet Questions" and I'll help you learn to use the tool in that topic...

The yeast you might use depends on a number of factors. Once you set the honey & water proportions, then that issue can be discussed more effectively.

gratus fermentatio said:

What do you think about 24lbs honey & water to 6 gallons as a base mead, add the fruit to secondary. You might check with Freezeblade, he's done some fermentations with pineapple, not sure about coconut. He might be able to give you some actual numbers on pineapple additions. Regards, GF.

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hightest said:

Using those values, your OG will be ~1.156, which would get you over 20% ABV (if you could manage the fermentation down to 1.000).
If you want to work out various "what if" scenerios like what combinations of honey & water will produce what final volume, OG, and ABV, then I suggest you download the Mead Calculator Spreadsheet.

Click to expand...

Ok, I've got the spreadsheet (holy crap, a lot of work went into this, great job). Going on the 4lbs per gallon, I think we can try 20lbs to 5 gallons (If honey is 12lbs a gallon, that plus 6 gallons of water is going to overflow my 7.9 gallon wine bucket).

So I've got 20lbs to 5 gallons of water giving me an OG of 1.106, FG 1.035, ABC of 9.6%. Does that sound a bit better than the range I was initially proposing? I have 71B and D47. Does using D47 (compared to the 71B) help balance out the sweetness of the honey and the added pineapple (whether added to primary or secondary)?

YOU are going to be WAY over 1.106 with 20# honey with 5 gallons of water won't you? I use 3# of honey and enough water to MAKE 1 gallon and usually end up right at the 1.100 mark. I am usually missing someting when it comes to math...but You are either going to end up way higher than 1.106, or you're going to have a 7 gallon batch?

And Both 71B and D47 will go lower than 1.035...D-47 could take that 1.106 down to 1.000 No Problem (we'll discuss my issues with 12% D-47 elsewhere). 71B should be about the same...but a better choice due to it's ability to metabolize maltic acid. It may help the Pineapple end up more where you want it.

BigKahuna said:

YOU are going to be WAY over 1.106 with 20# honey with 5 gallons of water won't you? I use 3# of honey and enough water to MAKE 1 gallon and usually end up right at the 1.100 mark. I am usually missing someting when it comes to math...but You are either going to end up way higher than 1.106, or you're going to have a 7 gallon batch?

And Both 71B and D47 will go lower than 1.035...D-47 could take that 1.106 down to 1.000 No Problem (we'll discuss my issues with 12% D-47 elsewhere). 71B should be about the same...but a better choice due to it's ability to metabolize maltic acid. It may help the Pineapple end up more where you want it.

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Damn it. Just when I think I'm starting to get this stuff...

I was following the spreadsheet as suggested above and went on GF's 24/6 calculation.

Just to clarify, my Dad was looking to make something stronger, but my original baseline (from the BYO article) was coming from an apparently jacked up recipe (22lbs Honey, 3 gallons of water, 18lbs of strawberries in the primary). Now that I know this recipe was overkill, I was looking to do something more conventional, but Dad wanted to do something higher, since I did something higher, so that's why I'm looking for this recipe for him. Which is how I came to the "compromise" of 20/5(4) instead of 22/3(7.33).

The 24/6 ratio is roughly 4lbs/gallon; BUT it'll make nearly 8 gallons total volume. 4lbs honey & water to make 6 gallons will give you a significantly higher gravity; sorry, I should've clarified that point in my orig. post. I was trying to suggest a high gravity must since that's what you seemed to be after. Apparently I'm going to need to be far more precise in my wording than what I'm accustomed to. Regards, GF.

If you use 3# of honey per marked fermentor size...and you use enough water to fill it up...you should end up at or about 1.100 and D-47 / 71B might take it dry. Any fruit will add some sugar....maybe a lot of sugar....but it's a good starting point.

gratus fermentatio said:

The 24/6 ratio is roughly 4lbs/gallon; BUT it'll make nearly 8 gallons total volume. 4lbs honey & water to make 6 gallons will give you a significantly higher gravity; sorry, I should've clarified that point in my orig. post. I was trying to suggest a high gravity must since that's what you seemed to be after. Apparently I'm going to need to be far more precise in my wording than what I'm accustomed to. Regards, GF.

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Actually, it's not you, it's me that sucks I read it real quick. My bad..

janzik said:

So I've got 20lbs to 5 gallons of water giving me an OG of 1.106, FG 1.035, ABC of 9.6%.

Click to expand...

hightest said:

Using those values, your OG will be ~1.156, which would get you over 20% ABV (if you could manage the fermentation down to 1.000).

Click to expand...

I got quite confused reading all the OG's in this thread. I think Janzik is adding 20 lbs honey to 5 gallons water. Others are adding 20 lbs honey and water to make 5 gallons. I think that's why there's such a difference in calculations. I use the latter method because my batch sizes stay constant. I don't measure my water. I just add water till I hit my desired volume.

GinKings said:

I got quite confused reading all the OG's in this thread. I think Janzik is adding 20 lbs honey to 5 gallons water. Others are adding 20 lbs honey and water to make 5 gallons. I think that's why there's such a difference in calculations. I use the latter method because my batch sizes stay constant. I don't measure my water. I just add water till I hit my desired volume.

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Sorry about the OG calc. I was using the suggested spreadsheet and I'm sure I did something wrong there.

I think the difference was because my entire melomel knowledge is based on the one article I read in the August BYO. The article just listed ingredients and gave the specific amount of adding 3 gallons, rather than topping up to a specific mark.

I guess to get me back on point here, I have 7.9 gallon wine buckets and my biggest carboy is 6.5 gallons. So to take that into account, what's the largest higher gravity mead I can fit in the bucket and still have roughly enough room to toss in fruit (pineapple) in the secondary.

Assuming honey is 12lbs/gallon, 20lbs honey + 5 gallons of water gives me 6.66 gallons of volume before anything happens. It seems like everyone else does it the other way around (topping up to a certain line). Ok, so where do I go from here, now that I derailed everyones help...

janzik said:

Ok, I've got the spreadsheet (holy crap, a lot of work went into this, great job). Going on the 4lbs per gallon, I think we can try 20lbs to 5 gallons.

So I've got 20lbs to 5 gallons of water giving me an OG of 1.106, FG 1.035, ABC of 9.6%. Does that sound a bit better than the range I was initially proposing?

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I think you're over thinking this...

Use the spreadsheet like this:
1) First, decide what size primary you'll be using (assume 5 gal.)
2) Now enter 20 into cell J3 (Honey Lbs) - it computes the volume as 1.694 gal (27.10 Cups): that's based on using 18% moisture content honey (most honey is near 18%).
3) Now adjust the water volume in cell H4 to 64 cups (note cell I4 tells you thats 4.0 gal)

Look at cells I8 & H9, they tell you the must volume (5.69 gal) and the OG (1.124) for that honey/water mixture. As that's greater than your primary volume, just tweak the honey & water figures until they result in a batch size that fits... BTW, cell I9 tells you the honey/water ratio in Lbs /gal.

The spreadsheet can do more, but this is a a simple introduction into its use.

hightest said:

I think you're over thinking this...

Use the spreadsheet like this:
1) First, decide what size primary you'll be using (assume 5 gal.)
2) Now enter 20 into cell J3 (Honey Lbs) - it computes the volume as 1.694 gal (27.10 Cups): that's based on using 18% moisture content honey (most honey is near 18%).
3) Now adjust the water volume in cell H4 to 64 cups (note cell I4 tells you thats 4.0 gal)

Look at cells I8 & H9, they tell you the must volume (5.69 gal) and the OG (1.124) for that honey/water mixture. As that's greater than your primary volume, just tweak the honey & water figures until they result in a batch size that fits... BTW, cell I9 tells you the honey/water ratio in Lbs /gal.

The spreadsheet can do more, but this is a a simple introduction into its use.

Click to expand...

Yep, I was good with that. What I'm asking now is was I fine with 20lbs of honey and 5 gallons of water (you suggsted 4 gallons of water, for a slightly higher OG (1.124 vs 1.106 and 12.2 vs 9.6%ABV). Going 20/5 gives me a total volume (as per the spreadsheet) of 6.69gal. That will be fine in my 7.9 gal wine bucket, and I'm assuming will be ok in a 6.5 gallon secondary, but I'm not 100% sure, so maybe I'll tweak it, just incase, especially if I want to get fruit in the secondary. Is this sounding good so far? If so, what's the vote on yeast, 71B or D47? What I understood from Lalvin's site was that D47 produces a dryer result. I'm guessing this is relative since this may be a sweeter mead anyway.