Scaling Recipes..

Quick question on scaling mead recipes..

do the ingredients more or less scale linearly, say if for instance I wanted to do 3 gallon batches instead of 5 gallon?

how does this effect additions of yeast nutrient, or yeast energizer? or pectinase in a recipes that call for it?

Cheers. - Zack

Yeah, the math on the base ingredients makes perfect sense, as does using the entire yeast starter... its more the ingredients such as yeast nutrient and energizer that I've not used before (... in brewing beer) and am a bit unfamiliar with that I'm curious about. The Complete Meadmaker book has a really interesting peach ginger mead in it that I want to try out in a 3 gallon batch..

I have that book and I am looking into making a batch of that myself! But, I would be making a 1 gallon batch... good question regarding the other additives.

Zman3382 said:

Yeah, the math on the base ingredients makes perfect sense, as does using the entire yeast starter... its more the ingredients such as yeast nutrient and energizer that I've not used before (... in brewing beer) and am a bit unfamiliar with that I'm curious about. The Complete Meadmaker book has a really interesting peach ginger mead in it that I want to try out in a 3 gallon batch..

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The same scaling would apply (divide by 5, multiply by 3) - although at those doses, it shouldn't matter much.

Letthegirlsing said:

I have that book and I am looking into making a batch of that myself! But, I would be making a 1 gallon batch... good question regarding the other additives.

The packets of Lalvin yeast that I have say 1-6 gallons, so would I be wrong to assume that you can use the whole packet? Perhaps I should wait for this answer before I begin mine...lol!

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Yes, you can use 1 full packet of dry yeast for a 1 gallon batch. I do that all of the time.

Yeast food is dependent on the amount of yeast pitched. Using a full 5g of yeast in a smaller batch than 5 gallons is fine, you'll have a larger population sooner.

Spices might not scale equally, as some are more potent than others, such as cloves. You might not want 5 cloves in a 5 gallon batch just because you use 1 clover in one gallon.

Zman, I made that recipe and it turned out really nice. I do wish it would have either ended a little sweeter (mine went drier than I had hoped) or had more peach presence. Though I haven't had a bottle in at least 6 months. My suggestion would be to make it as a 5 gallon batch. I wound up with a 3 gallon yield after all the peach sludge. Also, make sure to use pectic enzyme, let it age for a long while, I had sediment drop in the bottles after bulk aging a year and it looked crystal clear. If you can, perhaps filter it.