Help with high gravity Mead

[IDNeon357]

Hello all, hope you like my story, the question is at the end:

I need some direction and advice, this is my 2nd batch of brewing ever. My first batch was a ~5gallon beer, turned out yummy.

Now I was pressed by time to brew a wine from grapes I grew myself, so I thought since I only got about 2.5 gallons of wine from that press that I could use half the wine yeast, and save the other half for 2x 1 gallon meads fermented in 1 gallon glass apple cider jugs (quick and dirty).

Noobie confession right here, warmed the honey, made some space in each jug for addition of 2.5 lbs of honey with some room for air. (So that works out to about 2.5 lbs of honey for a little less than a gallon each). Didn't use any "yeast nutrient" or anything.

Like a noob, I didn't check original gravity.

I used one quarter package of wine yeast for each jug. Don't know what yeast I used (but I'll find out today).

The fermentation was explosive, filled the airlocks with yeast particles, foam to the brim, etc.

2 weeks later (now) the wine turned out great dropping gravity to almost exactly 1.000, but I was told to expect the same from the mead.

Well it wasn't the same, the gravity now is 1.080...and that blew my mind at first, I thought maybe it was infected or went bad, I was too afraid to even taste if even though it smells great. Before I could even think...I decided to rack it, and filter the flocculation out of the mead and clarify it somewhat.

Then I thought, how can I reverse engineer this? So, I took the gravity of the cider I removed...it was about 1.062.

I read that 1 lbs of Honey per gallon is about 0.037 (37 points) of gravity.

So long story short, I estimated that the mead's original gravity must have been about 1.154 (0.037 x 2.5 lbs per gallon) or since I took out about 25% the volume per jug for head space (then added some volume in the form of honey)...about 4/5ths a gallon. So 1.173 adjusted for possibly not quite a gallon.

The math on that using some online calculator means the potential of a 12.6% to a 15.6% alcohol content based on an ending gravity of 1.080.

So here's the question.

NOW WHAT?

The fermentation after racking has remained sluggish, but this yeast, with no nutrients added, JUST WILL NOT DIE.

Are my alcohol calculations way off? Are my assumptions correct? Is this expected from a 12.6% abv for a wine yeast or is it more likely the abv is 15.6% and the yeast is dying? If so, well I still have 1.080 gravity to play with so should I add nutrient? Aerate? Throw in a higher tolerance yeast? Is 1.080 too sweet/sugary?

To confirm some of my assumptions I plan to make another 1 gallon batch the same way I did before...and THIS TIME I plan to take an original gravity reading, both of the cider to confirm it's a similar 1.062 as the previous 2 cider batches, and then after the addition of the same 2.5 lbs of same local honey (which is about as consistent as I can get on that).

But I'm also thinking beyond that, regarding starting lower gravity musts and then building-up to higher gravity, etc.

Frankly, I'm amazed this yeast didn't die like falling into lava considering the Original Gravity (based on my calculations and a base of 1.062) must have been closer to 1.17 than 1.155.

Regards!

 

[isomerization]

Did you add water to the honey prior to pitching yeast?

Honey typically is 35 ppm. This would lead me to believe even if you had 1 gallon total volume, you’d be at ~1.090 with 2.5 pound honey.

 

[IDNeon357]

Did you add water to the honey prior to pitching yeast?

Honey typically is 35 ppm. This would lead me to believe even if you had 1 gallon total volume, you’d be at ~1.090 with 2.5 pound honey.

The volume is less than 1 gallon but not sure by how much exactly (though 4/5th a gallon is a reasonable estimate). (Per jug because I did this for 2 jugs and they both came out pretty consistent gravity. About 1.080)

However I poured the honey into a cider...which the cider was already at 1.062 (that much I do know).

So that's how I get such a high gravity calculation...for instance adding 0.090 from your estimate would still be about 1.152 assuming a full gallon finished product.

I get about 1.170 when I adjust for the 4/5th gallon finished product.

That's why I estimated the range of the final product between about 1.154 (1 gallon) to 1.171 (4/5th gallon).

Thanks, sorry for being so unclear the first message...I'm at work multitasking

 

[IDNeon357]

I'd like to mention none of this was intentional....which is partly why I'm scrambling to figure out what did I actually do, and what should I do next and what can I learn from it

I was just told it was pretty easy to brew a mead by throwing ~2.5lbs of honey into a cider in the jar the cider came with. So I did, and pitched it with the wine yeast. I forgot to take an Original Gravity, and I can't be sure that finishing at 1.080 means it's healthy without knowing that I reverse engineered my foible correctly.

But 12%-15% abv sounds about right for end of fermentation for a wine yeast...it'd start to become sluggish or stuck about then?

How the yeast didn't die instantly in the supposed high gravity...and without nutrients, is something I have a hard time explaining...I have no idea why it took off instead of fizzled out.

But it definitely took off about day 1-4 it was blowing foam in all the available space. I didn't know to off-gas.

 

[isomerization]

Sorry missed that you were mixing with cider.

I’d guess you aren’t too far off in your calculations (most ciders are closer to 1.045 though) and the lack of nutrients (mead has none and cider a bit) caused the yeast to stall. Could be at ABV tolerance for your strain too. I would suggest to ferment out a dry cider/cyser for blending.

 

[IDNeon357]

Thanks for the reassurance. Currently the 1.062 cider Gravity is about the only thing I do know. I think that's pretty close to an accurate read. The extra cider sat air locked in my fridge the last 2 weeks.

But it's good to hear that my reconstruction of the OG seems about right. I welcome all opinions on that matter. But I will do another batch and I will use that batch as a reference for the other two so I'll let you all know.

For now tho. It still seems reasonable based on the abv calculator that the mead is currently 12-15% the range being my uncertainty of the final volume of each jug.

As for the reassurance that the yeast are out of food. Well I took action for that. I de-gassed the batches....I dropped both types of yeast nutrient that were recommended to me by the local brew store...and the activity has picked up more over the last 2 hours than it had over the previous 24.

Also...I hear the phrase of what I did of re-racking as being "taking it off the yeast". So the yeast count was greatly reduced.

Is that only a negative? Or by removing all the clumped yeast "flocculation" and clarifying the liquid by siphon then a hops-sack....all equipment sanitized before the process. Can that be a positive? Adding better flavors or complexity and slowing down the primary fermentation which earlier was very fast and full of Krausen and gunk and the airlocks got stuffed with yeast?

 

[IDNeon357]

Wanted to follow up and share the meads smell good but taste sweet (probably because the cider base is about 1.062 and the meads last I checked were 1.080?)

I took the meads off the yeast. But theres still enough yeast to make fermentation. So I dont know if that was better or worse for the mead. Maybe the slower ferment with less yeast will make better long term flavors?

I still think the alcohol % is high. Like 12.5% to 15.5% so what to expect from that?

Looks like caramel apples.