Potential Gravity?

Ok so I took a gravity reading w my refractometer and I believe its off.....I made up a mead recipe this evening

8oz Raspberry
8oz Blackberry
16 oz Strawberry
3lb of Honey
1 Gallon of Water


I think this should be at least 1.103 based on my calculations....but based on the refractometer I came up w/ 1.061

Just wondering if it might be because of water in the fruit or not stiring enough....

 

More than likely not stirring enough. It can be tough to get the honey completely mixed into solution.

1.103 sounds about right.

 

I will say this, I have made Raspberry mead (which I do not like) nor do I like raspberry beer.

I am hoping with the three berrys and some back sweetening this will be a fantastic mead

 

I think 1.103 is too high. What did you use for a batch size when you did your calcs? One gallon water, 3 lbs honey, and two pounds fruit should be around a 1.5 gallon batch size.

Here's my estimate:
3 lbs of honey contains about 108 points of gravity
2 lbs berries only contains about 2 oz of sugar, or 6 points of gravity
108 + 6 = 114
114 / 1.5 = 76 or 1.076

 

Believe your measurement, unless you have a good reason to do otherwise.

 

I just had this same experience more or less. Yesterday I was going to make Apfelwein until I realized I opened the wrong yeast, I opened my mead yeast instead of the Apflewein...... So I ended up doing a whole lot of brewing yesterday with my girlfriend patiently waiting for me to take her to get ice cream. (Me- Just let me do one brew and we'll go. (40 minutes later) Her- You opened the other yeast on purpose and you know it. Me- .....)


When I did my mead it was a very simple recipe. 12 lbs honey, 4 gallons of spring water, lavlin something or other yeast.

When I took my gravity it was 1.040.... Now, beer calculus had estimated 1.102 OG,, so clearly something was wrong. Then I realized I had taken the sample right off the top and more than likely the honey sank to the bottom. Rather than playing with it and taking more samples I gave it a good stir, sealed it up and decided my next trip to the homebrew store I'd get a wine-stirrer and make sure before my primary firmentation was done that I whipped up the honey sitting on the bottom which probably wont get good contact with the yeast if it's just in a thick layer at the bottom.

My fear is that if I don't stir it well enough then what firments in the primary will be at the gravity I sampled more or less and when I rack it over to the secondary I'll end up having lbs of wasted honey sitting at the bottom of the primary.

Does anybody know if that can happen? or will it just take longer to ferment and the yeast somehow penetrates to the bottom?.

 

The yeast will find the honey.

I believe both your numbers are wrong. What batch size did you use when you did your calculations? 12 lbs of honey is equal to a gallon. Adding that to 4 gallons water gives you a 5 gallon batch with a gravity somewhere around 1.086.

 

Part of my other issue was, I was using a 3 gallon carboy, so I literally added 3lb of honey, the fruit and a full gallon of water instead of topping off to a gallon. I am just going to see how it turns out.

 

so your starting volumne was about 1.25 gallons I'd guess, nothing to stress there, even in a 3 gallon fermenter for primary, you're going to lose some volume when you rack into secondary anyway plus the surplus will help fill your secondary, which is where you really need to start being more concerned with the headspace, I wouldn't go into a 3 gallon vessel again unless you plan on filling it 2/3 full of fruit or sanitized marbles or something to minimize the headspace. If not get yourself a 1 gallon glass carboy or wine jug and fill it to near the neck of the jug, it will all work out well for you.

 

it was 2/3 full....i will secondary to a one gallon container. that is how i typically do it.