Adding honey after start of fermentation.

[Megalodon77]

So I've bottled my first batch of mead. I've saved about 2.5 gallons for later sampling but the remaining 2.5 gallons are going fast. It's pretty good but I can't wait to see what happens a year or two down the line. So I brought a small bottle to my favorite bartender and while I was there by amazing coincidence I met a fellow mead brewer. He sampled it and told me it was pretty good. We got talking and he said he thought it was about 8%. Now the WL sweet mead yeast said it could tolerate up to 15% and I made sure there was no more fermenting going on. He said to get it to that max % I would have needed to not add the whole gallon of honey at once but instead pour about 70% of the honey at first and then over time add a cup or 2 at a time. Is he correct in this? I'm asking because I know my alcohol points pretty well and it hits me like a red wine.

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

15% is tough to reach, especially without some staggered nutrient plan or aeration, but it can be done without step feeding.

However, the best way to know ABV is with gravity readings. There are some pretty accurate calculators on line as far as X honey + X water = X starting gravity. So if you took a gravity reading of your finished mead you could then go plug that into an abv calc online (Starting gravity - Final gravity) * 131.

Example If you mead started at 1.100 and finished at 1.010 it would be
1.100-1.0010 = .090

.09 * 131 = 11.79% ABV

So if you remember your recipe, and you get a hydrometer reading of the finished mead, we can figure the approximate abv out readily.
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Looking like you did 12 Lbs honey (1 gallon) for 5 gallons total volume would mean there aren't even enough available sugars to reach 15%. Fermented completely dry, you're looking at around 11.5%

Telling the amount of alcohol by taste and how drunk it makes you is about as accurate as a blind person telling you what color something is. Being full of food or not effects how much you feel alcohol's effects. Even being in a less comfortable social situation can suppress the buzz you get from X amount of alcohol.

 

[fuelish]

If it's fully fermented, a gallon of honey in a 5 gallon batch should give.....nevermind, Marshmallowblue already added the ABV info....

 

[Megalodon77]

Thanks

 

[WVMJ]

Short answer to your question, yes, its easy, also add nutrients a little at a time, we do it all the time, be very careful when you do it, if you add honey to a mead full of gas it will come out and chug out of your container unless you were smart enough to use a bucket instead of a carboy! during primary fermentation. WVMJ