beyond the basic information?

[pcbandit]

Hi I've been going through the site for a few days now and I feel confident that I could make my first mead. With that being said I feel like I'm missing something somewhere. How do you determine roughly what the APV is going to be around? Do you just plan on having more water to lower the APV? from what I understand how much sugar your yeast uses up plays a big part too

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

A hydrometer can give you an indication of what the potential ABV (Alcohol By Volume) can be, as a measure of available sugars.. Yeast attenuation metrics can give you an indication of how much of that sugar will actually become alcohol.

 

[pcbandit]

I realized how the hydrometer works but I was actually referring before you actually brew how do you decide if a recipe will be in a range you are looking for

 

[pcbandit]

Yeast attenuation is what I was missing! thank you

 

[fuelish]

.....before you actually brew how do you decide if a recipe will be in a range you are looking for

Online mead calculator @ gotmead
http://www.gotmead.com/2014-04-16-20-10-09/mead-calculator.html
Type in honey, fruits, whatever sugars, it gives a decent approximation.....and, obviously one's choice of yeast has a final say in how far down it will ferment.....but it's a very useful tool to play around with, and the results are "close enough for government work," as some might say

 

[pcbandit]

This makes things a lot easier

 

[fuelish]

It's a little awkward at first, but once figured out, it's a useful tool.....well, I like it, anyways Gets ya in the ballpark of numbers without physically mixing stuff

 

[bernardsmith]

wine yeasts are not graded by their attenuation. Wine yeasts can convert any reasonable level of sugar content because wines (meads, fruit wines, ciders) comprise only simple sugars. For all intents and purposes 1 lb of honey in 1 gallon of water will raise the gravity by 40 points. Since honey is the only source of flavor and sugar in a mead then in order to have enough flavor you will need about 2.5 - 3 lbs of honey in each gallon but that will result in a wine (a mead) with about 13- 16 percent alcohol. If you are looking for even more flavor then you may need/want to increase the aamount of honey but if you increase the amount of honey you will increase the ABV.
Diluting the amount of honey - by increasing the amount of water per lb of honey will dilute the flavor... so part of the mead makers skill is balancing flavor with ABV...
Some honeys have more intense flavors (buckwheat for example) than others (sourwood or acacia...) so balancing flavor and alcohol needs to include the intensity of the intensity of the floral characteristics of the honey...

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

I realized how the hydrometer works but I was actually referring before you actually brew how do you decide if a recipe will be in a range you are looking for

Ahh. There is actually a lot of information online on what gravity contribution a pound of this or that will provide. Without that, you would just have to test your own mixture to know what sort of gravity you are starting out with.

And then there are a variety of calculators/applications that can do all that for you with simple pick lists.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

wine yeasts are not graded by their attenuation.

Yes, sorry, the brewer in me took over for a minute. yes, wine yeast are graded by alcohol tolerance, temperature tolerance, and wine style.

 

[bernardsmith]

Yes, sorry, the brewer in me took over for a minute. yes, wine yeast are graded by alcohol tolerance, temperature tolerance, and wine style.

and how well they play with other yeasts (EC 1888 is a killer , for example, and 71B plays nice)