Dumb Question

[emart55]

This is going to sound dumb but I have found some recipes confusing for this reason. Many recipes call for 3 pound of honey per gallon. Generally, do they mean 3 pound of honey to one full gallon of water, or 3 pound of honey and enough water to bring it up to a gallon?

 

[D.B.Moody]

They mean the latter. Gallons refer to batch size. So, for a 5 gallon batch, you would use 15 lbs. of honey.

Welcome to HomebrewTalk. I'm fairly new here too, and actually a beer brewer. I have brewed 3 meads and 1 cyser though. With luck, a real mead brewer will respond to you.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi emart55 and welcome. There is no such thing as a dumb question. There are sometimes (often? ) dumb answers. And your question is in fact a really good one. The total volume with the sugars included is the volume used for calculating the potential ABV and even the calculated (not measured) specific gravity before you add (pitch) the yeast. Rule of thumb is that one pound of honey added to water to make 1 (US) gallon (British gallons are significantly larger) will raise the gravity of the water by about 35 points (1.035) so 3 lbs of honey added to make the same total volume (1 gallon) will raise the gravity by about 100 points (1.100) and so have a potential ABV of about 13%. Some honey may have a little less water (and so raise the gravity a little more) and some honey may have a little more water and so raise the gravity a little less but ballpark 35 points per pound is a reasonable estimation.
You still need an hydrometer to monitor how the fermentation is going but knowing the ballpark for any fruit or honey or for liquid or dry malt extract (for brewing beer) is useful when you are considering a recipe of your own making or a recipe that you have come across on line and are not certain how knowledgeable the author is (self publishing has never been a great source of accurate information).