First Batch of Mead Ever

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AndrewCarrara

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Hi all! I have a few questions I was hoping someone might help me with. I just made my first batch of mead and prior to this I have never brewed anything. I made 5 Gallons of straight honey mead:

15 lbs of raw honey (Guesstimation on weight)
No heat method (I did not have a thermostat though so the water temperature was just luke warm)
Lalvin ICV D47
Wyeast Nutrient
Brewcraft Energizer
Starting Original Gravity 1.130
5 gal plastic fermenter

Fermentation in the airlock seemed very slow after 4 days never getting more than a bubble every 20 sec or so and I had the fermenter in the basement and the stick on thermometer read 58 degrees. I moved it upstairs and now its at 65 degrees. I now understand that bubbles is not a good read of fermentation, however after 4 days I opened it up and put in another dose of Wyeast Nutrients. Gravity read at 1.08 but I made the mistake of taking the gravity after adding the nutrients and blending (in a blender) some of the must. I was going off of Ken Schrams the Complete Mead Maker book. Bubbling every 8 or 10 seconds now but like I said I get that I shouldn't go off of that.

My questions are:
Should I continue to add nutrients over time?
Because my starting gravity was so high will my mead finish with a super high alcohol content?
Should I just not touch it anymore for 2 or 3 weeks until I rack it?
Im trying to steer away from anything super sweet like a dessert mead and I also don't want the alcohol content to me more than a good bottle of wine, say 12-14% or so.

Thanks!
 
I don't think adding more nutrients is necessary. The honey is the nutrient at this point I would think.

Yes, your abv% will be high with the OG you had. A beer with that big of an OG would be north of 11% alcohol.

Since it's bubbling more vigorously now I would let it sit a couple more weeks before checking it again.

Good luck! It sounds awesome, actually.
 
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