First Batch of Mead

[Jamesjoelee]

So I am a new home brewer. I have one batch of beer and I just brewed a batch of mead. My hydrometer reading seemed a little lower than I expected it to be. It was 1.074 according to my temperature correction. Am I off by too much or will my mead be alright?

P.S. I have a little over 4 gallons in primary right now. I'm going to rack to a 3 gallon secondary and a 1 gallon secondary with fruit added.

 

[zaptop]

It was 1.074 according to my temperature correction. Am I off by too much or will my mead be alright?

I'll be allright! Some rocket fuel is awesome!

 

[Maylar]

1.074 starting gravity is low for a mead. Needs more honey.

 

[Yooper]

What was the temperature when you took the OG? Even with temperature correction, any reading over about 90 degrees is notoriously inaccurate, although I assume it was more like 70 degrees since mead is a no-boil thing. I'm just trying to make sure that the reading is accurate.

 

[Jamesjoelee]

The temp was at 76 F. Would it be ok to add more honey one day after?

 

[bernardsmith]

IMO there is never a problem adding more fermentables - in this case , honey, after you have started to ferment. Indeed, for very high alcohol content meads you need to add honey in small batches to ensure that the yeast can still ferment the added sugars when the amount of alcohol and sugar in the mead get close to the yeast's tolerance limits. But that said, I want to emphasize what Yooper wrote by suggesting that you check to see if you can find a calculator (on line, perhaps) that will give you a more accurate "reading" from your hydrometer. This, because hydrometers are calibrated to be read at a lower temperature than 76 F (possibly 65 or even 60F) and the higher the temperature the less dense the liquid (An extreme example: think how dense ice is compared to say steam) and so the lower the gravity reading - all other things being equal.

 

[Jamesjoelee]

I used my calculator from my beersmith app. My hydrometer is calibrated for 60f

 

[Jamesjoelee]

So I added another 5 lbs.