Hello! New to Mead-Making

[RainyMonday094]

Hi!

I've recently stepped into making mead after a few years of brewing ginger beers, and would appreciate some feedback/guidance on how badly I've messed up my first mead.

I made quite a few mistakes when putting it together, and am worried mainly that it may be sickly sweet at the end. I do tend to love the sweeter things, and my boyfriend adores sweet drinks, but I'm nervous I went overboard with the sugar.

Here's my recipe:

1 Packet of Lalvin D47 yeast
1 Gallon of water
3lbs Honey
2lbs Blackberries (macerated/crushed in a fine-mesh bag to extract juice)
2lbs Blueberries (macerated/crushed in a fine-mesh bag to extract juice)
Zest from 2 lemons
and topped up in carboy with unsweetened blueberry/pomegranate juice

The berries were used for their juice, the solids were discarded and not added into the mead. I was worried with the higher temperatures we've been having here (main room gets up to 69-72F sometimes) that there would be risk of mold or a fruit cap forming if the a/c went out. I have been endeavoring to keep the brew at roughly 62-65F consistently.

I know this is a pretty silly recipe, and to be honest I am regretting not doing my due diligence in research before embarking on this.

I also committed the cardinal sin of not measuring my initial gravity, something I will correct in all future batches!

It's been a day, and it has started to foam so much that a full quarter of the carboy is full! It did fountain out of the airlock overnight (juice hit the ceiling!), but today it seems to be settling down after cleaning and sanitizing the airlock and carboy top. Still happily bubbling away! (Photo from today, day 2)

 

[RainyMonday094]

My mistake, there was not a gallon of water added! I used enough water to dissolve the honey and mix the berry juices together, then topped with juice!

 

[SwampFoxBrewer]

Welcome to the forum! I’ve only brewed a few batches of mead, so I have limited knowledge to share.

Based off of what I can tell, you’re likely going to end up with a fairly sweet mead with that much sugar. I believe the baseline Final Gravity for a sweet mead is 1.024, and I have a feeling you’ll probably be in that range.

The biggest question in my mind here is what your Starting Gravity was. We can’t really calculate that accurately now that the batch has started, but you might be able to get an idea by using a brewing calculator like BrewSmith, Brewer’s Friend, etc. Just plug in your ingredients, the batch volume, yeast, etc. and see what it tells you. Could give you and idea of how much ABV you could end up with.

Almost anytime I’ve used fruit, I’ve either had to use a blowoff tube or had my airlock get launched off. That much sugar/nutrition given to yeast that quickly is like giving a toddler a bag of gummy worms and a 2 liter soda.

Out of curiosity, what size carboy are you using? Curious how much volume we’re looking at here.

 

[DBhomebrew]

I believe the baseline Final Gravity for a sweet mead is 1.024, and I have a feeling you’ll probably be in that range.

3# honey plus 3# berries is fairly typical for a melomel. I don't think you're doing anything crazy here. 4# of berries, but you probably lost a good amount of juice to the discarded solids.

 

[SwampFoxBrewer]

3# honey plus 3# berries is fairly typical for a melomel. I don't think you're doing anything crazy here. 4# of berries, but you probably lost a good amount of juice to the discarded solids.

Thanks for the clarification there; this would be categorized as a Melomel, not a Sweet Mead. @RainyMonday094 had mentioned being concerned about the sugar content being too high, which is why I had “Sweet Mead” on my mind

Just looked up some Melomel recipes on the American Homebrewers Association, and they range everywhere from the 1.010’s up to 1.080. I don’t think you’re going to be in any trouble here with it being too sweet.

 

[DBhomebrew]

1.010’s up to 1.080

Are those final gravities?! 1010-20, ok. Up to 1080?!!!

 

[SwampFoxBrewer]

3# honey plus 3# berries is fairly typical for a melomel. I don't think you're doing anything crazy here. 4# of berries, but you probably lost a good amount of juice to the discarded solids.

Thanks for the clarification there; this would be categorized as a Melomel, not a Sweet Mead. @RainyMonday094 had mentioned being concerned about the sugar content being too high, which is why I had “Sweet Mead” on my mind

Just looked up some Melomel recipes on the American Homebrewers Association, and they range everywhere from the 1.010’s up to 1.080. I don’t think you’re going to be in any trouble here with it being too sweet.

Are those final gravities?! 1010-20, ok. Up to 1080?!!!

Yep, that’s correct:

I don’t have the cash for the amount of honey it would take to hit those gravity numbers

 

[DBhomebrew]

1.174 OG
A mere 12.3% from that big ol' OG
A whopping 1.080 FG

That's far from typical.

 

[RainyMonday094]

I'm happy to hear this recipe isn't too unusual! I'm fermenting in a 1 gallon carboy, and it's still happily bubbling away a week after setting it up

I attempted to use a mead calculator, but I fear I'm not too good with technical things. It said I should have had an OG of 1.108? That seems really high to me, though I am a complete newbie to all this.

I do think I lost a fair amount of juice to the solids like @DBhomebrew said, I used the skins and remaining bits from the berries to make a little spread for some breakfast toast, and there was still enough liquid in them to make that.

The scent is alternating between sour fruit and berry sweetness, I hope that's normal?

 

[RainyMonday094]

Finished and bottled!