Honey - How much to add?

[KevinJ]

Honey - How much to add?

I just got some great Orange Blossom honey that I want to make a traditional mead from. How much honey (in gallons or pounds) would you add to a 5 gallon carboy to make a dry, medium or sweet mead?

I will be using D-47 yeast.

Thanks
Kevin

 

[jezter6]

Check out hightest's mead calculator spreadsheet in the FAQ of this sub-forum. It has some great information on that.

Most of the time, yeasts will eat up almost any amount of honey and dry it out unless you overwhelm the yeast (20+ # of honey), at which point you'll have super rocket fuel that will take some extended aging.

You might be better off first thinking about how much alcohol you want to have, and use that - then look at backsweetening to the desired sweetness level that you want. that will allow you to make an 11% sweet mead without hvaing to put a ton of honey in to make a sweet mead and end up with like 18%+ abv drink.

 

[will_cbe]

Be warned, you can add too much. The yeast stops knowing what to do if the og is too high. This starts at about 4lbs per gallon. If this isn't enough for you, you can feed the must in stages. Week 1, 2 lbs of honey. Week 2, 1 more lb honey, ect until you're done.

Again, this can easily lead to rocket fuel.

 

[mrgoodcheese]

D-47 will peter out at about 12-13% with a mead, from my experiences.

A calculation that I figured out, tested, and have seen to be very accurate so far with 3 batches is this:

beginning SG minus ending SG divided by .00736 = % alcohol. Given that probably looks comfusing, here is an example of a batch that I did:

1.11 - X / .00736 = 13

which calculated out shows as

1.11 - 1.014 / .00736 = 13

So if you set your beginning SG about 1.1 and you use a yeast that will quit with an alcohol of about 13%, then your ending SG should end up about 1.014 (which to my taste buds is just about right for a sweet mead).

Overall, in my opinion based on experience, you'll want to determine what yeast to use, and then set your beginning SG. However much honey it takes to get to that beginning SG is how much you'll need.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

12-15lbs honey & water to 5 gallons should give you a nice medium show mead, if you use a yeast like D-47 & plenty of yeast nutrient/energizer/DAP. Regards, GF.