Hydromel or sparkling mead advice needed

[BrewingWisdom]

Hi there
I am going to make a sparkling or hydromel mead. For making 9 litres of hydromel how much honey do I need? People say it shouldn't be above 8% abv or else it won't be hydromel , is that true?
I am aiming around 8% abv.

 

[CKuhns]

The easiest way to do this is to target the Original Gravity (OG) of your honey and water regardless of volume prior to pitching yeast. (9 litres or 9 gallons or 9 quarts) In this case an OG of 1.060 should get you close. See how i got there below.

The math works out to this1.060 OG minus 1.000 FG = 0.060 and 0.060 times 131.25 = roughly 7.9 ABV. If all the available sugar in the honey is consumed by the yeast.

To estimate the amount of honey required to get a gravity of 1.060 per total volume of water plus honey of 1 gallon. (4 liters ) Water is 1.000 and each pound of honey (450 grams) contributes roughly 0.035 gravity points. So 60 divided by 35 = roughly 1.7 pounds (770 grams).

While knowing this there are a lot of variables, not all honey is the same. Your yeast may not consume all the available sugar etc. This at best is a rough estimate but should get you close.

Is 8% ABV the upper end for a hydromel? Thats open for debate but generally speaking thats what i hear and read most folks hold to.

Good luck, how do you intend to make it carbonated?

 

[BrewingWisdom]

The easiest way to do this is to target the Original Gravity (OG) of your honey and water regardless of volume prior to pitching yeast. (9 litres or 9 gallons or 9 quarts) In this case an OG of 1.060 should get you close. See how i got there below.

The math works out to this1.060 OG minus 1.000 FG = 0.060 and 0.060 times 131.25 = roughly 7.9 ABV. If all the available sugar in the honey is consumed by the yeast.

To estimate the amount of honey required to get a gravity of 1.060 per total volume of water plus honey of 1 gallon. (4 liters ) Water is 1.000 and each pound of honey (450 grams) contributes roughly 0.035 gravity points. So 60 divided by 35 = roughly 1.7 pounds (770 grams).

While knowing this there are a lot of variables, not all honey is the same. Your yeast may not consume all the available sugar etc. This at best is a rough estimate but should get you close.

Is 8% ABV the upper end for a hydromel? Thats open for debate but generally speaking thats what i hear and read most folks hold to.

Good luck, how do you intend to make it carbonated?

To be on the safe side I think I should use 2.3 kg honey for 9 litres of mead.
I am going to use ale yeast which has a alcohol tolerance of 14%.
Yes after watching few videos on youtube they say after 8% it's not hydromel. Though I agree it's debatable.
I will use honey as a priming sugar after the primary fermentation. Will Fill the fermented mead with the priming solution in bottles a little.
Finally why we multiply it with 131.25 to get the abv?

 

[CKuhns]

This equation is so old it is challenging to find the original reference but one reference that uses this method is the joy of homebrewing by Charlie Papazion (Papazian, September, 2014). This method uses the difference between the final gravity and the original gravity, multiplied by a constant to get ABV. The Constant of 131.25 in the equation comes from two different factors:

1. 1.05 accounts for the number of grams of ethanol generated per gram of carbon dioxide released in fermentation.
2. 0.80 represents the approximate density of ethanol, which is necessary to convert from alcohol by weight (ABW) to alcohol by volume (ABV).

Here is a link to the article.
https://help.grainfather.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014534317-Calculation-ABV