Mead abv advice

[tully72]

This Pear Mead is 3 weeks old. I racked it to this carboy from a fermenting bucket last night. Looking back in my notes, the OG was only 1.085. Right now it's down to 1.005 with light airlock activity. My question is can I add another couple pounds of honey with water to top this off? Will this bring the ABV up higher than the 10 or so percent it will finish off at now? Thanks all, Tully

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1418837101.820990.jpg

 

[botigol]

The airlock activity doesn't mean much, but from the photo you should have plenty of yeast in suspension to take care of an addition, so long as you used a yeast strain that will tolerate the abv. Assuming 1 gallon of space, you could add 2.4 lbs of honey and keep the same abv.

 

[tully72]

Thanks! Went 5 lbs to up the abv.
Might be stuck now though...

 

[Complete_Amateur]

What kind of pears did you use? And did you add anything else? Spices?

 

[bernardsmith]

Others on this forum may disagree but that amount of headroom with a mead is asking for trouble. Mead ain't beer and presumably you will be aging this mead for many months. I know that mead makers happily claim that mead is less susceptible to oxidation than other wines but I have never been shown the evidence for that hypothesis or the data that supports such a claim. I guess yer takes yer pays yer money and yer takes yer chance. Me? I make sure that after the initial active fermentation stage has ended and I rack my mead into a secondary I have the mead right up into the mouth of the carboy with less than an inch of headroom between the surface of the mead and the bottom of the airlock.

 

[tully72]

Agreed about the headspace, but this is still fermenting. I added five more pounds of honey six days ago and will top off to the neck when I rack off all the sediment.