Taking specific gravity of a mead you keep adding honey to

[Megalodon77]

How to do get an accurate read on meads where you are adding honey to over time to get a stronger mead? And any tips on the yeast and the times and amounts when I add more honey? Also looking to brew some hops in it but don't wanna make a Midas touch clone, any tips?

 

[fuelish]

I would imagine you would take a gravity reading at the time of honey addition (both before and after) and add the difference between the two to your OG??? Dunno if it works like that, but seems sensible...have not attempted step-feeding...yet...or you get an approximation by fiddling with http://www.gotmead.com/2014-04-16-20-10-09/mead-calculator.html I guess....surely someone who's done it will chime in

 

[NMZippo]

I would take a reading after you add the first round of honey. Then use the gravity calculater to in the link above. Adjust the sugar content of the honey untill it reads the same as you intal measurment and fill in the current volume as your target volume. Then when your honey is correct (you know know the correct sugar content of the honey you are using) you can adjust to your real final volume and the total amount of honey you are going to add. I have never done this before but this is how i would do it.

PS there may be a easy way to find the sugar content of your honey buy deluting it in a set amount of water but i have never done it befor.

 

[fatbloke]

Pretty much as fuelish says.

Take gravity before - example, you made the batch starting at 1.100, you've let it drop to 1.020, then you add a step of honey up to 1.040, let it ferment a bit more back down to 1.020 so then add a bit more honey back up to 1.040 and let it finish.

On checking you find that it's finished at 1.010

So, the initial fermenting stage, it dropped 80 points, you added a step and then let it drop back another 20 points, so there you've let it drop a total 100.

Then you added a further step back up to 1.040 and then let it go. After it finished a final check shows you it dropped another 30 points, so you've got a total drop of 130 points and taking 1.000 as dry, you're seeing about 10 points of residual sugar that put it just into the medium level.

130 point drop, equates to 17.66% ABV. So you could, just let it clear, then rack for bulk storage or bottle store (I prefer bulk).

The strength won't change unless you're doing something else that might add liquid and reduce the strength some - but most additions shouldn't vary the strength or flavour that much unless it's stuff like fruit juice, water etc........

You're initial batch should have enough nutrient/energiser for whatever you predict your final gravity/strength is likely to be - but generally it's just a case of crunching the numbers and working out where you want to do the step additions.

Yeast ? well that's just a case of getting an idea of likely flavour profile, and it's tolerance. There's no point in trying to use a 14% tolerant yeast and then adding the steps, if the steps are gonna make the batch hit tolerance and then sit in there as residual sugar, especially if you don't want too much of that.

 

[biochemedic]

As others have said, the gravity points are additive, so the difference between readings before and after additions can be just added to your OG.

Additionally, assuming you are using the same honey as the original brew, and if you take that the increase in volume is minimal, if not negligible, than you can easily calculate how many additional points you are adding without mucking around with serial hydometer readings. Using your brew volume, poundage of honey, and OG, you can determine the specific PPPG (points per pound per gallon) your specific honey contributes.

Average is around 38 or so, so if you added 1 lb honey to a 5 gal batch, you would be adding 38/5 ~ 8 gravity points to your OG...

 

[fuelish]

.....without mucking around with serial hydometer readings.

...but I LIKE mucking around with gravity readings...let's you get a taste as to how it's going (I never return gravity samples)

 

[NZ-beekeeper]

I feel this would not be totally accurate though: Consider this. Your OG sample is effectively pure water with honey in it, or 1.000 + honey. At the second and subsequent steps, the mixture will be pure water + honey + ethanol (which is lighter than water), which would mean that you would need to be adding progressively more honey (which is heavier than water) to achieve each step back to an equivalent OG reading, if you get my drift.

I mean, it's gonna get you pretty close to the ABV%, but not as accurately as doing it in one go, am I right? I may not be right, but I am confused!

I guess you could determine the mass of each unit of honey pre-ferment, then add honey to must by VOLUME, not back to a set SG reading. What I am thinking is that if you do this, you could then not only see how much alcohol is present at each step, but also see how much error is being incorporated into each successive hydrometer reading due to increasing alcohol levels

 

[biochemedic]

I mean, it's gonna get you pretty close to the ABV%, but not as accurately as doing it in one go, am I right? I may not be right, but I am confused!

Yes...all of this involves some estimation and fudging of reality, no matter what technique or formula you use... RDWHAHB...

 

[nickawat1212]

...but I LIKE mucking around with gravity readings...let's you get a taste as to how it's going (I never return gravity samples)

I think your stomach would return it to the toilet