Made some mead but would like to ask a question please?

Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
Advertise with us
The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
A

aaronmarsh632

New Member
Joined
Jun 2, 2013
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
Hi,

I made some basic mead by adding a bottle of runny honey to 4 liters of spring water, also added half kilo of brewing sugar.

So then I tool a reading with my hydrometer and the reading read 52, I added the brewing yeast, about half tea spoon, then added some yeast nutrient according to the bottles instructions. Now is nearly 2 weeks later, so I just took another reading with the hydrometer and it reads 22.

Please can anyone tell me the alcohol content please? I don't understand the instructions and when looking online - other peoples readings are different, like 1.**, like small decimal numbers if you know what I mean. I've never used a hydrometer before :)

Thanks in advance.

Aaron
 
Your 52 is presumably actually 1052, which implies 560g of sugars in 4l. Given the volume the honey added, a bit more than 560 in a bit more than 4l
Your 22 is presumably 1022, giving a drop of 30, which translates to about 4%ABV
It ought to get down near 1000 eventually, for an extra 3%

Near the top of your hydrometer is a thicker band, which marks 1.000 (we often leave out the point)
Each numbered division on the scale is .0whatever
The smallest divisions are .001 or .002, depending how finely marked the scale is

Calculate ABV by taking the drop in gravity and dividing by 7.36 (exact figure open to argument, depending on exactly what's being brewed and other factors)
Also, you should do temperature correction (but it rarely moved the result more than 1/4% either way)
And you should check you get 1.000 in plain water - sometimes the paper scale slips between manufacture and reaching you (or it's just badly made)
 
Hi,

Thanks a lot for the information, I will test it with some water as well to make sure its accurate. I'll give it a few more days and take another reading to see if it gets upto an extra 3%.

Aaron
 
Hi,

Thanks for the advice, I will leave it another 2 weeks as you said. At the moment its just sweet enough, do you think it would loose this sweetness after another fortnight? Also what would you say the alcohol content would be by then end, is it possible to predict this based on the numbers so far?

Thanks

Aaron
 
aaronmarsh632 said:
Hi,

Thanks for the advice, I will leave it another 2 weeks as you said. At the moment its just sweet enough, do you think it would loose this sweetness after another fortnight? Also what would you say the alcohol content would be by then end, is it possible to predict this based on the numbers so far?

Thanks

Aaron
Click to expand...

Can't really predict how fast the fermentation will go, it's fastest at the start and tails off but not as far as I know in any easily predictable way.

The longer you leave it, the more sugar will turn to alcohol, so it'll get stronger but drier. If it has the sweetness you like now, but isn't strong enough, you'll need to add more sugars. Or, you could accept it's however strong it is now and stabilise it with a potassium sorbate + sodium metabisulphite (Campden) combo, let it clear (or hurry that along with finings), then bottle it. Even if you add more sugars to up the ABV, you'll need to stabilise at some point if you don't want it dry (unless you use a non-fermentable sweetener such as Splenda, but that kind of defeats the point of starting with honey)
 
Hi,

Thanks for the information, I have a couple of questions as I'm new to this, what exactly does the potassium sorbate & sodium metabisulphite do? Does this stop the fermentation or something? and what are the finings, I have heard of them but dont know their puropse.

Thanks
 
Sodium metabisulphite (aka Campden) has several uses: some use it for conditioning water prior to brewing (gets rid of chlorine and chloramine); many winemakers use it to inhibit natural yeasts (and other nasties) on fruits they're using, prior to pitching the yeast; and it's used in combination with potassium sorbate to stabilise wines etc. The sorbate stops yeast reproducing, the sulphite stops the existing cells doing any more fermentation [and they eventually die]. The sorbate on its own may leave a detectable flavour. Shop-bought stabiliser may be just sorbate or may be the combination - read the instructions on the label.

Finings are used to deal with various hazes in the finished product. They can be a variety of things - Bentonite is a clay (basically the same as kitty litter), Irish moss is sometimes used, isinglass is derived from fish swim bladders, etc. The finings basically stick to whatever's causing the haze and then sink. Many brews will clear perfectly without finings, others won't.
 

Similar threads

D
Mead Advice
Replies
16
Views
1K
MashBag
MashBag
U
First Mead
Replies
1
Views
573
user 39926
U
BobShandy
Mead primary stopped bubbling after 3 1/2 weeks. What now?
Replies
4
Views
2K
Jan.
Jan.
fury_tea
Mead made with Kolsch yeast
Replies
0
Views
676
fury_tea
fury_tea
D
Help, 1st attempt, do i need to ditch my beer.
2
Replies
26
Views
2K
Herms bay
H

Latest posts

Back
Top