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Calculator error?

Barrel Char Wood Products

jt852

NewBee
Registered Member
Oct 23, 2007
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I was trying to formulate a recipe earlier and thought I had it all figured out. When I mixed it this evening, it came out to a MUCH higher gravity than expected. There's an error somewhere with the conversion where the calculator thinks 1 US gallon = 2 US quarts, not the 4 that it should be. Anyone else able to replicate this error?

edit: Actually, playing around a bit more, it seems that all the other US units are messed up with respect to gallons.
 

Oskaar

Got Mead Partner
Administrator
Dec 26, 2004
7,874
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The OC
Please post your exact recipe along with starting gravity measurements, and what the mead calculator showed.

Remember that the calculator will only estimate based on a generic sugar content for the honey. This is why you use a hydrometer to measure exactly what the OG is.

Oskaar
 

jt852

NewBee
Registered Member
Oct 23, 2007
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The recipe was for a maple heavy acerglyn. Recipe was to be:
10 pounds honey
5 quarts grade a dark amber maple syrup
water to gravity of 1.12 (total volume approx 5 gallons)
yeast, nutrients

When entered into the mead calculator as above, it gave me the an expected gravity of 1.121 with a volume of 5 gallons. So I mixed with that in mind, and when I went to check the gravity, found out I was WAY too high (approx 1.165). I then went back to the calculator and changed the 5 quarts to 1.25 gallons (still the same volume), and the expected gravity came out as 1.164. This was close to what I got when I had a volume of 5 gallons. I don't recall the exact gravity but remember that I needed to add a bunch of extra water to drop the gravity approx 45 points to get to my target. Total volume ended up being about 6.75 gallons to get down to my target gravity.

Enter 10 pounds honey, 1.25 gallons syrup, and volume of 6.75 gallons into the calculator, and everything reflects reality.

Hopefully that helps.
 

Oskaar

Got Mead Partner
Administrator
Dec 26, 2004
7,874
8
0
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The OC
This is a known issue when using quarts and has been posted up by JamesP who wrote the calculator. If you run with gallons on everything you'll be fine.

How is the fermentation looking at this point?

Cheers,

Oskaar
 

jt852

NewBee
Registered Member
Oct 23, 2007
84
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Yeah, I figured that out that there was an issue with quarts. Thats ok, there's just more mead than expected. That's never a bad thing is it? :icon_thumright:

The ferment is coming along, just noticed some bubbles in the airlock a little bit ago, so it looks like its time for the end of lag phase nutrient additions. The wonderful smell of maple syrup completely fills my little apartment. Now if only I could come up with a mead that smells like bacon I'd be in heaven.
 
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