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short question regarding my calculations

Barrel Char Wood Products

Corvus

NewBee
Registered Member
Jan 12, 2006
18
0
0
48
Hi all,

on the 21st of Jan. I started another (my third now) basic mead. The first I wrote about has turned out fine after all - was worried it might have gone wrong at a point. It is now bottled, corked and labelled and has turned out a treat.
The second is still ageing and will be bottled soon.(it was made in June 2005)

For the third I decided to take it a size larger than before.

Now to my question,...

I started off with 11 kilograms of Honey which I dissolved in water.
Made a starter with Lalvin EC-1118 which I added after a short 5 hours as it was going well. In total it makes an amount of 22 litres of must.

Sadly my cat managed to break my hydrometer - my own fault really - she moved something else and that triggered a few other things in the shelf and crash. Oh well - bought a new one!
This means - no SG at the start.
My reading on the 31st of Jan. came to 1.090 SG.

So I plugged the data into the mead calculator and hope I got this right...
The SG at the beginning would have been 1.153. Fermenting to the end would theoretically bring me to 20.86 %ABV.
With the hydrometer reading of 1.090 (after 10 days - I am impressed) I would have had 12.06 %ABV at the time of the reading.

Correct?

If so, I need to monitor closely now as I want to get it to 16isch %ABV max. as EC-1118 will go quite a way and I don't want to run a tractor with the stuff.

My thoughts regarding this batch are to divide it into 3 portions and leaving one of them basic.
The other two I will experiment with. Something along the lines of adding flowers of Tilia platyphyllos or an extract of them in the secondary.
When I get the feel for basic mead I will start playing with other ingredients in the primary.
But for now I am mainly trying different yeasts and methods for the basic meads.

Thanks for any help, clues, criticism,....

Greets

Corvus
 

JamesP

Senior Member
Lifetime GotMead Patron
Dec 3, 2003
654
1
18
Brisbane Australia
The SG=1.153 is correct.

0.5 Kg honey per Litre is high. 0.4 Kg/L is more normal (for future reference)

1.153 down to 1.090 means 63 gravity points eaten by the yeast (1.063 is about 8% Alc in the must currently). The 12.06% is still to be converted to Ethanol by the yeast.

You could add water to reduce the %Alc down a bit, say for SG=1.110 (14.9% Alc) instead of 1.153, then with 11 Kg you need 30.4L to give SG=1.110, so add 8.4L (approx 8L) to the must.

Or, stop the yeast when the SG is 1.020 if you want some residual sugar (that would make it an 18% Alc mead).
 
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