braggot/ale yeast/gravity question

[Stormrider]

Hi everyone!

this is my second batch ever, my first was a mead which I started 2 weeks ago so with that said ill throw down my recipe

1 gal spring water
1.5 lbs tennessee mountain honey
1.5 lbs breiss golden light DME
yeast nutrient 1tsp
yeast enegizier 1/4 tsp
irish moss 1/2 tsp
lallemnd windsor danstar british ale yeast 5g

so i boiled the DME for an hour, threw in the irish moss with 15 min left. took off flame cooled to about 160F stirred in honey. Rehydrated yeast for 15, well it was actually 21 mins(tryed to cool must as fast as possible) stirred in enegizer and nutrient then pitched the yeast at 79F
OG 1.124 ph around 4? (damn strips)

I guess my question is this, What final gravity should I be looking for? How do you even determind a Target gravity?
Ive read the newbie guide and Im halfway through the complete meadmaker, maybe I need to go back.
Also the ale yeast when reseaching that all it says is it finishes with a high SG.
How am I suppose to determine the 2/3 n 1/3 break. And do I even need to worry about that with a braggot?

Its been 2 days and the SG is now 1.034 smells good, sorry for all the Qs

[TAKeyser]

I'm guessing that this is a 1 gallon batch?

My calculator puts your ending gravity somewhere in the range of 1.026-1.032 (unfermentable sugars in the DME and yeast choice), but remember that is a calculator and they work on averages so you might get lower. So your breaks would be every 30 points give or take a point or two. 1/3 at ~1.094, 2/3 at ~1.064. Usually I don't worry about them when I do a Braggot, but yours had a High SG (for a Braggot) so I might have done an addition at the 1/3 break, but you've already blown by that and it doesn't seem to have caused any problems.

[Stormrider]

Yes it is a 1 gallon batch. Thanks for answering so quickly!
1.026-1.032<--How exactly did you get that, thats what i don't know how to do.
And the breaks, are they always 30 points give or take from your OG?
Thanks again!

[TAKeyser]

Originally Posted by Stormrider

1.026-1.032<--How exactly did you get that, thats what i don't know how to do.

I used my brewing software. It works on averages (average % of sugars in honey, grains, etc and than it factors in unfermenatbles in the grains and the yeast tolerances) so it isn't 100% accurate but gives a good estimate. I paid for my software and there's a couple different ones;BeerSmith, Pro Mash or you can find some free ones like at Hopville which is good except you have to add hops to the recipe if you want to save it, which isn't a big deal with Braggots and beer and if I use Hopville for meads I just type in the smallest amount of hops and add a note that I didn't really include them.

Originally Posted by Stormrider

And the breaks, are they always 30 points give or take from your OG?
Thanks again!

No your breaks will depend on the tolerances of your Yeast. I always base my estimate off the estimated tolerance of the yeast (eventually it became my normal tolerance of the yeast since D47 goes to 15%ABV in my Meadery with my procedures). Yeast Tolerance of 14% is ~105 drop (1/3 Sugar Break is a ~35 point drop), 16% is ~120 drop (1/3 Sugar Break is ~40 point drop) and 18% is ~135 drop (1/3 Sugar Break is ~45 point drop). Too many beer yeasts to list those.

To figure it out you take your original gravity and divide by 3 for the point drop you are looking for so. If you had an original Gravity of lets say 1.145 (high Mead gravity) and you were using D47 yeast (14% ABV tolerance estimated) your 1/3 Sugar break would be 1.110, your 2/3 would be 1.075 and it should leave you with a Final Gravity of around 1.040 because that is what D47 can produce.

Hope that makes sense. If not let me know and I'll see if I can explain it better.

[hepcat]

I used the hopville calculator for my braggot recipe. I highly recommend it! Excellent freeware imho.

[Stormrider]

yeah that makes sense, doesnt seem too difficult. But how did you already know the drop in total points from the different %ages? and thanks for the heads up on the different calculators out there i'll check them out. wow if you have your own meadery expect me to be asking you some questions about that in the near future.

oh about the beer yeasts, that was one of the problems i had using the windsor ale yeast was that I couldn't fine it alcohol tolerance...all websites said was that it finishes with a high FG *shrug*

[akueck]

Beer yeasts are generally rated in terms of low/med/high attenuation rather than alcohol tolerance. Most of the time you're not hitting the yeast tolerance in beer, but you are seeing differences in the way each strain handles small oligosaccharides produced during the mash. Since the actual "attenuation" in beer is really a combination of yeast strain, grist (grains), and mash schedule these categories are only relative.

All beer yeasts will ferment honey completely up to their alcohol tolerance; you can usually count on beer yeasts getting to at least 10-12% and many will hit 14%.