Please tell me I'm looking at the wrong area on my hydrometer.

[scottyg354]

I just took an FG reading on my mead and I'm getting 1.20? I hope I'm wrong with that because I can taste alcohol in it. Damn thing fermented for like 4 months. It is sweet as hell but tastes like mead. This is my first mead. Maybe I am looking at the wrong part of the hydrometer? It's one that cam with a kit. It is reading 1.20 in the Desert Wine Section.

I have waited patiently 9 months to bottle this was going to let it condition for a few more months in the bottle, but never took any SG readings like a nit wit.

6lbs of honey
3 Gallons of Water
White Labs Sweet Mead Yeast Finished Sweet added some basic wine yeast.

[Chevette Girl]

Are you sure you're not missing a zero or two? We always report specific gravities to three decimal places just to keep things straight. 1.200 is way too high to have started fermenting, 1.020 is a little more sensible if it still tastes sweet, 1.002 if it's dry...

Oh, and welcome to the forum, scottyg!

[AlphaGenetics]

Plus I don't see 6lbs in 3 gallons getting near 1.200 SG. That would actually start around 1.07-ish so it sounds like your fermentation didn't finish. What alcohol tolerance does your yeast have?

[Soyala_Amaya]

.998
1.000
1.010
1.020
1.030
1.040
1.050
1.060
1.070
1.080
1.090
1.100
1.110
1.120
1.130
1.140
1.150
1.160
1.170
1.180
1.190
1.200

That's where your hydrometer would have to be reading to be at the sg you wrote. Are you sure it's not actually 1.020? If it's not, your hydrometer is broken...just flat out, very broken. There is no way that amount of honey could get that sg in that amount of water.

[Penguinetti]

Yea, I would say the most common reason I can think of for a reading that high is human error. If not, then instrument error. Meaning what Soyala said.