Whats a normal alcohol content for a mead after 2 months

[Zsnethen]

I just made a 5 gallon batch of mead from 12 pounds of honey with 1 pound of blackberrys in the primary batch. the yeast I used was a Redstar champagne yeast. I'm about 2 months in and it has stopped fermenting so I transfered to age it and tasted some. I have to say i think its near 20-25% alcohol content I did not take a gravity reading but this stuff has a serious burn going down.

The fermentation was odd their was active fermentation with in 5 hours with no starter I went straight from the dry yeast. I really have no clue what caused this i'm guessing maybe a wild yeast made it in with the berrys even though i heated it all up to 200f. I did use fresh berrys from my yard

please forgive any spelling errors the mead is going to my head.

[akueck]

Alcohol content can be estimated by using the starting and finishing gravity/Brix readings. 12 lbs of honey in a 5 gallon batch gives about 12% abv if fully fermented. The pound of berries adds only a small amount of sugar in 5 gallons.

A single pack of dry yeast is usually enough to ferment 5 gallons; several hours of lag time is not uncommon.

Check out the NewBee guide (link at left) for more info including using a hydrometer to estimate alcohol content and yeast selection/management. Welcome to GotMead?

[AToE]

Just to add to that, alcohol % has nothing much to do with time fermenting, it has to do with sugar fermented. I've gotten to 14% in 24hrs, and spent weeks getting to 6%.

12 pounds in that size a batch won't go very high alcohol, as akueck posted.

[Medsen Fey]

Originally Posted by Zsnethen

I have to say i think its near 20-25% alcohol content I did not take a gravity reading but this stuff has a serious burn going down.

Even though you have only about 12% ABV, it will taste like more because it is new mead and there are probably a load of fusel (higher) alcohols. You get a lot of them with stressed yeast and high fermentation temperature. With age, they will slowly fade leaving it a much smoother-tasting mead.

Welcome to GotMead!

Medsen