Hello, world!
The GF and I have decided that we want to try making some mead. We looked through a bunch of less useful websites before I came across this one. The NewBees guide is very detailed and helpful. I have a few questions about our plan.
We are in Norway so the ingredients we have are a little different to normal. We got the Mangrove Jack M05 mead yeast that from what I can find can go up to 18% ABV. That strength seems pretty fun, so we want to make a normal "show"(?) mead that is 18%, but also fairly nice and sweet at the end.
As far as I can figure from Chapter 8 of the guide, for our secondary fermentation in the 6 gallon (22.7) PET carboy that we have picked up that would mean:
18% ABV x 6 gallons x 3 ounces of honey per gallon per %ABV = 252 ounces of honey
for a sweet, call it 1.015 final gravity, batch we would need the equivalent of 1.9% ABV extra honey, 1.9 * 6 * 3 = 34.2 ounces of extra honey.
So for the Must in our primary fermenting bucket we should dissolve a total of 286.2 ounces = 8.11kg of honey to the water before pitching the yeast, adding nutrient, and doing all the necessary steps to start the fermentation off properly.
Does this sound right? Am I missing anything?
As a bonus question, the local brew store has "Wyeast Beer Nutrient Blend" that suggests 0.5 tsp per 5 gal. Is this specific for beer? Is it the same for mead? The nutrient seems pretty important so I don't wanna mess it up.
-R
The GF and I have decided that we want to try making some mead. We looked through a bunch of less useful websites before I came across this one. The NewBees guide is very detailed and helpful. I have a few questions about our plan.
We are in Norway so the ingredients we have are a little different to normal. We got the Mangrove Jack M05 mead yeast that from what I can find can go up to 18% ABV. That strength seems pretty fun, so we want to make a normal "show"(?) mead that is 18%, but also fairly nice and sweet at the end.
As far as I can figure from Chapter 8 of the guide, for our secondary fermentation in the 6 gallon (22.7) PET carboy that we have picked up that would mean:
18% ABV x 6 gallons x 3 ounces of honey per gallon per %ABV = 252 ounces of honey
for a sweet, call it 1.015 final gravity, batch we would need the equivalent of 1.9% ABV extra honey, 1.9 * 6 * 3 = 34.2 ounces of extra honey.
So for the Must in our primary fermenting bucket we should dissolve a total of 286.2 ounces = 8.11kg of honey to the water before pitching the yeast, adding nutrient, and doing all the necessary steps to start the fermentation off properly.
Does this sound right? Am I missing anything?
As a bonus question, the local brew store has "Wyeast Beer Nutrient Blend" that suggests 0.5 tsp per 5 gal. Is this specific for beer? Is it the same for mead? The nutrient seems pretty important so I don't wanna mess it up.
-R