Made my first batch of dry mead yesterday (1G) with 5.75 lbs Mangrove honey with 15% water, 6 oz total of black hunan tea( with orange peels and vanilla powder) and with ingredients was left with ~1.5g of must. added 1/4 tsp of wyeast nutrient and 1 packet RS Premier cuvee. My OG of unpitched must was 1.210 and tonight was 1.20. Do i risk any problems with having such a high gravity? I plan on stopping fermentation at around 15-16% to prevent making a biofuel...
Extremely high OG
- Thread starter anolalocaris
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You may have to spend quite a bit at the density for all the fillings
. 1.080-1.090 FG is ridiculously sweet. The yeast may give up before you even hit that, the osmotic pressure will stress them out quite a bit. If you wanted something supper sweet backsweetening or at least step feeding might have been a better route.
Edit: I think some polish leads have that SG, but someone else may correct me.
. 1.080-1.090 FG is ridiculously sweet. The yeast may give up before you even hit that, the osmotic pressure will stress them out quite a bit. If you wanted something supper sweet backsweetening or at least step feeding might have been a better route.Edit: I think some polish leads have that SG, but someone else may correct me.
Has it actually started fermenting or is the change in the numbers just bad measuring ?
If the numbers quoted are correct then if you want any finished brew you'd be best placed by diluting it with at least 50% volume of water.....
Cos that's got to be one of, if not the most ill concieved efforts I've see in 8 years of mead making.......
You should spend a couple of hours on the naughty step, reading the NewBee guide (linked in left side yellow dialogue box) and the searching google for "mega high start gravity problems mead"......
If the numbers quoted are correct then if you want any finished brew you'd be best placed by diluting it with at least 50% volume of water.....
Cos that's got to be one of, if not the most ill concieved efforts I've see in 8 years of mead making.......
You should spend a couple of hours on the naughty step, reading the NewBee guide (linked in left side yellow dialogue box) and the searching google for "mega high start gravity problems mead"......
So while I understand the high sugars in the Polish type meads, is it a routine event to put it all in the batch at the start or would it be normal to start the batch lower and then add more honey to achieve the required honey ratio in the respective types Marek ?
Very good question, it is much better to start from Trójniak (1:2 by volume) and achieve 20% ABV, then backsweet to Dwójniak (2:2 by volume) with 15% ABV.
Are you sure you haven't misread the hydrometer, and it's actually 1.121? According to the mead calculator that's what that recipe should give (assuming Imperial gallons - 1.147 if US).
thanks for the troll.... very helpful
It is fermenting. I dowble checked my readings with my refractometer and the original readings were correct.
i will do some further reading about the high gravity and polish meads
SilentJimbo: just checked out the calculator and you are right. my readings are highly qualitative because my refractometer reads up to 1.080 so i cut my sample qualitatively 1:3 must to h20 then corrected
With Polish meads, they do not put all the honey in up front simply because the pressure would be too great for the yeast. The process for creating one of the Polish style meads is to either step-feed or dissolve some of the honey into the must and let the rest of the honey just sit on the bottom and let the yeast feed off of it as needed. In both scenarios, the yeast will eventually get maxed out and die due to alcohol poisoning, and at that time the rest of the honey is dissolved and aged.
Hope this helps.
Hope this helps.
You won't have to.
If you start with a gravity of 1.200+ the stress on the yeast is so great that you are lucky to get them to ferment. When they do, they tend to stall early. I'll be surprised if it goes past about 8% with a gravity of about 1.150 unless you dilute it down.
On a different issue, I haven't been happy with pure mangrove batches; I seem to get phenolic elements that aren't so pleasant in mine. I hope you fare better.
So much for trolling eh!
The rest of the stuff mentioned by the others was what I was trying to allude to and encourage you to check out !
I'm sorry if you didn't get the point, I do sometimes struggle to be diplomatic, but
would be correct IMO.
The data I could find on the yeast suggests that it's capable of 18% ABV, but I side with Medsen, as the "chuck it all in and let it run" method seldom achieves what we might hope to get.
I'll leave it there, but will happily follow the thread. I hope you will keep us updated as to how it progresses, plus if you have a link to where you got the "Mangrove" honey from, as I've only heard about that once or twice previously and it's good to learn of less frequently mentioned varietals.....
