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Honey - How much to add?

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KevinJ

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Jul 9, 2009
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Honey - How much to add?

I just got some great Orange Blossom honey that I want to make a traditional mead from. How much honey (in gallons or pounds) would you add to a 5 gallon carboy to make a dry, medium or sweet mead?

I will be using D-47 yeast.

Thanks
Kevin
 
I would use my hydrometer

Dry - starting gravity 1.095
Semi-Sweet - 1.115
Sweet - 1.125

Or thereabouts. Each person's idea of sweet is a little different. For little wifey, if you can't stand a spoon up in it, then it ain't sweet.

There is such variability in honey that doing it by pounds or volume measurements will not reliably get you the level that you are aiming for. However those measurements would correspond roughly to
14 1/4 Lbs
15 3/4 Lbs
17 1/4 Lbs

This is courtesy of JamesP's mead calculator - a handy tool to practice with.

Medsen

P.S. WELCOME TO GOTMEAD!
 
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I like to work with the figure of 35 gravity points per pound honey in a one gallon must. In other words, for a one gallon batch of honey must, each pound of honey dissolved in the must will acount for 35 gravity points.

This is an abstract figure I worked out mathematically, using the average specific gravity of honey. It gets me almost spot on the target gravity, but some people have had better results with guestimates of 38 gravity points, or even 42.

As Medsen points out, honey does vary a fair amount in water content although, the water content has to be kept below a certain level else the osmophilic yeasts present in honey will wake up and begin fermenting. You'll find an old post of mine on the venerable Mead Lovers Digest here:

http://www.gotmead.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=1609

with more information on this subject.
 
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