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Mead Calculator help

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heathd666

Worker Bee
Registered Member
Nov 3, 2013
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so ive been trying to figure out how to use the mead calculator and i am having no luck with it. ive tried using this one

http://gotmead.com/mead-calculator.html

but cannot get it to work mayby out of date browser or whatever so i have been using this one

http://meadcalc.freevar.com/

here is the recipe i am trying to input into it since any questions are always supposed to be accompanied by a recipe.


Started 2 Wyeast 4184 Smack Pacs at 2/5/16 at 10 am. Started a Traditional mead on 2/6/2016 @ 12:20 pm. On 2/6/16 using the dutch oven method, a large stainless steel pot filled with water than placing a smaller one inside this one and placing the honey inside the smaller one so i dont scorch the honey, I heated up 3 batches of clover honey from hunters honey farms. 1st 6.5 lbs, 2nd 6.4 lbs, 3rd 6.6 lbs. Added 2 gallons of water to cleaned fermentation bucket. Added 1 teaspoon of yeast energizer and 2 tsp of yeast nutrient. Mixed up. added 1/3rd of the honey mixture. Mixed up. Added another 1/3rd of honey and mixed up. Added final 1/3rd of honey and scraped stainless steel pan with spatula to get as much out as I could. Finished adding water to almost 6 gallons it was just shy of it in the fermentation pail. Mixed for 5 minutes with cordless drill and mixing wand. SG was 1.128 ish. Temperature before pitching yeast was 86 degrees f. Finished at 1:30 pm.

2/7/2016 @ 4:30 pm temp is at 69 deg and no activity yet. aerated mixture

2/8 aerated mixture and added 1 tsp yeast energizer and x2 ½ tsp yeast energizer. Lots of foam after aerating it spilled over it foamed so much. Temp is 65 degrees

2/9/16 @ 2 am there were bubbles starting mayby 1 a second temp is 69 degrees aerated mixture

2/10 @ 6pm added 1 tsp yeast energizer and 2 tsp yeast energizer. Lots of foam after aerating it spilled over it foamed so much. I believe it has something to do with the energizer or nutrient. Next time I make a batch and use them i am going to rotate days of aerating with adding nutrients. Gravity was 1.120 temp is 68 degrees. am going to aerate every other day.

2/14/16 @ 10 am gravity 1.108 stirred up with drill and aerator foamed up again almost over the top

2/18/16 @ 6:30pm stirred and checked gravity 1.090

3/2/16 @ 4:33 pm stirred added ½ tsp energizer and 1 tsp nutrient gravity is 1.050 and temp is 70 degrees f. checked PH using a test strip where you match color up is between 3.6 and 4.0 so I am guessing 3.8. no bubbles visible in airlock.

so i check the box that says target gravity and input my starting gravity. next i check the box for additional sugars and put 19 lbs of honey in. finally i put my gravity so far which is 1.050 but it says the final alcohol content is 16.45%. but the wyeast says it will only go to 11% alcohol. so how do i input the data into the calculator to reflect this. sorry if this has already been answered i tried to find it but i guess my google fu was weak :) thanks in advance for any answers.
 
Are you looking for your current ABV? If so go down to the second box. Input your starting gravity and then your current gravity to calculate your current ABV.
Start 1.128
Current 1.05

Current ABV 10.49%
 
im still having trouble with using the mead calculator to figure out how much honey to use in particular with wyeast 4184. i am sure the calculator is capable of it but i am not educated enough to use it. wyeast says that 4184 will leave 2 to 3% sugar but i dont know how to calculate that into the calculator. i tried reading through the new bee tutorial but i guess im missing how to use the calculator. thanks in advance for any help i really do appreciate the effort everyone puts in here.
 
Pretty sure that individual yeast stain dynamics are beyond the ability of the calculator to figure.

A good ballpark would be to take the starting gravity and assume 2.5% will be left behind.
Eg- 1.100 SG is 100 points if you have 2.5% residual sugar you should expect this to finish up at 1.002 or so.
This only works within the alcohol tolerance of the yeast. Once you reach the tolerance all the sugar will be residual.

If the listed alcohol tolerance is 11% you need to have a starting gravity that will leave you with a alcohol potential less than your listed tolerance.

For wyeast 4184 I would use a SG of 1.08 or less. This should be within the ability of the yeast to ferment out without leaving a sickly sweet final product. JM2C
 
Last edited:
True but you increase your chances of having a too sweet finished product if your potential ABV exceeds your listed yeast tolerance.
Since you have at least one example of this in a "save my mead" thread I would think you might want to reduce the posability of a repeat. I would suggest a step feed approach at least initially until you know what you can repeatably get out of your yeast.
But hey JM2C. Do whatever makes you happy.
 
Yeah I would only step feed to push past tolerance, as like you said you could end up with a very sweet mead!

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk
 
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