Scaling up next batch, equipment and ingredient question

[cheapbuster]

Hello,

I finished making (and drinking) my first batch of mead which was:
1Gallon or 4.5L, 1.7 KG of honey ~3.7Lb 1.106 OG
Juice of 1 lemon, yeast was Youngs super yeast compound (comes with nutrients)
After it finished at 0.995 I racked it and lost about 1L
It wasn't very sweet so I added threw in a campden tablets
Then added about about 500ml of water saturated with honey (I'm an idiot and didn't record how much honey or water I actually put in but somewhere between 0.25-0.5 KG)
After about another month it was really clear so I bottled it and it tasted great ( I'm too amateur to describe the taste but it was sweet and quit alcoholic, about 12-13%)

TL; DR: 1 gallon, Youngs super yeast, Juice of1 lemon , 1.7 KG + ~0.25-0.5KG back sweetening, OG 1.106 FG 0.995 end ~12.5%

So my questions:
If I want to scale this up to 25L is there anything extra that I should take into account or do I just multiply everything by about 5?
I've read that it doesn't scale directly but I can't find what I should do differently.
Also do I need to scale up the amount of yeast or do I still just use the 1 Tsp?
As for equipment I have a 25L Bucket(?) from the coopers lager kit which comes with a krausen collar and lid which don't really seal but rather sit in place and there is no airlock.
Would I need to modify it to fit an airlock and would it be an issue that the lid isn't a very tight seal?

Thanks

 

[caduseus]

So my questions:
If I want to scale this up to 25L is there anything extra that I should take into account or do I just multiply everything by about 5? Not exactly. You can use calculator on here or on meadmakr to help.
I've read that it doesn't scale directly but I can't find what I should do differently.
Also do I need to scale up the amount of yeast or do I still just use the 1 Tsp? No depends on final gallon and original gravity at pitch. I don’t know your yeast at all. Look at packaging to see if it does say so. One trick that someone told me if you can’t find out that gets you close (but not exact) is multiply gallons x original gravity and that gets you close to the yeast count you need in grams. I would only use this if you can’t get a better answer though as I can’t verify it’s accuracy
As for equipment I have a 25L Bucket(?) from the coopers lager kit which comes with a krausen collar and lid which don't really seal but rather sit in place and there is no airlock. I would recommend you leave 20% dead space one top for foaming so you don’t overflow. Therefore no more than 20 liters of must but I have heard some say leave even more
Would I need to modify it to fit an airlock and would it be an issue that the lid isn't a very tight seal? You need an airlock in primary ferment.

Thanks

Good luck and keep us posted

 

[darigoni]

It sounds like you should spend a little time reading the gotmead NewBee guide, watching the 9 episode Meadology series (by The Canadian Sasquatch) on YouTube, and listening to the gotmead podcast staring on Sept 5th, 2017. You'll learn how to make mead and why certainly things are done

That being said, yes you can pretty much scale everything up by a factor of 5. For bread yeast, 1 tsp is approximately a little over 3 grams. It's recommended that you use 2 grams of yeast/gallon and you would up this as your starting gravity gets higher. So, 1 tsp/gallon would work.

I always thought the Cooper's fermentation buckets were cool and see no reason why you couldn't use it for making mead. I don't think you will need to add an airlock. It works for beer, so should work for mead. We have a gentleman here, who makes his mead in trash cans

You should probably read up on nutrient regimens. TOSNA, iTOSNA, SNA.........

 

[cheapbuster]

Cheers for the advice, I have read through the guide and watch various videos but there is a lot of info to take in and also seems like a lot of fear mongering; I understand there are things you should always do and things you should do to get a better mead but it gets a bit much when you read some people saying things like "never use plastic containers" and others who have used plastic for years, it gets hard to work out who's right. So I have taken to just trying it out for myself and seeing what sticks, getting advice on things I'm unsure of.
I'd like to use up the yeast I have left but it is annoying that there's no information on it other than "wine yeast" and it's hard to measure it in grams as it's mixed in with nutrients that said it's worked well and the last batch of mead I made had people who don't even enjoy alcohol coming back to drink more.
I think I'll leave the bucket without an airlock and see what happens, I'd rather not have to drill holes in it's lovely lid. It does have quite a large head space, 4" from the lid and collar and another 4" from the buckets above the 25L mark which is equivalent to about 18L of room.
I think I'll try about 5 tsps and see that happens.

Thanks, I had some other questions but I can't remember what they were at this moment so I'll have to come back and ask them later