to figure out about much honey I needed to make 5 gallons of mead slightly above 7% alcohol. It came out to roughly 8 pounds, and later on I just adjusted to the sugar level actually present in the actual honey I have by checking the gravity with a hydrometer. Here is a picture of the must boiling:
After I boiled the concentrated must (8 pounds of honey along with a gallon of water), I poured it and another 4 gallons of spring water into a sanitized carboy. Then I placed the carboy in Goody's sink filled with cold water to cool it down. When I brew, my wort chiller can bring 6 gallons of wort from 212 degrees ferenheit to 70 in under 15 minutes. I use a water pump to send ice water through copper coils which I dip into the wort. The "submerge in cool tapwater" method utilized here took over an hour to get the wort to a safe temperature to pitch the yeast. Here is the picture of the must cooling:
I then dissolved some yeast nutrient into a half cup of boiled water. Unlike in brewing, where the barley contains the nutrients yeast need to grow, yeast will benefit from added nutrients in wine and mead making. The bottle I bought has a mixed assortment of nutrients, just enough for a batch or so, but eventually I will buy all of the needed nutrients individually and mix them on my own.
So once the yeast was cooled, and the nutrient was in the must, I pitched about half of the gallon starter I made before and shook the carboy to aerate. I also poured off a little sample of the finished mead so I could take a gravity reading. Cooled to 68 degrees, the sample game me a 1.055 O.G. reading. According to the calculator, it should result in just over a 7 percent alcohol mead. I am going to add some fruit once the fermentation dies down a bit, so I should end up with about a 7.5-8% alcohol sparkling melomel. Heres a pic of my beautiful assistant, the remainder of the yeast starter, the hydrometer floating in my gravity sample, and finally, the aerated and pitched must.
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