Mead Lovers Digest #1498

Published in

· 7 months ago

Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #1498, 7 November 2010 
From: mead-request@talisman.com 

Mead Lover's Digest #1498                                  7 November 2010 

                      Mead Discussion Forum 

Contents: 
  Introduction and question... (Eric Haddix) 

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Subject: Introduction and question... 
From: Eric Haddix <eric@ehrichweiss.com> 
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 17:50:32 -0400 

Hi, 

I'm a n00b when it comes to brewing mead; I've done 4 batches now and 
all seem excellent thusfar; I've brewed beer though for about 2 years 
and have brewed wine on and off for the last 15-ish. 

Anyway, here's my question... 

My first batch was a sweet cherry melomel(12 lbs of honey for a 5 gallon 
batch) on which I used Wyeast 1084. 2 months go by and fermentation 
stopped cold. After waiting another month to see if it'd restart, I 
figured it must have attenuated so I mixed together another 6lbs of 
honey and some yeast nutrient/energizer, and then added a bit of oxygen 
to make sure it started. And it did NOTHING for another month. At that 
point I didn't want it to be THAT sweet so I figured that the poor 
yeasties took a bad hit and that they'd need a re-up and I'd just gotten 
this 20-23% alcohol yeast and wanted to give it a try just to see what 
it'd do. Well, it took off again and 10 days later petered out yet once 
again(the yeast instructions say this is about the length of a good brew 
for it). I let it sit another week and it did nothing so I measured the 
FG(1.008) and decided to stabilize it. 

Now comes the fun part. Today I used my spectrometer on the mead and it 
reads that I have 28% alcohol. How is that even possible? I assume that 
the additional honey/nutrient could have done all the work in addition 
to the yeast but 28%!?!?!?! 

My only other thought on this is that maybe my spectrometer doesn't work 
correctly with the mead(I know it gives horrible readings for my beer). 

Anyone know why mine would be so high? I know if it's a legit reading 
I'm going to need to sweeten this a bit, or drink in very small 
quantities... 

Thanks for any insights and I hope to contribute as much as I learn... 

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End of Mead Lover's Digest #1498 
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