Hydrometer reading

[MakeMead101]

Hey everyone I’m new on here and I have a pretty stupid question, I just want to double check my mead batch hydrometer reading. I think I understand what the reading is but I just wanted to bounce it off of people with more experience as I’m a bit dyslexic when it comes to numbers and am still trying to understand the increments!!!

so I think that the reading is 1.122 ???

I’ve attached a picture of the hydrometer in the Must and a pic of me holding the hydrometer where the level was!!!

 

[MHB]

Yep 1.122, That's a big mead, what are you aiming at 14% or so?
Remember that your hydrometer will be calibrated at 20oC if its far from there it will be a bit out.
Hope you have lots of yeast and patience.
Mark

 

[MakeMead101]

Yep 1.122, That's a big mead, what are you aiming at 14% or so?
Remember that your hydrometer will be calibrated at 20oC if its far from there it will be a bit out.
Hope you have lots of yeast and patience.
Mark

Excellent cheers, yeah I’m hoping for 16% + and I made sure it was 20oC when I tested coz I’m not great at reading the gravity let alone adjusting for temp lol. I pitched 3 metric tablespoons of yeast and it started to ferment after an hour so I think it should be okay!!! Just hope I get full attenuation?!?

 

[MHB]

Well thats going to depend on 1/ the batch size and 2/ the type of yeast.
If we were talking 3Tbs of EC1118 in 5L, it'll kill it. If you used beer yeast no chance.
You might be better off with a refractometer, makes taking OG readings easy, can be used for progressive SG's and terminal gravities if you do a bit of calculation (or use an app).
Mark

 

[kadmium]

I would seriously consider hydrating yeast in goferm protect and then using a TOSNA 3.0 nutrient schedule doing mead.

I have mead and bochet aging at the moment, and you need to give serious consideration to rehydrating with goferm and TOSNA to get the best possible product. Honey is expensive, my Berry Bochet was probably $180 in honey and fruit for a 25L batch so $10 in nutrients and rehydration mix is a small investment.

 

[MakeMead101]

Well thats going to depend on 1/ the batch size and 2/ the type of yeast.
If we were talking 3Tbs of EC1118 in 5L, it'll kill it. If you used beer yeast no chance.
You might be better off with a refractometer, makes taking OG readings easy, can be used for progressive SG's and terminal gravities if you do a bit of calculation (or use an app).
Mark

Well the batch is 8.2kg honey made up to 22ltrs. Now I know I may get hung from the lamp post for this lol but I’m actually using lotus brand bakers yeast. I’ve used it for the same size batches in the past but have messed up the hydrometer reading so I’ve not ever known what attenuation/ABV I’ve reached. I will say that every time though they came out dryer than a Volkswagen radiator so I know that it has pretty good attenuation and the flavour has always been great, In fact doesn’t seem to impart much if any flavour at all and leaves the honey flavour in tact!!! So my plan at this stage is to map it’s performance properly this time then do the Pepsi max challenge with some wine and champagne yeasts to see how well it does against the recommended commercial yeast??? My only complaint about it’s performance in the past has been that it really doesn’t flocculate very well after primary fermentation, but it clears up alright after a week or so in secondary!!! So I’m really interested to see what the numbers actually say about it’s attenuation and ABV?!?

 

[MakeMead101]

I would seriously consider hydrating yeast in goferm protect and then using a TOSNA 3.0 nutrient schedule doing mead.

I have mead and bochet aging at the moment, and you need to give serious consideration to rehydrating with goferm and TOSNA to get the best possible product. Honey is expensive, my Berry Bochet was probably $180 in honey and fruit for a 25L batch so $10 in nutrients and rehydration mix is a small investment.

I’m just a home brewer, I’ve made some really nice mead without any nutritional addition at all with the yeast I normally use. But with this batch I’ve popped in 80g of pollen as a nutrient because it’s a bit colder than my previous batches and I thought that the yeast may struggle with the cold so a little nutrition may give them a bit of a leg up?!? And I wanted to see if it helps in general??? I am kinda regretting it now though because I want to know just how well this yeast performs on its own as I’ve messed up the hydrometer reading every time before so don’t have the hard numbers on it. So the pollen may help or hinder, ether way I won’t know for sure without a control batch!?! In any case I’ll definitely try some commercial nutrients in the future, but I want to nail down a good natural base first then work out from there trying different things and comparing methods etc!!!