Working with a bigger vat so I can have a lot of mead for 2025
Target ABV is 13% so this time I will add honey until it reaches the desired sweetness before I finish and add yeast.
https://www.hopsteiner.com/abv-calculator/
To hit 13% I have to have a starting gravity of roughly 1.1 and I have to have it consume all of the sugars so that it ends up with a 1. 0 final gravity.
now before I start mixing everything together and setting it to ferment I'm going to clean and disinfect the vats as well as all the equipment. so I'm going to use one step, no rinse cleaner.
Mix in a pitcher then start cleaning the vat.
Now we pour it
Taking the Vat filled with cleaner and shaking it around to clean it.
After it's been cleaned. it's now time to add 8 gallons worth of water which will become the liquid of our glorious mead.
Holding the Water dispenser got tiring so we engineered a way to hold it for us ;)
I realized that we didn't have a mixing stick. that's long enough for the 8 gallon vat. so with a stroke of engineering genius we created one
After it's been cleaned we now will start mixing the honey into it and measure until we hit 1.1 SG
The honey used:
After mixing we now test SG in the graduated cylinder with the alcohol Hydrometer.
we get 1.02
We need .08 more SG so we add in more honey
added more honey but we only got to 1.032 which would Make a 5% abv mead.
Micing in another honey type to add more sweetness.
Kirkland Signature RAW Unfiltered SoCal Honey
We realize that we don't need a graduated cylinder because we could put the alcohol hydrometer in the vat itself.
it seems like 1.04 SG is our final before running out of honey.
okay, now we're putting in the yeast which is a red star green packet Premier Cote des Blancs
now it's in and it needs some time to hydrate then will start to ferment.
Yeast fading away
final storage location and I'll get to enjoy this in 2025 😋
