Adjusting the Amount of water when using Honey...

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LawMonkey

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As mentioned elsewhere, I'm currently trying a three gallon batch of blueberry wine/melomel, following Terry Garey's recipe. She calls for either 2.5 lb sugar or 3 lb honey per gallon. The recipe also calls for 3.75 qts of water per gallon, regardless of whether sugar or honey is used.

Honey takes up a fair bit of space in the pot--I figured out that the 9 pounds of honey I used was roughly three quarts. Given that I was rapidly running out of room in the brewpot, I omitted about three quarts of water from the recipe.

Should I add this water back in? It seems like the result would be an excess of must--more than three gallons; probably closer to four. But I've not sulfited (must is still too damn hot) or pitched yeast or anything yet, so it'd be quite easy to add cooled boiled water to the primary. Thoughts?
 
So let met get this straight:

The recipe asked for adding 3.75 quarts of water per gallon and you did just that
but left out 3 quarts.

Ok the question is of course how many gallons are you making ?

For example:
if the recipe needed 30 quarts of water and you omitted 3 quarts then you
have left out 10% of the needed water which will give you a higher alcohol
percentage as the recipe was made for. But it would work out.

Now if the recipe called for 10 quarts of water, you would have omitted 30%
which is far too high and with all that sugar I wonder if it will ferment at all.

So please give us some more details.
Or even better measure SG and acidity and then we can tell more.

Luc Volders
 
I'm making three gallons. The recipe, as adjusted for three gallons, would be:

11.25 qts water
9 lbs. honey
6 lbs. blueberries
6 tsp. acid blend
3/8 tsp. tannin
3 tsp. yeast nutrient
1.5 tsp pectic enzyme
3 campdens

I've not taken a gravity reading yet, but will a little bit later today. That was part of my plan--to see if it seemed unreasonably high, and add the water if it did.
 
I adjusted the gravity down to about 1.094 with my boiled, cooled water, thereby (I hope!) solving my own problem. ;)
 
Yup looks like you answered your own question. The honey will dissolve in the water for those reading which will eliminate the added space. Much like dissolving sugar in the liquid. I am sure it adds a little to the liquid volume but every Mead I have made the honey dissolves and the levels in the fermenter do not rise.
 

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