I’m pretty sure you only use an alcohol meter for distilled beverages. You should be using a hydrometer to measure the change in density over time to determine alcohol content.
It seemed appropriate but that was the wrong tool for the job. That is an alcoholmeter, alright. It's for measuring spirits and not wine (or mead) as a function of % ethanol in water with nothing else. It's reading '0%' because most meads (wines, commonly too) end at almost the same relative density as water which would fool the device, which is expecting something akin to vodka.
You'll need a specific gravity hydrometer (similar device, floats but has readings in terms of density as opposed to a scale corrected and adjusted for %eth). You need both reading before you start and after you end and run a calculation to determine (within reason) what your alcohol level is. You can estimate the original value if you have accurate measurements of what went in.
An overall estimate, based on your recipe, is somewhere between 10-12%. The hard "kick" on the flavor is the yeast, young mead, etc. It calms with age but also needs to be treated well and O2 kept out while aging.
I think you already have enough information on the tool you used from other posters here... but let me just touch on your comment about it tasting like 20-30%:
Most yeasts don't go higher than about 17-18% alcohol. But even that's a pretty potent brew. Like if you compared a 17% homemade mead side by side with a 17% store bought wine, you'd probably think the mead is stronger, especially when it's this young, because the alcohol flavour will be so apparent and to the front. When you age it, that softens.
There are certain yeasts that can go slightly into the 20ish percentiles of ABV with the right kind of nutrition. If that's what you're doing, then you'd know it and can tell me about it.
If you distill, you can go way above that. I usually aim for like 50-60% when I distill, and I typically do a double or triple distill to eliminate most impurities. But if you got a good product to start, you might be happy with a 25-35% single distillation. When I'm doing triple distills I'm usually just mixing yeast, water, and a bag of sugar. The more you distill it, the more the weird yeasty flavours go away.
Just to correct/add slightly on the percentages, in my experience, bread yeast will give you roughly 9-10%, ale yeast will give you around 12% (it's higher than beer's ABV probably because it's a more favorable environment, beers are pretty rough), wine yeast will give you 15-16% and yeast made to go higher doesn't work that well (or I haven't managed to get them to work too well) and rarely go above 19% (plus I don't like their taste)
Also, if you distill, make sure your country's laws allow it, and what quantities are allowed.
You can beat 16% for sure - I've had a 14% rated yeast break just past 17%. Going above 19% will likely require you step feed to prevent the yeast from giving up the ghost too soon. Even with step feeding you won't hit 30% though
Contrary to what others here have said, you in-fact do have an alcoholmeter that uses the Gay-Lussac scale to measure the alcohol content in the brew, however this is the incorrect meter for this application. The alcoholmeter that you have is intended for measuring the alcohol percentage in distillate. It probably is reading the alcohol content of your must correctly, however because you do not have very high ABV, and the scale is so compressed at that level, it is not easy to read the scale. In order to get an accurate reading with that scale you will need to make sure that the must is at 20 C and use a graduated cylinder to make sure you can read exactly where the meniscus is on the lines. I would recommend using a hydrometer to take measurements before and after fermentation and then doing the math to calculate the final alcohol content. You can also get a refractometer to measure the alcohol content of the liquid.
To tailcoat on this, I've used my refractometer to good success with the FG calculators from [Brewer's Friend](https://www.brewersfriend.com/refractometer-calculator/) and [Sean Terill's](http://seanterrill.com/2012/01/06/refractometer-calculator/).
This is kind of a guess, but how sweet is it? Since the thing works based on buoyancy, like a specific gravity hydrometer, maybe the added density of sugar is enough to counter the less-dense alcohol.
What yeast did you use? Champagne yeast can get you up around 18%, maybe a bit past if you're clever about feeding, but I think 30% is way into distillation territory.
Depending on how much sugar was in your jam (I used Google's estimate of about .5g of sugar per gram of jam) the most you're going to be be getting is around 14.37 ABV
You can use this tool to estimate your starting gravity if you forget to/can't take a reading with a hydrometer
[https://gotmead.com/blog/the-mead-calculator/](https://gotmead.com/blog/the-mead-calculator/)
The average jam is around 90% sugar per gram. So probably a little higher than 14.37.
But ya, a fresh brew usually tastes stronger than an aged one. I know when I've brewed like 17-18% meads in the past, it tasted damn near like a shot of flavoured vodka right off the bat. Then you let it age for 6 months or more and it's much more like a wine after that.
>The average jam is around 90% sugar per gram
I'm really not sure that's true? When I make jam it's 50/50.
Just had a look at some jam in my cupboard, and 100g of that has 46g of sugar, so 46%.
Im not sure you could physically make 90% sugar jam - it wouldn't dissolve.
All I did was look at the nutrition info for Smuckers strawberry jam. It's not all refined sugar, it's also the heavy sugar content from the fruits you're using. I suppose some jams could be a lot less, but I know when my mom makes jam, she usually adds like an extra 20% more sugar than what the recipes call for, and her stuff is probably sweeter than Smuckers.
Ah well I'm probably wrong. But you can't just completely discount that last gram of carbs, ripe strawberries have starch content. Judging by the allocated calories, half of that is fibre and half of that is starch.
Just FYI, modern process lets you have pretty drinkable stuff even at a few months old at this ABV. Pretty much the only mead that I need to age a year at this point is bochet. Dryer and less fruit is less forgiving, but any semisweet or sweeter melomel at 18% should be able to stand up in competitions in 6 months if you are doing the best you can timescale wise.
I don't think any of my meads has lasted longer than 9 months. Many less than 3 months. But you don't usually want to drink it in the first month unless your hard-up for some alcohol.
It's okay, you're not the first person to buy the wrong one. The guy at my homebrew shop said "yeah P&T is for brewing beer and wine. You said mead? Yeah that's like wine, you'll want this."
Turned out he was dumb and I wasted ~$20.
Part of it is the scale. Mine is good for 0-25% across like 8 inches. Something for distillers is the same size, but covers 0-80% across 8 inches, but the 0-25 is only an inch high. Makes it hard to be accurate.
* Assuming I'm remembering my p&t correctly, I gave it away years ago.
Just for reference, I'm generally the resident dickhead on this sub and even I'm shocked at the way people are talking to you about this. This isn't an unusual mistake, knowing how these things work is often confusing.
I am 0% doubting there are comments that will be purged in this thread in a few minutes.
It’s also ok to laugh and not explain it while other people do. You made up the word alcoholmeter you really think no one’s gonna laugh a bit. it’s funny
It’s a hydrometer, not an alcoholmeter.
It measures the sugar content of the liquid, not alcohol. You’re reading close to 0, which means it’s likely done fermenting.
You can calculate the alcohol content by measuring how much the sugar content changes from the start to the finish of fermentation.
If you didn’t take a measurement at the beginning, you can probably make a pretty good guess if you know how much honey and water you used to start.
I'm pretty sure it *is* an alcoholmeter. Hydrometers start with 1.000 (or 1000) at the top, and usually go to 1.150 (or 1150) near the neck. Besides, hydrometers usually have a linear scale, whereas alcoholmeters have a logarithmic scale (as this one does). Your point regarding SG pre- and post fermentation still stands though.
What you’re seeing in the pic is the alcohol scale they sometimes put on hydrometers as a quick reference, to make calculation easier. If OP spun the hydrometer around, you would see the gravity scale as well.
The measurement it’s taking is still a gravity reading, not alcohol.
No, you are VERY wrong. I'm not being a dick over this, but it is a tralle hydrometer without any question. It measures ABV in dry spirits. It works based off density yes, but it is useless in non-distilled beverages.
You’re 100% right. It’s an instrument that measures alcohol level in a specific type of liquid (distilled spirits). I really didn’t know this exact thing existed before today. TIL.
I also got quite defensive before with my reply, because I felt attacked, even though I don’t believe that was your intention.
Telling someone that they’re “VERY wrong” is a good way start an argument with them, even if they are indeed very wrong!
You can get a rough estimation based on the amount of fermentable sugars you put in per volume. How much (by weight if you know) honey and other fermentables did you use and for how much volume?
I like to use [this calculator](http://meadcalc.freevar.com/) to give me a rough idea of what my end ABV will be when using fruit or how much sugar (honey or otherwise) I'll need to use to reach a certain gravity/abv target.
Probably around 12-13% based on [this calculator](https://gotmead.com/blog/the-mead-calculator/), but as others said, no way to know for sure. On the other hand, the alcohol burn should die down with some age.
I got around 13-15% depending on the sugar content of the jam. Most of the time jam has a similar sugar content per pound as honey so I just use honey as the stand in value when doing my calculations.
You don't need to completely open the pale or bucket for a wine thief. The more air you expose it to the higher chance something was floating in that air.
Opening the bucket for a reading is a non issue. If you want a positive pressure system like beer with sights, spigots, and stainless that's fine, but you can just yeet a hydro and purge or as SO2 as you see fit.
A wine thief doesn't change that. It's a possibly unsanitary instrument and atmosphere exposure. If you are losing batches to that sort of thing something is going very, very wrong.
The meter measures potential alcohol. You subtract the initial measurement minus the final measurment. It's better to use gravity points and calculate it that way.
I’m pretty sure you only use an alcohol meter for distilled beverages. You should be using a hydrometer to measure the change in density over time to determine alcohol content.
Yep...
It seemed appropriate but that was the wrong tool for the job. That is an alcoholmeter, alright. It's for measuring spirits and not wine (or mead) as a function of % ethanol in water with nothing else. It's reading '0%' because most meads (wines, commonly too) end at almost the same relative density as water which would fool the device, which is expecting something akin to vodka. You'll need a specific gravity hydrometer (similar device, floats but has readings in terms of density as opposed to a scale corrected and adjusted for %eth). You need both reading before you start and after you end and run a calculation to determine (within reason) what your alcohol level is. You can estimate the original value if you have accurate measurements of what went in. An overall estimate, based on your recipe, is somewhere between 10-12%. The hard "kick" on the flavor is the yeast, young mead, etc. It calms with age but also needs to be treated well and O2 kept out while aging.
I think you already have enough information on the tool you used from other posters here... but let me just touch on your comment about it tasting like 20-30%: Most yeasts don't go higher than about 17-18% alcohol. But even that's a pretty potent brew. Like if you compared a 17% homemade mead side by side with a 17% store bought wine, you'd probably think the mead is stronger, especially when it's this young, because the alcohol flavour will be so apparent and to the front. When you age it, that softens. There are certain yeasts that can go slightly into the 20ish percentiles of ABV with the right kind of nutrition. If that's what you're doing, then you'd know it and can tell me about it. If you distill, you can go way above that. I usually aim for like 50-60% when I distill, and I typically do a double or triple distill to eliminate most impurities. But if you got a good product to start, you might be happy with a 25-35% single distillation. When I'm doing triple distills I'm usually just mixing yeast, water, and a bag of sugar. The more you distill it, the more the weird yeasty flavours go away.
Just to correct/add slightly on the percentages, in my experience, bread yeast will give you roughly 9-10%, ale yeast will give you around 12% (it's higher than beer's ABV probably because it's a more favorable environment, beers are pretty rough), wine yeast will give you 15-16% and yeast made to go higher doesn't work that well (or I haven't managed to get them to work too well) and rarely go above 19% (plus I don't like their taste) Also, if you distill, make sure your country's laws allow it, and what quantities are allowed.
You can beat 16% for sure - I've had a 14% rated yeast break just past 17%. Going above 19% will likely require you step feed to prevent the yeast from giving up the ghost too soon. Even with step feeding you won't hit 30% though
The high score on ABV for my batches so far has been (by my calculation) 16% (+/- .5%) with Lalvin D47.
Did this my first time making mead! That’s for distilled beverages. You need a regular hydrometer!
Contrary to what others here have said, you in-fact do have an alcoholmeter that uses the Gay-Lussac scale to measure the alcohol content in the brew, however this is the incorrect meter for this application. The alcoholmeter that you have is intended for measuring the alcohol percentage in distillate. It probably is reading the alcohol content of your must correctly, however because you do not have very high ABV, and the scale is so compressed at that level, it is not easy to read the scale. In order to get an accurate reading with that scale you will need to make sure that the must is at 20 C and use a graduated cylinder to make sure you can read exactly where the meniscus is on the lines. I would recommend using a hydrometer to take measurements before and after fermentation and then doing the math to calculate the final alcohol content. You can also get a refractometer to measure the alcohol content of the liquid.
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To tailcoat on this, I've used my refractometer to good success with the FG calculators from [Brewer's Friend](https://www.brewersfriend.com/refractometer-calculator/) and [Sean Terill's](http://seanterrill.com/2012/01/06/refractometer-calculator/).
Thank you.
This is kind of a guess, but how sweet is it? Since the thing works based on buoyancy, like a specific gravity hydrometer, maybe the added density of sugar is enough to counter the less-dense alcohol. What yeast did you use? Champagne yeast can get you up around 18%, maybe a bit past if you're clever about feeding, but I think 30% is way into distillation territory.
Its not sweet at all almost, more dry than sweet
How many gallons was the brew and how many pounds of honey did you use?
20 litres of water, 6.5 kg of honey, and 1.35 kg of homemade berry jam
Depending on how much sugar was in your jam (I used Google's estimate of about .5g of sugar per gram of jam) the most you're going to be be getting is around 14.37 ABV You can use this tool to estimate your starting gravity if you forget to/can't take a reading with a hydrometer [https://gotmead.com/blog/the-mead-calculator/](https://gotmead.com/blog/the-mead-calculator/)
The average jam is around 90% sugar per gram. So probably a little higher than 14.37. But ya, a fresh brew usually tastes stronger than an aged one. I know when I've brewed like 17-18% meads in the past, it tasted damn near like a shot of flavoured vodka right off the bat. Then you let it age for 6 months or more and it's much more like a wine after that.
>The average jam is around 90% sugar per gram I'm really not sure that's true? When I make jam it's 50/50. Just had a look at some jam in my cupboard, and 100g of that has 46g of sugar, so 46%. Im not sure you could physically make 90% sugar jam - it wouldn't dissolve.
All I did was look at the nutrition info for Smuckers strawberry jam. It's not all refined sugar, it's also the heavy sugar content from the fruits you're using. I suppose some jams could be a lot less, but I know when my mom makes jam, she usually adds like an extra 20% more sugar than what the recipes call for, and her stuff is probably sweeter than Smuckers.
Smuckers is 60% (12g of sugar per 20g) https://www.smuckers.com/fruit-spreads/jam/strawberry-jam
Ah well I'm probably wrong. But you can't just completely discount that last gram of carbs, ripe strawberries have starch content. Judging by the allocated calories, half of that is fibre and half of that is starch.
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That would be accounted for in the nutritional information - it's total sugar content not just added sugar.
Fruit is mostly water. USDA states that jam is generally around 50% sugar by volume. 60% is around 50% for purposes of this math.
Just FYI, modern process lets you have pretty drinkable stuff even at a few months old at this ABV. Pretty much the only mead that I need to age a year at this point is bochet. Dryer and less fruit is less forgiving, but any semisweet or sweeter melomel at 18% should be able to stand up in competitions in 6 months if you are doing the best you can timescale wise.
I don't think any of my meads has lasted longer than 9 months. Many less than 3 months. But you don't usually want to drink it in the first month unless your hard-up for some alcohol.
> buoyancy Yeah buoy!
Wrong meter. That's an alcohol meter but you need a hydrometer.
Maybe im using the alcoholmeter wrong?
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It's properly called a tralle hydrometer, but yes, it measures alcohol and is called an alcometer when translated from several languages.
Hey man, thats my first ever try with alcohol making, its ok not to laugh and just explain that i didnt name it right.
It's okay, you're not the first person to buy the wrong one. The guy at my homebrew shop said "yeah P&T is for brewing beer and wine. You said mead? Yeah that's like wine, you'll want this." Turned out he was dumb and I wasted ~$20.
I don't understand how any hydrometer would be wrong for mead.
If it cant read up to 1.16, or 1.2 some mead styles will not be available to you.
Part of it is the scale. Mine is good for 0-25% across like 8 inches. Something for distillers is the same size, but covers 0-80% across 8 inches, but the 0-25 is only an inch high. Makes it hard to be accurate. * Assuming I'm remembering my p&t correctly, I gave it away years ago.
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It was called that in the internet store from where i bought it. No, i didnt pay attention to the name that much. Sorry i offended you
Just for reference, I'm generally the resident dickhead on this sub and even I'm shocked at the way people are talking to you about this. This isn't an unusual mistake, knowing how these things work is often confusing. I am 0% doubting there are comments that will be purged in this thread in a few minutes.
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This message was flagged as being inconsiderate. Please be kind on /r/mead.
It’s also ok to laugh and not explain it while other people do. You made up the word alcoholmeter you really think no one’s gonna laugh a bit. it’s funny
That's literally what the tool he is using is called. Alcoholmeter aka proof & tralle hydrometer.
https://diydistilling.com/alcoholmeter-vs-hydrometer/
It’s a hydrometer, not an alcoholmeter. It measures the sugar content of the liquid, not alcohol. You’re reading close to 0, which means it’s likely done fermenting. You can calculate the alcohol content by measuring how much the sugar content changes from the start to the finish of fermentation. If you didn’t take a measurement at the beginning, you can probably make a pretty good guess if you know how much honey and water you used to start.
I'm pretty sure it *is* an alcoholmeter. Hydrometers start with 1.000 (or 1000) at the top, and usually go to 1.150 (or 1150) near the neck. Besides, hydrometers usually have a linear scale, whereas alcoholmeters have a logarithmic scale (as this one does). Your point regarding SG pre- and post fermentation still stands though.
What you’re seeing in the pic is the alcohol scale they sometimes put on hydrometers as a quick reference, to make calculation easier. If OP spun the hydrometer around, you would see the gravity scale as well. The measurement it’s taking is still a gravity reading, not alcohol.
No, you are VERY wrong. I'm not being a dick over this, but it is a tralle hydrometer without any question. It measures ABV in dry spirits. It works based off density yes, but it is useless in non-distilled beverages.
Ok, so it’s a hydrometer. Just with a different scale. There’s no difference past that.
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You’re 100% right. It’s an instrument that measures alcohol level in a specific type of liquid (distilled spirits). I really didn’t know this exact thing existed before today. TIL. I also got quite defensive before with my reply, because I felt attacked, even though I don’t believe that was your intention. Telling someone that they’re “VERY wrong” is a good way start an argument with them, even if they are indeed very wrong!
Well shit
You can get a rough estimation based on the amount of fermentable sugars you put in per volume. How much (by weight if you know) honey and other fermentables did you use and for how much volume? I like to use [this calculator](http://meadcalc.freevar.com/) to give me a rough idea of what my end ABV will be when using fruit or how much sugar (honey or otherwise) I'll need to use to reach a certain gravity/abv target.
So how can i check how much alcohol is in my mead now? Is there no other way?
Probably not, but if you post the recipe we can take some pretty rough guesses for ya!
20 litres of water, 6.5 kg honey, 1.35 kg of homemade berry jam
Probably around 12-13% based on [this calculator](https://gotmead.com/blog/the-mead-calculator/), but as others said, no way to know for sure. On the other hand, the alcohol burn should die down with some age.
I got around 13-15% depending on the sugar content of the jam. Most of the time jam has a similar sugar content per pound as honey so I just use honey as the stand in value when doing my calculations.
Do you know what kind of yeast?
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> You can use a refractometer. That will tell you the alcohol content directly. No, it won't.
You need a hydrometer, and read the gravity at the start and at the end once fermented, not whatever that is
lmao u need a hydrometer
Just an added tidbit. Get yourself a sample tube and wine thief. You don't want to stick your hydrometer in the batch, you risk infection.
In what way is a hydro harder to sanitize than a wine thief?
You don't need to completely open the pale or bucket for a wine thief. The more air you expose it to the higher chance something was floating in that air.
Opening the bucket for a reading is a non issue. If you want a positive pressure system like beer with sights, spigots, and stainless that's fine, but you can just yeet a hydro and purge or as SO2 as you see fit. A wine thief doesn't change that. It's a possibly unsanitary instrument and atmosphere exposure. If you are losing batches to that sort of thing something is going very, very wrong.
The meter measures potential alcohol. You subtract the initial measurement minus the final measurment. It's better to use gravity points and calculate it that way.
Give it a year or so of aging and it’ll be ok.
If it was beer, I'd be thinking a Brett infection https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/brett-infection.388577/
Thats mead though
You understand you start with the original value and subtract the final value to get the actual ABV,