increasing abv after primary

[lethargy]

hey, quick question

i/ve got 2 5gal mead batches going right now. the intend was to create a mead with abv of a strong beer- i drink by quantity so strong brews arnt good for me. my initial goal was about 7-8% for both batches. after siting in primary for about a week, my air locks arnt burping any more, so i took an sg reading for both and pluged them into an abv calc, along with the initial sg's. one batch is currently sitting around 5.9%, and the other around 4.5%. this weekend im gonna transfer both over to carboys for secondary.

what im wondering is: i want to add some sugar or maybe more honey to boost the abv abit- not much just a few percentages. how much should i add? i know you probably cant give me a specific ammount like 1kg of sugar will increase by 3%. but roughly, how much do you guys think i should add to boost 4.5% and 5.9% up to 7-8%?

 

[sour_grapes]

Wait, why don't you start by telling us your initial SG and what it is now?

 

[salcoco]

two ounces or 4 table spoons of sugar will raise one gallon specific gravity by .005 take your abv measurements and fiddle with the numbers to get the starting sg you should have to get to 7% compare to actual starting sg then calculate the sugar addition. your problem will be that the fermentation may not restart. another method is using pearson's square to add alcohol to present batch once clear to get abv desired.

 

[cmason1957]

Wait, why don't you start by telling us your initial SG and what it is now?

The yeast you used and how much, if any nutrients you have given the yeast is also helpful.

 

[lethargy]

Wait, why don't you start by telling us your initial SG and what it is now?

The yeast you used and how much, if any nutrients you have given the yeast is also helpful.

initial gravity on cranberry mead was 1.05
initial gravity on traditional mead was 1.04

current sg on cranberry is 1.002
current sg on traditional is 1.004

both got lalvine ec1118 for yeast
both got yeast nutrient and energizer, as per instructions on packages (dont remember exactly how much i used, but i followed the instructions on the package- 'xxmg per gallon'

the current sg's are as of like 20min ago and i see that both have gone down some more since my last measurements

two ounces or 4 table spoons of sugar will raise one gallon specific gravity by .005 take your abv measurements and fiddle with the numbers to get the starting sg you should have to get to 7% compare to actual starting sg then calculate the sugar addition. your problem will be that the fermentation may not restart. another method is using pearson's square to add alcohol to present batch once clear to get abv desired.

im kinda wondering if the yeast are still active, and just dont have anything to eat. 2oz = 0.005sg? ok cool, that makes things easy (i hope) i thought i could just add sugar and take a new sg reading after every addition untill i get to the desired additional sg, but i didnt know if it worked like that- if sg to abv was a direct correlation, or if it was exponential or something.

i never thought about increasing the abv via adding alchahol directly, thats an idea, but if i could get the fermentation restarted that would be ideal- i wanna get an unadulterated taste if possible. not saying that adding something else will make it taste bad, its just with these two batches i got some unpasturized, raw honey from a local bee keeper which tasted phenominal on its own, so i wanna see exactly what it tastes like in mead form

 

[sour_grapes]

i thought i could just add sugar and take a new sg reading after every addition untill i get to the desired additional sg, but i didnt know if it worked like that- if sg to abv was a direct correlation, or if it was exponential or something.

It is not strictly linear. But linear is a DAMN GOOD approximation in this regime.

 

[Noontime]

I'd be surprised if EC1118 didn't bring it down well below 1.000 unless there's an environmental issue (temp, etc). I know this was almost 2 weeks ago... did adding sugar help?