He said this, they said that...

[Garrete]

I heard on another podcast, unless I heard wrong, to use 2:1 ratio of water to honey. When I look at recipes, I see 15lbs of honey. Was the 2:1 ratio a bunch of garbage?

[yabodie]

Use the amount of honey you want to get the OG you want. 2:1 or any other ratio is a crap shoot because honey varieties change in density ie sugar content, from year to year.

Also 15lbs of honey in what volume?

Seriously use the hydrometer to get the OG you want, not ratios.

[DannyW]

For making mead, I suppose? 2:1 in volume or weight?

I found 1 gallon (12#) of honey added to 4 gallons (32#) of water gave me an OG of 1.100. That's 4:1 by volume and 2.6:1 by weight.

2:1 by weight would be, what, about 1.130? That's workable I guess, but it has the potential to go to about 17%ABV if you yeast can handle it!

[Cosmic Charlie]

Not only do I not use metric, I'm inconsistent with my units. As a rule of thumb, I use 3 lbs of honey to each gallon of water (if that helps).

[Push Eject]

What exactly do you mean by "other podcasts"?

Push E.

[Lars]

Use the amount of honey you want to get the OG you want. 2:1 or any other ratio is a crap shoot because honey varieties change in density ie sugar content, from year to year.

Also 15lbs of honey in what volume?

Seriously use the hydrometer to get the OG you want, not ratios.

+1 I mix honey and water until I hit the OG I'm after, then stop.

[Dsb]

I use what I learned a bit ago about true Mead and confirmed in research and books and such

Dry Mead 8~10 lbs raw honey
Med Sweet 12~13 lbs raw honey
Wet and Sweet 13~15 lbs raw honey

Honey type is also an important factor raw honey is not what you get at Costco so I use lbs to any given 5 gal or more batch at the above ratios.

[UcfLumberjack]

there is no real ratio that always works, you have to factor your yeast into the situation.
1.02 = sweet mead. I like k1v1116, which hits around 16% (unless your using apple juice, then it hits 18ish....). So to make a sweet mead I make a must (mead wort) at like 1.145, which is about 2 gallons honey 4 gallons water. 1.125 is about 16% alcohol (my yeasts tolerance), so add .02 to make sure it will finish up sweet to arrive at 1.145ish.

Say I want to make a mead with Icvd47, which has a tolerance of around 14%, or 1.105, and I want it to finish sweet. 1.105 + .02 = 1.125 starting gravity. around 21# honey, 6 gallon total volume, fill the rest with water. (1.75 gal honey, 4.25 gal water).

I usually add all the honey to one gallon of water and mix it up really well then add water until it hits within about one gallon of the desired total volume, then check the gravity, add water, mix, check gravity, etc....

I use the gravity calculator over on gotmead.com, use the drop down menu that's labeled" recipes and mead making" or go here:

http://www.gotmead.com/index.php?option ... &Itemid=16