Mead #3 – We’ll be popping bottles
For Mead #3 we’re going to swap from capping the meads and switch to my preferred method of bottling swing top bottles. While they’re more expensive than capped bottles, partly due to capped bottle are almost free if you or anyone you know drinks bottled beer. The swing top bottles can be sealed or even resealed without any special equipment. Which unless you always finish ever bottle of mead you open, resealing is helpful.
You can pick up a case of 12 swing top bottles from amazon for about $30 https://amzn.to/2o4qpCM that’s about $2.50 a bottle. That not a bad price if you plan on making this a regular hobby.
An alternative more my style is visit your local beer or liquor store and find swing top beers, wines, or meads for sale such as Grolsch, Flensburger, or Superstition mead. Grab your friends and enjoy them. Then clean those bottles to refill. See recycling can be fun!
Along with the new bottles We’re going to use an auto-siphon and bottle filler for bottling. An auto-siphon is basically a hand-pump that starts the siphoning effect.
Auto-siphon’s come in different sizes for different sizes of fermentation vessels. We will be using a mini-siphon which is made to better fit the one gallon vessels we’re making mead in (https://www.northernbrewer.com/products/fermenters-favorites-rack-magic-mini-siphon).
On the other end of the tube connected to our auto-siphon we have a bottle filler. A bottle filler is essentially a plastic tube with a plug on the end. When you insert the tube into a bottle and press the plug against base the plug will raise and let the mead out.
Once a bottle is filled we raise the filler (https://www.morebeer.com/products/bottle-filler-removable-spring-38.html) and the plug seals the line. After we remove the filler from the bottle we will have the needed head room and can closed the swing top sealing the bottle.
We’re sure the question everyone is wondering after all the this is what was the final gravity on Mead #3 and why does it sound like they never checked? The final gravity for Mead #3 is 0.998. When we compare the 0.998 to the original gravity of 1.062 using the equation (76.08 * (OG–FG) / (1.775-OG)) * (FG / 0.794), we see the sugars the yeast converted to alcohol bring us to an ABV of 8.58%. That a bit more than 2 bud lights per bottle. So if you make your own drink responsibly.
| Original Gravity | 1.062 |
| Second Gravity | 1.001 |
| Third Gravity | 0.998 |
| ABV 1* | 8.584 |
| ABV 2* | 8.4 |
| Calories from Alcohol (12oz) | 168.524 |
| Calories from Mead (12oz) | 32.493 |
| Total Calories (12oz) | 201.016 |
| Start Date | 08/26/2018 |
| Primary Temp in Fahrenheit | 72 |
| Primary Length in days | 18 |
ABV 1 formula: (76.08 * (og-fg) / (1.775-og)) * (fg / 0.794)
ABV 2 formula: (og – fg) * 131.25
Calories from Alcohol formula: 1881.22 * FG * (OG-FG)/(1.775-OG)
Calories from Mead Formula: 3550.0 * FG * ((0.1808 * OG) + (0.8192 * FG) – 1.0004)
Calories Total Formula: Calories from Alcohol + Calories from Mead