Mead Recipe Calculator

Alcohol in mead comes from yeast eating the sugar in honey. The relationship brewers use is ABV ≈ (OG − FG) × 131.25, where OG is the original gravity of your must and FG is the gravity once fermentation finishes. Your sweetness choice sets the FG — roughly 1.000 for dry, 1.010 for semi-sweet, and 1.020 for sweet — and the target ABV then fixes the OG you need to hit.

To reach that OG, the calculator uses honey’s standard extract of about 35 gravity points per pound per gallon. It multiplies the gravity points you need by your batch volume and divides by 35 to get the honey weight, then subtracts the volume the honey itself occupies to tell you how much water to add. The result is a must that starts at the right gravity to finish at your chosen strength and sweetness.

1 gal · 12% ABV · dry (FG 1.000)

OG = 1.000 + 12 ÷ 131.25 = 1.091

Honey = 91 pts × 1 gal ÷ 35 = 2.6 lb

More honey means a higher starting gravity and more potential alcohol, but only if your yeast can ferment that far. A dry 12% mead needs about 2.6 lb of honey per gallon; push to a 16% dessert mead and you are closer to 4 lb per gallon. Any honey works, though lighter varietals like clover and orange blossom are forgiving for a first batch while buckwheat or wildflower add bolder character.

Match the strain to the job. Lalvin 71B softens acidity and suits fruit meads; D47 is a clean traditional choice for dry to semi-sweet; K1-V1116 and EC-1118 tolerate up to 18% for strong or sweet meads and can restart a stuck ferment. If you want a mead that stays sweet without back-sweetening, a low-tolerance strain like Wyeast Sweet Mead is the exception that finishes early on purpose.

Honey is nutrient-poor, so yeast needs help to ferment cleanly. The calculator gives a total Fermaid-O dose using the TOSNA 2.0 method — sugar concentration times a yeast nitrogen factor times batch size. Split that total into four equal additions at 24, 48, and 72 hours after pitching, with the last at the one-third sugar break, rather than dumping it in at once. Warm the water, dissolve the honey fully, and confirm your OG with a hydrometer before pitching.

Rehydrate your yeast, pitch into a must at 18–21°C (65–70°F), and add your first nutrient dose after the ferment is visibly active. From there, take gravity readings every few days; when it holds steady for three days you are at FG. Stabilise and back-sweeten if desired, then rack and age — most meads reward at least a few months of patience.

Gravity misses the target

If your measured OG comes in under target, stir in a little more honey; if it is over, add water to bring the gravity down. A ferment that stalls short of FG usually points to a yeast at its tolerance limit or a nutrient shortfall — check the strain warning and confirm you staggered nutrients.

Mead finishes too sweet or too dry

A mead that finished sweeter than planned often means the yeast quit early; a bone-dry result when you wanted sweetness means you either under-honeyed or used too tolerant a strain. Log your OG, FG, yeast, and honey each batch and the recipe gets more repeatable every time.