Cyser (Apple mead ☠ ☺) part 2.

Ok, so I got a bit impatient and have just been through the very messy process of filtering/straining/pressing the juice to remove as much of the dry matter from the apples as I can.

I've still got about 10 litres or so, but am now waiting to see if the fermentation kicks in again, as the filter/press/strain thing tends to knock the guts out of it.

I'm also trying to work out how the hell I can get a rough idea of the gravity of the juice before I pitched the yeast and started the ferment.

The apple juice itself, was about 1.050 - I know that from letting the pulp sit with the sulphite and pectolase, and then managing to take a bit of a sample from below the cap of dry matter/pulp that had settled on top of some of the juice.

I also know, since I remembered to take a reading about 20 minutes ago after I did the strain/press/filter thing - it's currently back down at 1.055 (bare in mind that just the juice was at 1.050 so pretty much all the sugars in the honey have been fermented now).

I just don't know how to work out what the likely gravity the addition of the 3lb of honey to the 1.050 juice might have been - I know there's a way of working it out (albeit not very accurately), but I don't know what that method might be......

edit - I've just found a document on the net, that says "3lb of honey in a gallon gives a specific gravity of about 1.090" - so as there was about 2 gallons of juice @ about 1.050, then that would suggest that with the honey and the elderberry juice, I can make the presumption that the starting gravity would have been about the 1.095 to 1.100 range - I'm not fussed about accuracy particularly but it's nice to have a few numbers to be able to guess what's going on and how far the batch has to run - with D21 it should, theoretically, ferment dry - if I haven't managed to kill the yeast when doing the filtering/straining etc.....

Either way, I will consider the moving of the liquid during that process, it's last aeration.....