by seymour » Thu Jan 02, 2014 2:07 pm
One pound of honey per one gallon of water is a basic recipe for table-strength "standard" mead. Of course, the stronger "sack" mead is what many people aim for, which obviously requires much more honey (or much less water.)
One pound of honey in one gallon of water produces about 35 gravity points, so 1 lb ≈ 1.035 original gravity
If you in fact have 1.5 lb, that should equate to something like 1.053 original gravity in 1 gallon of water. That sounds like a pretty good starting point to me!
This probably goes without saying, but you should weigh your honey container while it's full, and then weigh it again once it's empty after brewing. The difference is the exact amount of honey used, which you'll want to record on your log in case you ever want to reproduce or scale-up the recipe.
Best of luck!