I'm new to mead making so let me give a bit of background on what I've done so far. I started a mead earlier this month with 1 quart of local honey and enough local mineral water to fill the 1 gallon carboy. I read an article by Jereme Zimmerman and gave it a try, after 4 days it was chugging right along so I airlocked it in a carboy. It's been bubbling along ever since and after 12 days the Brix reading was 15. I just got the hydrometer today so I have no earlier reading to go off of.
Flush with success I thought about doing another batch with cherry juice so I bought 2 quarts of organic, no preservative added cherry juice and added the 1 quart of honey and waited. Nothing. Eventually I asked and somebody told me that yeast has a hard time with that much sugar so I divided it into 2 separate 1 gallon containers and topped off with mineral water. The one with the larger opening got going after a day or so, the one with the smaller opening was lagging behind. Today I strained the faster batch and put it in an airlocked carboy. I backslopped the slower batch with a bit of mead from my very first batch. OK, all that and now the question! When I took the brix reading of the faster cherry batch the brix read 17, so technically a higher alcohol content than my first batch??? I know that can't be right. So what gives?