Stalled Bochet
 

I have a bochet that seems to be stalled and I could use some help. Stats below

Started: 11-18-12
Yeast: EC-11118
SG: 1.170 (yeah, I know REALLY high)
Volume: 1 US gallon

Just added 5lbs costco honey burnt to black and 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient.

Added a second yeast packet after one day when no fermentation was visible at all. I think my water for re hydrating the first packet was too hot and killed the yeast. Fermentation got underway after that. Five days later I added another half tsp of nutrient, and another half a week after that. Regularly swirling the whole time to degas.

It has been pretty calm for about a week, today got a gravity of 1.060. I added more nutrient, about two dozen rasins and degassed. Thinking it is stalled, as EC-1118 should have taken it down a lot lower. According to my hydrometer it's at about 8.5% ABV, and I should have gotten near another 10% ABV out of this yeast.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

First of all going from 1.170 to 1.06 should have you sitting at around 14.3% ABV. I am betting starting that high of a gravity and not doing a large starter you may only be able to hope for a gravity down to 1.028 - 1.030. See where it is over the next week since you just added some more nutrients. Are you using Just DAP or a yeast nutrient that has other ingrediants like yeast hulls? If you are just using DAP then it may be worth it to get some Yeast energizer or any brand of the Tan powder type nutrient & add 1 tsp of that & see if it picks up. If it is really stalled and the nutrients do not seem to be the culprit then PH might be an issue with that much honey in the mix. You can pick up some PH test strips at the LHBS and if it is bellow 3.2 then it may be good to get some potassium Bicarbonate to raise the ph which should be just over 3.4 up to 4.0 Max.

If all that fails and the mighty ec-1118 yeast has stalled!?! Then my suggestion would be to make a second gallon batch of Bochett with only 2 lb of honey. Go ahead and pitch a different yeast like Lalvin K1-V1116 to get a different flavor profile and let it ferment dry and then blend the two. Let us know where it goes.

Are you sure it's stalled? Did you take multiple measurements over a week with no change in gravity?

Perhaps I am reading my hydrometer wrong, but at the onset it gave me a potential of 22%, at 1.060 it says 15%. From what the documentation says, and it makes sense mathematically, you subtract the current potential, from the starting potential, and that gives you the current ABV. I was afraid that I'd have to split it out. I'm moving in a month so can't start anything new for a while. I'll bottle it for now, start something lower ABV potential with KV-1116, and when their ready to blend I'll do that. Thanks for the advice. Day out and still no action after the nutrients had been added.

I'm sure it was stalled. The measurement didn't budge over a two week period.

After a few days got no activity still. Split the 1 gal batch out to two gallons, watered up, added bit of wildflower honey, and split a fresh starter between the two. We'll see if this works.

There is another post in this forum about someone having problems with Costco honey, though I think in your case it was the high OG, but there might be a common problem with that honey? WVMJ

I think you are right about the high OG. I probably should have step fed the honey in. Today it is bubbling away, so it appears to have unstalled. I'll be adding nutrients every two days to make sure it stays healthy, and degassing. At the moment it has a very smoky flavor with some fruity notes. Not sure how I feel about it yet...

You may be overreacting by adding nutrients every couple of days, once yeast reach a certain point they cant use the nutrients. On your smokey note, did you do to good a job burning your honey? I just started my own Boche after reading posts about how to do it on this forum, we carmalized ours in a canner so there was no possiblitly of really burning it. Take a picture of your Boche! WVMJ

Oh, I took it to dark, but I thought it was about the same level that I'd seen in other posts

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