The definitive way would be to us a hydrometer, when it doesn't change over a 3 or 4 day period, fermentation is either stuck, or finished.
Did you take a Starting Gravity reading?
It seems best practice to take at least 3 readings across about a week, so each individual reading is take about 3 days apart.
Obviously if it's still too high and miles from the tolerance of the yeast, then there's likely an issue of some sort.
It's a bit weird here, to my mind. Having a large number of beer making people, they seem to like to use the "all up front" technique to work out SG/FG etc and make the presumption that the yeast will just do it's thing continuously, as is more likely with a beer.
To my mind, that's poor practice, because honey can be strange stuff to work with, particularly when compared to beer wort.
If they did a bit more research, then I suspect there'd be more about lower gravity starts and step feeding, which is better and less stressful to the yeast.
It doesn't matter that a yeast might be capable of 18% ABV or whatever, too higher starts just stress the yeast or create the possibility of problems through osmotic shock.
In respect of the OP's point, JAO is designed so that there's enough sugar so that when it stops and settles/flocculates, the yeast is usually dead at it's alcohol tolerance - which is subject to conjecture because there's little information about the actual tolerance of bread yeast.
While the recipe doesn't mention the idea of taking gravity readings, possibly for many reasons, that doesn't mean to say you can't, to aid in the learning process and understanding the likely strength of your brew.
Sure, you'll only get an inaccurate set of numbers, because you can't get a perfect reading because of the fruit sugars in the orange and raisins, but it wouldn't be that far out.
From info over at
Gotmead, you'd find info that it's in the 1.125 to 1.135 sort of area on starting, and finishes in the 1.025 to 1.035 sort of area which equates to about 12 to 13.5% ABV - not bad for a yeast that's not intended to be any great shakes when it comes to alcoholic tolerance.........
