First time brew high abv? Did I screw up?

[digibrew]

I recently started home brewing on a whim after finishing my masters degree, and seeing a TikTok that made me realize it was something I was interested in.

I bought what I thought was a full homebrew kit for mead on Amazon (come to find out just a one gallon carboy, yeast a nutrient), some onestep sanitizer, hydrometer, and an auto syphon.

I started my brew on 4/5/23 with a recipe of:
1 gallon of well water - low sulphur content
3 lbs honey
24 ounces of raspberries
1 lb brown sugar
12.5 ounces pure maple syrup

I pitched 1 tsp of yeast with 1 tsp of nutrient
after my musk had cooled from 170° f to 115° f (I know a bit high but I was anxious, I didn't kill the yeast thankfully)

I tried to take an OG reading prior to pitching the yeast but my hydrometer sat way above the meniscus even after spinning.

The kit came red star premier côte des blancs active dry yeast.

I ended up with a REALLY active fermentation within hours of pitching the yeast, ran into my first overflow, had to figure that out.

It's now been 8 days, I took a hydrometer reading and I'm sitting at .990, if I use an approximation of say 1.2 (highest the hydrometer will go) that gives me an ABV of ~21%.

I googled that wine yeast and found it only has an alcohol tolerance of 12-14%...

I did a taste test and it tastes like a dry wine with high alcohol, but at this point I'm lost, did I screw up? Did my yeast somehow go above and beyond?

any guidance is appreciated!

 

[Ren06]

You probably do have 21%abv. The yeast you use cant read so it eats whatever sugars that are available. The fact that it went that high tells me you oxygenated it correctly and gave the correct yeast nutrition so you did nothing wrong.

I used D-47 for a blueberry melomel months ago and started with a OG of 1.149 or so and ended dry with 1.000 so that tells you the yeast does what it does.

Give it a few months and the alcohol burn will go away slowly but surely and you will have yourself some fine mead. Learn from this one and correct /tweak what you want in the future for next batches.

Welcome to meading

 

[digibrew]

You probably do have 21%abv. The yeast you use cant read so it eats whatever sugars that are available. The fact that it went that high tells me you oxygenated it correctly and gave the correct yeast nutrition so you did nothing wrong.

I used D-47 for a blueberry melomel months ago and started with a OG of 1.149 or so and ended dry with 1.000 so that tells you the yeast does what it does.

Give it a few months and the alcohol burn will go away slowly but surely and you will have yourself some fine mead. Learn from this one and correct /tweak what you want in the future for next batches.

Welcome to meading

Oh man that's exciting. I've got a second carboy set coming so I'll syphon and let it clarify when that gets here and let it set from there.

Once this ages I'm going to see if I can reproduce this in a larger batch and then try other recipes!

Also, Thank you for the response. You've made my day

 

[DBhomebrew]

You can get a 2Gal food safe bucket from Home Depot. Drill a hole, add a spigot, and you have a perfect primary vessel for 1Gal batches. Plenty of headroom, easy to degas, easy to add fruit. When primary is complete you'll have enough mead to fill a 1gal jug to its neck.

 

[digibrew]

You can get a 2Gal food safe bucket from Home Depot. Drill a hole, add a spigot, and you have a perfect primary vessel for 1Gal batches. Plenty of headroom, easy to degas, easy to add fruit. When primary is complete you'll have enough mead to fill a 1gal jug to its neck.

That's a good tip! I appreciate it, the downfall of jumping in head first into anything is you tend to find things out the hard way!

 

[bushpilot]

I tried to take an OG reading prior to pitching the yeast but my hydrometer sat way above the meniscus even after spinning.

I am doubting your OG, 21% seems a bit high for Red Star premier côte des blanc, even in the best of circumstances.

But I may be wrong ...

 

[digibrew]

I am doubting your OG, 21% seems a bit high for Red Star premier côte des blanc, even in the best of circumstances.

But I may be wrong ...

I honestly don't know, that's why I have my own doubts as well. My hydrometer stops at 1.170, I tried to do a rough measurment at scale from where it was sitting prior to pitching the yeast and it was ROUGHLY the equivalent of 1.2000, but I don't have an actual definitive number to go off. I also don't know how much the buoyancy coupled with the hydrometer measurements/scale differs at that point. So this is just a really rough estimate.

 

[T Murph]

Sounds like you have potential good mead going. It's but a new born, let it grow up. It will get better as it ages. Patients and respect the mead.

 

[ZapperMike]

Welcome and embrace your brewing addiction like the rest of us have!

 

[digibrew]

Sounds like you have potential good mead going. It's but a new born, let it grow up. It will get better as it ages. Patients and respect the mead.

That's encouraging to hear! Ive still got it going and in about another week I'm going to move it into it's secondary and let it age! I'm excited for it though, that's for sure!