Graff experiment

[Piston_Pounder]

Today I brewed up 4lbs of Maris Otter to get one gallon of wort with an OG of 1.085 then boiled that down to two quarts.

One quart each went into a one gallon jug and was topped off with Santa Cruz Organic apple juice. oG 1.072.

So I was left with two one gallon jugs of graff must which were prepared identically with identical ingredients and conditions. In one jug went us04, in the other went Montpellier. I've never brewed cider or Graff so I wanted to see which yeast is more to my liking.


Now for the fun part. I was left with about 1 quart of apple juice and one extra jug. I grabbed my pale DME and cooked it up into 2 quarts of water and added some sugar for good measure. Holy Moly. Final product measured 1.135. A little heavy. I threw in a pack of Montpellier and now we wait.


Yeast nutrient and Energizer went into all three. What are your estimates for the last jug of syrup? Will it ferment all the way? Will it vigerously overflow? How far will it ferment before getting stuck? Will it be worth it to make it ferment all the way if it does get stuck?

 

[SilverZero]

Montpelier has an advertised ABV tolerance of 18% so you should be fine at 1.135 even if it gets down to 1.010, which would be impressive. But that's if the yeast are happy and healthy. If you want to keep them going, do what the mead crew does and do stepped nutrient additions (SNA) at the beginning, then again after the gravity has dropped to 1.080, then again at 1.040, or something like that. You can find some more clear directions if you look up the BOMM recipe and instructions.

Degassing every day for a week might not be a bad idea either, to get some of the CO2 out and keep from poisoning the yeast.