Found a mason jar the same size as that jar of honey, removed that much juice.
Montrachet yeast. A pinch of yeast nutrient.
Didn’t add the honey yet! I’m waiting on that. I’ll extrapolate the ABV from what I know about this juice and honey from experience, and give a rough calculation accurate to within 1/2 of 1% I’m sure.
Instead of accurate hygroing, I’m going to let the juice ferment for a day or three. Yep, giant yeast starter. Then in goes the honey; sanitize the cap and screw it back on; good shake-up; airlock and come back in a few months!
Well, rather than trying to pitch yeast into a honey-juice mixture that’s got tons of sugar, I pitched the yeast into just plain juice. Then when I add the honey, the juice will be like one giant starter. Similar concept to making a light 5% ABV pale ale and then pitching a 14% ABV barleywine on the left over yeast without cleaning the carboy.
Be careful with that. According to Jamil Zainashef yeast lose the ability to eat maltose in that sort of situation. True? I don’t know, but most of what he’s discussed has been accurate in my experience.
I dunno what maltose has to do with honey, but I just swirled the damn thing to degas it and the airlock exploded off! It took 20 minutes to get it stable and it still emits tons of CO2 when I swirl it around…
Man there’s like 200 pounds of CO2 in here ~_~
EDIT: Damn, I keep shaking it up, and the honey keeps settling at the bottom! What am I doing wrong… I need a stir plate…
Nope, used it for a big cyser batch. I’m estimating 9% ABV based on 1.044 gravity juice and honey giving me 0.022 per pound per gallon. 22 ounces honey (minus mechanical loss), 112 fl ounces of juice, 1 gallon total volume. Roughly 9.25% ABV (using abv == (gravity - 1) / .731) and a little loss from the honey might drop it to 9.1% +/- 0.25%
And as of now it’s bubbling away nicely, so I’d say it took to the honey well (I stirred it with one of those Better Bottle porting canes…could have used a racking cane I guess). I guess ferment and 4 months of aging should do it.