I have a traditional Mead that had a starting gravity of 1.125 and is stuck at 1.060. The yeast was 71B I tried adding another packet of EC 1118 and still not budging. The last time this happened to me when I made a Bochet, I made another batch that was much drier and I blended the two. I really don’t want to do that again, so what other ideas are there to get this down from 1.060? Thanks
Did you oxygenate when adding ec1118 and make sure it was warmish, maybe mid sixties or so? The only time I had a stuck fermentation it involved a big downward temperature change so try to keep a stable temperature if you are not already.
I did not oxygenate, but just swirled the carboy. It’s been at a steady 62 degrees. I could bring it upstairs where it’s warmer.
i dont have a solution but just curious, did you use one pack of yeast or two? and volume of honey-water wort?
I used 2 packets of yeast. Without checking my notes, I think it was 16 lbs of honey to 4 gallons of water.
I find that once a high gravity mead stalls out, there’s not much you can do to get it to go much further. I’ve had meads in the 1.130 OG range finish in the 1.050’s more than once, and I’ve never been able to get them to go down much lower. I’d be surprised if you can get this to go much further, unfortunately.
Did you use a staggered nutrient addition schedule? 71B can attenuate pretty far, but it needs to be babied a bit in my experience.