The goal this month is to make a very large traditional mead with 1118, anywhere from 18% and up with some residual honey one way or another.

This requires good nutrition and process to make and be able to drink in a reasonable time frame, and even without that time heals a lot of the issues with high grav.

https://www.reddit.com/r/mead/wiki/process/process_summary#wiki_yan_calcs

That link can walk you through tailoring a nutrient regimen. If you post brew days about this challenge, try to include your YAN target, gravity (theoretical if doing staggered sugars) and temp. Part of this is to crowd source some data on what does and doesn't work at this gravity.

Personally I will be targeting 1.18 OG, with a FG of 1.015. This should get me in the ballpark of 20.5% and get me a great traditional to blend with as well as drink on it's own. I will be targeting 420 PPM YAN, using ~1g/L of each of fermk/fermo/DAP. This is a little heavy on the fermK and O for me compared to my traditional method and I want to compare it to some older 20%'rs that I have lying around. I will be favoring the inorganic nutes early and the riding it out on the fermO to the end with staggered sugars and nutes.

Do's

1. Staggered nutes

2. Temp control

3. Goferm!

4. 10g/gal pitch rate or more

5. Add some Oak!

Dont's

1. DAP only nutrient regimen

2. Pitch and forget.

3. Low YAN count.

Have fun, post any questions you have!