Way too high OG - 1.500. Any way I can fix it?

[pushok]

Hi everyone! I made a mistake and am looking forward to potentially fix it – just my hope.

Here is my case: yesterday I made batch of mead which should become a pineapple melomel in future... I used a “batch builder” to calculate needed amount of mead, Fermaid-O and Go-Ferm for certain ABV level and sweetness… When I measured SG before I added yeast slurry it was 1.150. Now I realized that I had to remove certain volume of must and add some water to lower must’s gravity… I didn’t. I pitched the yeast and in 21 hours I can see only very-very weak bubbling…. Usual bubbling at this point of time is pretty vigorous. So… What I didn’t do when I had to, I am planning to do today: remove some must and replace with water. My questions for you are:

• Should I go this way or there are any other potential ways to fix it?
• If I go this way, should I add any extra amount of yeast? If I should, can I add different kind of yeast because I don't have same yeast at the moment?

Here are details on my batch:

I was planning to go up to 18 ABV and have semisweet (1.015) mead

4 gallons batch

Room temperature 60F

16 pounds of honey

2 gallons of spring water

2 packets of Lalvin 1118 yeast

Go-ferm: 12.5g

Using TOSNA 2.0 protocol


I am looking forward to your suggestions, advices, help.... Thank you all!

 

[Squatchy]

Don't add other strains. They compete with each other. Buy some of the same yeast off Amazon, so it will show up fast. Then, rehydrate like you did. After you have waited until you see proof of fermentation, start. (Bubbles and gas) then add half a gallon of your must and the same amount of water to it. Now let the temps get equal to each other. Now you can slowly. Over a few hours, add 1/4 the amount of must to your slurry. Wait an hour or two, and then add another 1/4th. Yes, it will be more. After a few of those, you will now have a new batch, so to speak. Feed it some. One does what you are feeding the main batch. Let it sit for 24 hours or so. Give or take a while. It's not super important on the time frame. Then, slowly add must to that batch in the same way as before. Until you have all your mead together now.

What we did is build up a strong army and let it reproduce a few times. This gives you a bigger army. And then we slowly did what we did so the yeast could slowly, over time. Get used to the higher gravity.
We lowered the ABV from 20% to maybe 18 or so. That yeast is a beast. Keep your stuff on the cool side until it's done. Let me know next time you want to make a high-power mead. There are a few precautions I can teach you to help you help the yeast to get it done.

As soon as you read this. Go stir the hell out of your mead. Or shake it big time to try and add more O2 to the batch if you had known. Doing that a bunch over the first 2-3 days would have supemaned the shit out of your yeast. You can still do this for your new yeast. But it's probably too late for the first ones.

 

[pushok]

Thank you very much, Squatchy and I appreciate your comment! Good to know (for my future meads) but I guess this will be a bit late: I have to order the same yeast from Amazon and even with Prime membership I will be able to receive them (best case scenario) in two days. This give me at least 96 hours since I started this batch.... Please let me know if I am wrong.
Regarding to high-power mead: absolutely! Definitely I would like to learn how achieve nice result with that. and will let you know when I am ready. Thank you!