Developing A recipe and need some help.

[lurch chaos]

Hey all,

I have been a craft brewer and mead maker for quite some time, What has be stumped is with distilling how high apv should my Wash be?

I have 10 lbs of blackberry puree and 5 lbs of honey.

in a 5 gal pot.

The blackberry has a brix of 6.5 to 8.0 and honey is 70 to 88..

my ABV calculator on the Got Mead site tells me that i should be able to get to a initial Wart SG value for a 4.5 gallon to be 1.108 with a finishing ABV of 14.37%.

Now I'm pitching Lalvin K1-V1116 Wine Yeast which has alcohol tolerance of18% and using Fermaid O which should dry it almost out. May be get ABV to 16 if I'm lucky.

Am I shooting to high for a blackberry brandy? Or should i wait till the Lavin finishes and drop a 1 or 2 lbs of honey and re pitch with White labs WLP099 - Super High Gravity Ale. That should dry it all the way as it can handle up to 25%.

Here is to a nice jar of Shine!