Feedback on adding cocoa to cherry cough syrup (...mead)

blue800 · 01-09-2010, 07:34 PM

So I just transferred a mead that is about 6 months old now. I added a lot of sweet cherries before I realized I should have used sour cherries. So every tasting I've done since then (3) has been awful...like cough syrup. Today I just checked gravity and moved to another carboy to get it off the yeast cake and its down to 1.009 and is at least bearable (still bad). As I'm drinking the hydro sample I'm trying it with other flavors (lemonade and beer aren't very good. Then I tried it with some chocolate and realized that could make the mead enjoyable. (yes I've seen the chocolate mead exp thread)

The question I have is...there is no danger in adding another ingredient now is there?

I was thinking of going a year...but if I introduce this new ingredient, should I restart my bottling clock and go a year from now? Anyone ever try cocoa nibs instead of cocoa powder?

Thanks

DragonTail · 01-10-2010, 04:04 PM

If you can find some chocolate extract, then you can do test samples to figure out how much to add to make the batch taste how you want.
Take a small size sample of your base mead, measure the size of the sample, mark down how much extract it takes to make the sample taste good, and then scale up to find out how much extract to add to the main batch.
128oz per gal, so 5 gal = 640oz. If using a 4oz sample, multiply the amount of extract in the sample by 160 to know how much to use in the full batch.
Hope that helps.

Yan · 01-10-2010, 04:55 PM

Six months is young for a mead. Let it age longer. It will be better. I've made wine with sweet cherries and that cough syrup taste is around for a while, but it will go away. In a mead, I'm sure it would take even longer to get out of there. I would bottle it and forget about it for at least a year, probably two myself.

Meadmama1 · Today, 01:35 AM

I find the chocolate goes good with the sweet cherries, but the powder takes a long time to age out. I get better results with nibs

**fatbloke** · Today, 07:53 AM

On the cocoa or chocolate addition ? Dunno, never tried it but.......

One the question of additional ingredients added late, its about adding further fermentable sugars. If the original brew didn't reach the max alcohol tolerance of the yeast, or if the brew hasn't been either stabilised/sterile filtered, then there would be the likelihood or at least the possibility of refermentation occurring. So bottling would be a no-go, because of "bottle bombs".