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MartyB · 02-05-2010, 08:20 PM

Just started this one.
12lbs local wildflower honey
35oz Mountain Ridge Honey (darker than the local wildflower)
1lb buckwheat honey
2-cans Oregon Fruit Puree Sweet Cherry Puree
Water to 6 gallons
2-pkgs Lalvin EC-1118 rehydrated in 80 deg water with some Yeast Energizer
5tsp Fermax yeast nutrient

OG- 1.104

Yes, I'm still too lazy for the SNA schedule. That's something I need to work on.

Heated 2 gallon of water on the stove. Had the honey warming in a hot water bath in the sink.
Combined hot water and warmed honey in brewpale.
Mixed the bejeezuz out of it (nice and frothy)
Added cherry puree mixing constantly
topped up to 6-gallon with cool filtered water mixing some more
Checked temp (83 deg)
poured in the rehydrated yeast/energizer/nutrient mixture
Started bubbling within 3 hours

Planning on racking this onto 5-6 split/scraped vanilla beans in 5-gal secondary.
After that letting it sit until clear and bulk aging as long as I can stand it.

Law_Brew · 03-30-2010, 02:38 AM

Sounds good, how is it coming along?

MartyB · 04-01-2010, 05:58 PM

SG was at 1.002 when I transferred to secondary onto the vanilla beans. That was 3 weeks ago. Been slowly clearing ever since.
It's a DEEEP, DEEP red color.

alaskajoe · 04-23-2010, 03:27 PM

I am brewing this as well, duplicating (mostly), your recipe. I ended up with an OG of 1090 (about 2 hours after yeast pitch - I forgot to take it right off the bat). Last night, 4 days into it, SG was 1070. Color is still a vibrant red, but it's still young. Looking forward to it for sure!

pnh2atl · 07-02-2010, 11:52 PM

Any updates? I'm going to take a whack at my first mead and this looks good.

MartyB · 07-06-2010, 06:04 PM

It's stabilized, backsweetened and bulk aging right now. Looks like 5 gallon of merlot in the better bottle. Super deep red color.

**MeadWitch** · 07-10-2010, 01:18 AM

I made a batch very similar to yours over the Memorial Day holiday. I started out with 1 lb of dried cherries (rehydrated) and 1 split/scraped vanilla bean in the primary. Racked it 3 weeks later and add 1/2 lb dried cherries (rehydrated) and 2 split/scraped vanilla beans. 2 weeks after that I added 1 can of the Oregon Sweet Cherry puree. Now it is sitting in the cabinet mellowing out and most of the puree is sitting on the bottom of the carboy. Beautiful colour! I am going to have to back sweeten it though as it is very dry. Not sure why it is so dry, I used a Lavlin 71B-1122 yeast, other than my OG was 1.090. I guess I should have adjusted it.