Fresh or Frozen?

Im trying to formulate a plan for my next mead, probably wont happen until middle or end of January but thats not important. The general idea is to use 12lbs of clover honey and Im thinking cherries. Only problem is cherries arent really for sale in January, go figure the cold and all. So should I use frozen? concentrate? try and find fresh? and if I do find fresh do I crush them? pit them? puree them? I dont really know how to go from my idea to reality. Any help would be amazing.

I made a few melomels a while back and I used Peaches, Blackberries and Blueberries.

I read somewhere that when they harvest the fruit, the fruit that is ripe at that time gets made into frozen fruit because it would go bad by the time they got it to the stores. The almost ripe fruit is what you see on the shelves at the store, as it ripens by the time they recieve and stock it.

So frozen fruit is very swet and ripe. Just get 100% fruit, no additives.

I just stuffed them in the carboy frozen, let them thaw ( a lot of juices flow from them once they thaw) and racked right onto them.

If you are harvesting the fruit yourself, that's one thing. But otherwise go with talleymonster, frozen is riper.

Also, freezing disrupts the cell walls releasing more of the flavors.

This is especially true for strawberries. I'll have to find the source, but I read somewhere that strawberries do not ripen at all after they are picked. They will change color to deeper red, but the flavor will not get any better/sweeter. FWIW I always use frozen .

bob:fro:

bobjenkins79 said:

This is especially true for strawberries. I'll have to find the source, but I read somewhere that strawberries do not ripen at all after they are picked. They will change color to deeper red, but the flavor will not get any better/sweeter. FWIW I always use frozen .

bob:fro:

Click to expand...

That is why I gave up on store purchased strawberries and built a greenhouse and started growing my own. There is nothing more awesome than going out to the greenhouse in LATE november and pulling off a sweet ripe juicy strawberry.

Ok now that Im convinced to use frozen, from your guidance and the fact that it will be January, should I put the fruit in the primary or rack the mead onto it in a secondary?

Thanks for the help the next batch will only be my third.

Primaries:
1) JAOM
2) Goldenrod/Clover
Secondaries:
What secondaries?