Cran/Blackberry Mead

One of my favorites...

7 lbs Clover Honey
5 lbs Orange Blossom Honey
1 lb Eucalyptus Honey
7 lbs. Cranberries
4 lbs. Blackberries
2 oz. Yeast Energizer
2 oz. Yeast Nutrient

I usually put the fruit in primary for this one, I think having the cranberries in there from the start gives it more time to kill some of the tartness and help the flavors meld. The fruit flavor is still huge afterwards.

Boil the honey energizer and nutrient in 2 gal. water for 15 minutes and dissolve. Pour into carboy.
Bring fruit to a light boil (more to the point where "foam" begins to form) and leave them on the heat until the blackberries begin to break apart and the cranberries split open. Use a funnel to add fruit to the carboy.

I usually add a little more water at this point but make sure to leave plenty of head room. Cool and pitch yeast starter when down to temp.

This is a great mead if you've wanted to make a cranberry mead but have always been worried about the tartness. The cranberry is still the dominate fruit flavor mixing well with the honey flavors but the blackberries help to sweeten the fruit profile and help mellow out the tartness to a degree.

Sometimes I will use k-meta and sorbate and add another pound of any of the honey varieties after secondary and before I begin to bulk age.

What do you use for yeast?

Lalvin 1122 its the Narbonne strain

Just backsweetened this guy the other day.

Decided to use Buckwheat Honey on this batch to try something different.

So far its coming along very nicely. Honey and Cranberry are def the stars of this batch and while you can't really taste the blackberries they have certainly used their sweetness to balance out the tartness of the cranberries. The batch is still young and will age for several more months but the tartness from 7 pounds of cranberries seems to be well under control.

The color is a light pinkish-red very pleasant and tasty

Hi,

So I followed this recipe that you posted more or less...the color is beautiful! It's been about a month and it's bone dry now 0.96. My og was 1.1...which I think means It's sitting at 18 % plus. Is this how how yours gets? It's too dry for my taste...when would you suggest back sweetening it in your process?

Thanks
E

Hey Erin,


Just got back one the forum sorry for the late reply.

Yeah as long. You stabilized the mead and shocked the yeast I would certainly back sweeten. I think some clover honey would do the trick for you. Your mead fermented out a little more Han my did, but it still sounds like it went really well.

Mine tastes like ocean spray with a nice sweet honey aftertaste. The color is amazing though isn't it!!!

I actually calculated the gravity wrong...the final gravity was 0.996 not 0.96 so the alcohol is sitting around 13.65% which is much better!! i had some headspace in my secondary so I added in some more cranberries and a honey water mixture...now i think i will leave it alone for a few months. Can I bulk age with cranberries in it?

You could age with the cranberries as long as you pasteurize them first, however you might get way to much tart flavor from aging on, them. I'd prob ad the honey and cranberries leave it.for a month then rack and age do that it clears and some of the tartness fades

This recipe turned out great! I ended up carbing it...just tried one the other day after aging about 6 months and it was great!! What a treat my first successful mead!

I know this is an OLD thread, but did you really boil the honey? I've always read you NEVER boil honey... maybe warm it up to make it flow/mix better, but never boil. Also, how the heck did you manage to score 7 pounds of cranberries???? The only ones I can find around here are the Ocean Spray cranberries.