1 Gallon Blueberry?

[JSTStorm]

Hey guys, I was looking around, trying to find a recipe for a 1 gallon Blueberry Mead and I can't seem to find one. I'd like to do a small one for a few reasons: 1, to see if I like it enough to make a larger one and 2, to tide me over in the hopes that I like it so I can get some larger carboys.

Can any one help me out on that? If so, how long do you think it would take to be ready for bottling/drinking?

 

[ChillyP]

3lbs Honey
8oz Frozen Blueberrys
1 gallon of water
1pkg Premiere Cuvee.

That should make a nice Blueberry Melomel.

 

[avidhomebrewer]

That's what I was going to recommend, what chilly proposed. I made a 5 gallon batch (but added more honey/gallon) and it turned out great.

 

[ChillyP]

The only complaint I have with Melomels is sometimes fresh fruits like Blueberrys, Raspberry, etc don't tend to give you the flavor profile you're craving. I have found that using an extract around bottling can help. Blueberry sometimes gives you berry smell, but not much berry profile. If you taste it and it doesn't meet your expectations go to a good liquor store and look for a blueberry extract (used for martinis) and give it a try.

 

[avidhomebrewer]

Or, if your lhbs has small (around 4 oz.) bottles of flavor extract, you could try that as well.

 

[JSTStorm]

If I use this recipe, can I rack it to a secondary over some more blueberries? Would that work?

 

[ChillyP]

Yeah you can add more and more blueberrys. It will start fermenting some more. Now you could also take some of the blueberrys smash them up and make a simple sryup with them by adding a little extra honey to back sweeten, but you'd want to stabilize the mead before hand.

 

[JSTStorm]

So, throw all that into my primary, let it go for...any idea how long that particular fermentation should take before I can rack it over to a secondary? I don't need an overwhelming blueberry taste, but I don't want it too subtle. I'm really looking to satiate my, and a few friends', thirst before I do a large batch that will take longer. And I'm a sucker for blueberry anything.

 

[ChillyP]

The only way you'll know how long to ferment is to take some gravity readings. With Premiere Cuvee it <i>should</i> ferment down to 1.000-0.999. If you want any sweetness you need to stabilize it and back sweeten.

 

[JSTStorm]

I thought that would be the case. Awesome, thanks for the info Chilly, I wanted to have this kind of recipe on my mind for my second batch, I think I'm going to do the routine JAOM first, and start the Blueberry one a few weeks later. This way, I'll have smaller batches and if any thing goes wrong because of operator error, I won't ruin a bunch of it.

Thanks for the help!