1st Timer, Please help with a simple question.

[user 340557]

Ok so i have done a day or three reserch and watched many online videos serching for the answer but i can not find it. I am not a big guy on alcohol taste, so im going for a low abv... anyways. I only put 3 1/2 lbs of honey on 2 1/2 gallons of mead and used a lalvin 71b yeast. Making a cherry melomel, viking blood themed.. anyway because it was a low honey content, i assume thats why it looks like afer 6 days its done... I started at OG 1.100 and am now at 1.000 and the pressure in the air lock has equalized and i have checked it 3days in a row at the specific gravity and it is not moving.. anyways... my question is that it has only sat on the cherries for 6 -8 days... is that enough time, the guy that im following let it sit on the cherries 3wks but his fermentation was still going... so question 1 is it ok to kill the cherries now and go to the next phase or should i give them 7-10 more days to squeeze all the flavor out of the cherries... or have i pretty much done that already after 6-8 days...
2nd question... i probly am around 13-14%abv and i want it to be a good bit less... now im going to cold crash it ... use camdon tabs and potassium metabisulphate to kill fermentation before the 2nd phase as well as add another pound or so of honey to back sweeten and a few pounds of dried cherries to boost up the flavor... is there anything i can do to lower alcohol content.. like if i have 2 galons of 14%abv and i add another galon of water or cherry juice does that dilute it down under 10% or so??

 

[corkybstewart]

I'd leave the cherries in for another week. They haven't begun to macerate yet

 

[user 340557]

Thanks for replying, thats what i was thinking but just wanted a 2nd opinion

 

[Rish]

put 3 1/2 lbs of honey on 2 1/2 gallons of mead

Are you sure about your OG? Honey has a ppg of about 35 so 3.5# in 2.5 gallons of mead should be around 1.050.
I agree with @corkybstewart, leave the cherries for another week or 2.
Welcome to mead making!