Cherry Berry Mead

Williams 728
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About to make this but I can't find the grape cherry juice so I am just going to use the white grape and omit the cherries
 
Just finished making this.....not sure if it's been said or not but the frozen strawberries should probably be thawed before adding to the water mixture. I didn't think of this and my mixture dropped down into the 40's....a bit too cold to pitch the yeast. I've got the fermenter near my heat to try and warm it up.
 
Can I leave the mead in the carboy to age for 6 months or should it be in bottles? I am slowly working on getting bottles, but could buy a bunch if needed
 
I need to rack it into a clean carboy tomorrow since I did the strawberry puree. I may just buy some bottles and call it a day so I can get my carboy back.

Thanks!
 
I'm new to mead making, but have been brewing beer for about 9 months now. I've noticed that in the pictures of this mead, its not very clear. Could you add whirl floc, or Irish moss to this, and would it have the same effect, as it does in beer. I used whirl floc on my last brew and it came out crystal clear.
 
Has anyone tried carbing this? If so, how did it turn out? I have it going in the primary right now. I'm thinking of carbing half of it and leaving the other half still.
 
Old thread but i wanted to share anyway. Ive been brewing beer for bout three years but choose this as my first mead. Started it couple days ago and its moving nicely so far. Im a little worried about all that honey that appeared to sit on tbe bottom. Ishook it a while but it didnt really disolve. Also pita getting that fruit in the carboy opening. Fingers crossed 🤞
 
You can always add more year, noticble sugars often mean you had a deal yeast strain.
 
So, after rereading thread and hearing about offflavors for leaving on fruit too long; i reracked and despite using wlp 720 my g is at 1.002. All my beers have been finishing really low also and it seems to happen in spring since i dealt with this same thing last year. Maybe my starsan is bad , maybe its the time of year, maybe my starters r all getting infected idk. But anyway the hydro sample tasted good anyway and i now c why its named cherry berry cause its definitely that. A little hot tasting but i could down a few even now. Its in secondary now after 45 days or so and im looking forward to tasting it after a bit. Maybe by thanksgiving. Thx for sharing this and im now going to have a batch of mead going regularly.
 
Also my strawberries never dropped and i was under the impression that they would, i did however have it at about 60-65 for a while since it was in my cellar. The fermentation was lengthy i think due to the colder tben ideal temps. Could this be why?does the fruit normally drop?
 
With the strawberry wines and strawberry meads I've made, I never had them drop. I also had them in nylon brew bags to keep the mess down and to make it easier to remove when it was time.
 
Strawberries often will not drop, so i either use a brew bag or just puree them in a blender and add them, either way works great.
 
going to make this soon. question. could i use my plastic buckets or will i end up with crazy off flavors? second question is anyone have a good place to buy honey in bulk?
 
Jako said:
going to make this soon. question. could i use my plastic buckets or will i end up with crazy off flavors? second question is anyone have a good place to buy honey in bulk?
Click to expand...

I’ve used plastic buckets for almost everything I’ve done. I’ve never had any issues as long as the buckets are kept clean and sterilized. As for the Honey, if you find a place let me know. I’m always looking and have been mostly unsuccessful.
 
KayBeer said:
I’ve used plastic buckets for almost everything I’ve done. I’ve never had any issues as long as the buckets are kept clean and sterilized. As for the Honey, if you find a place let me know. I’m always looking and have been mostly unsuccessful.
Click to expand...

i found some on amazon its $55 for 12 pounds so it would be perfect for this. its Texas wild flower honey i think someone in this thread used it before.

i was thinking for my yeast starter just dumping the yeast into the juice for a day or so then dump that in to my bucket. i have a few coworkers who want to make this with me so we plan to split the cost. just worried i will run out super fast splitting it up.

thinking about final cost it looks like this will run me about 100$ or so that sounds high?
 
I too have chosen this recipe for my first mead and have a few newbie questions. My supply house recommended white labs WLP720, my wife prefers dry wines so I hope it’s the right one.

I found a fairly local guy who sells honey year round at decent prices from little bear squeeze bottles up to a 5 gallon bucket. According to google one gallon of honey weighs twelve pounds, which he charges $40 which is less than Walmart, I checked.

Now this honey is raw, unpasteurized. Do I need to treat the initial honey/water with campden tablets to get rid of any wild yeast? Or is using raw honey not advisable or just run with it.

I’m planning on picking it up tomorrow morning even if I can’t use it for mead.

I plan on aging it in bottles, are beer bottles ok or should I look into wine bottles?

Thanks for any advice!
 
Picked up some stuff locally tonight. My buddy says he does mead all the time from raw all the time without campden tabs.
 
Imo, any wild yeast and bacteria will quickly be dominated by the lab cultured yeast (in their billions) but allowing the indigenous cultures a few hours to work on the sugars will only add desirable complexity. I don't see the advantage of purging those cultures when I am making a mead at home. If I was making 1000 gallons and consistency was a requirement that might be a different story... (though in truth, as a card carrying contrarian I am not certain it would be)... o_O
 
That’s about what my buddy said. Plus the guy I bought the honey from said it pasteurizes at 117 degrees f, not sure if it would get that high before in the fermenter.

I’m thinking of starting this next weekend, second racking of a blueberry cider should be Friday or Saturday. Guessing.
 
bernardsmith said:
Imo, any wild yeast and bacteria will quickly be dominated by the lab cultured yeast (in their billions) but allowing the indigenous cultures a few hours to work on the sugars will only add desirable complexity. I don't see the advantage of purging those cultures when I am making a mead at home. If I was making 1000 gallons and consistency was a requirement that might be a different story... (though in truth, as a card carrying contrarian I am not certain it would be)... o_O
Click to expand...

Do you find that to be so when brewing a melowmel with raw fruit as well? Or just a straight up mead? Id really like to avoid the tablets. So far I have not had an issue with my 1 gallon batches but I'm going for a much larger batch and am wondering if I'm taking a foolish risk.

Thanks for your thoughts!
 
So I just made it, but I only had 2lbs of frozen strawberries. I also used white grape juice, with a splash of grenadine. Thoughts?
 
Well mine appear to be doing well.

I made my base mead as a simple traditioinalish ( touch of blackberry leaves, earl grey tea, lime, cinamonn, vanilla)

But now iI have split 5 gallons into 1 gallon jugs and added fresh kiwi, dried elderberry, dried chillie peppers, fresh rosehips. Those seem to be fine.

I made a cider with unpasterized juice and honey as well.

I also have a 5 gallon of fresh crushed apple and sour cherry cider that is doing well.

None of these have campden, though I have added it in others just before I bottle.

So yeah for wild yeasties in the beginning!!
 
So my cherry berry has been sitting for a year i think racked once still some debris floating. Not wortied about it but im wondering if i should bottle now or wait, cold crash it maybe? Taste pretty good btw and a little stronger than i expected.
 
I'm very new to all this, bit I have learned that even if it looks clear as glass.... If you bottle it too early you will find sediment on the bottom of your bottles in a month or two. Not the end of the world, bit it seems time is the only sure sullution to dropping all sediment.
I usually rack 3 or 4 times before bottling to remove sediment, which really improves the taste and look.
I cold crash my 1 gallons in the freezer for an hour before doing a final racking as well, it does help.

spunxter said:
So my cherry berry has been sitting for a year i think racked once still some debris floating. Not wortied about it but im wondering if i should bottle now or wait, cold crash it maybe? Taste pretty good btw and a little stronger than i expected.
Click to expand...
 
Brewing for Brigid said:
I'm very new to all this, bit I have learned that even if it looks clear as glass.... If you bottle it too early you will find sediment on the bottom of your bottles in a month or two. Not the end of the world, bit it seems time is the only sure sullution to dropping all sediment.
I usually rack 3 or 4 times before bottling to remove sediment, which really improves the taste and look.
I cold crash my 1 gallons in the freezer for an hour before doing a final racking as well, it does help.
Click to expand...
I second all of this. Rack, rack, rack, rack. Cold crash is a must imo to prevent that late sediment in bottle.
 
This looks pretty good. I have 15 pounds of honey sitting in the pantry that my wife really wants me to do something with.
 
I made two, one-gallon batches of this mead. One with D-47 and one with 71B-1122. (I need to use Dry yeast to make it gluten free)

The d47 was very cloudy for a long time, even in secondary. Afrer I racked it a few times and finally cold crashed it, it came out perfectly clear. I bottle about 12 oz of leftover mead that wouldn’t fill a wine bottle in a pop-top which makes it easy to tast. After three months it has mellowed significantly and the berry flavors are highlighted as the star of the show. It’s still young, but I can tell this will be a very well-rounded mead with perfect sweetness.

The 71b-1122 cleared up almost right away which had me calling it the early winner. However I realized later that it came out much drier, and acidic. It’s much sharper than the d-47 and the berry notes are almost completely masked. It’s possible this will change with more age. I plan to age them both for a total of 6 months or more.

The d47 batch tastes so good I want to make a full 5 gallon batch with it soon.
 
SD-SLIM said:
Hello All,

I made a Cherry Berry Mead last year and loved it...so a couple of weeks ago I brewed up some more and thought I would share!

  • 12 Pounds Light Amber Honey
  • 12 Pounds of Frozen Strawberries
  • 2 Quarts Welch's White Grape Cherry 100% Juice
  • 2 teaspoons of yeast nutrients
  • Wyeast 4184 Sweet Mead
  • 1 Gallons of Water

For my base I start by boiling a gallon of water....while the water is boiling I pour the honey in to a mixing pot, then I use the boiling water to get the rest of the honey out of the jug...when jug is clear, discard the rest of the boiling water (the hotter you make your base, the more cooling you will need to do). Now you have honey and water, its time to add the Welch's Juice and Yeast Nutrient....mix everything together and pour in to fermenter...add cold water to bring up to five gallons...mix or shake to combine ingredients and aerate.
At this point you will want to add strawberries...I prefer to puree my berries and place them in to the fermenter, its my experience that it helps speed the process and really brings in the berry flavor...the draw back is that you will need to rack it another time to get it crystal clear.
Pour in yeast and primary ferment for 2 weeks, rack to a secondary for 3 weeks and finally rack again for 1 week for clarification.
Bottle and let age for 3 months and give it a try...at 6 months it's a piece of art!
Click to expand...
So...Long time beer making guy here, up to 15 gal batches, rehoming it faster than I can make it. Trying my hand at mead now and decided to try this receipe first. Smells great out of the pot.
The question is, I added water up to the 5gal mark and added the 12lbs. of straberries and as you can imagine this did not leave much head space and this thing is rockin with the 4184 yeast, so much so that I had to add a second blow-off tube. They both have some slight foam travelling throgh them with me praying that it slows soon. So I will babysit until bedtime and hopefully the agent strawberry bomb does not go off [emoji23] [emoji23]
 
OpenSights said:
That’s about what my buddy said. Plus the guy I bought the honey from said it pasteurizes at 117 degrees f, not sure if it would get that high before in the fermenter.

I’m thinking of starting this next weekend, second racking of a blueberry cider should be Friday or Saturday. Guessing.
Click to expand...
Isn't the honey being added to boiling water to dissolve[emoji16]
 
KayBeer said:
I'm new to mead making, but have been brewing beer for about 9 months now. I've noticed that in the pictures of this mead, its not very clear. Could you add whirl floc, or Irish moss to this, and would it have the same effect, as it does in beer. I used whirl floc on my last brew and it came out crystal clear.
Click to expand...
I have added gelatin to my beers to get them to clear, wonder if it would work for this. But it seems that time is a meads best friend.
 
SD-SLIM said:
Hello All,

I made a Cherry Berry Mead last year and loved it...so a couple of weeks ago I brewed up some more and thought I would share!

  • 12 Pounds Light Amber Honey
  • 12 Pounds of Frozen Strawberries
  • 2 Quarts Welch's White Grape Cherry 100% Juice
  • 2 teaspoons of yeast nutrients
  • Wyeast 4184 Sweet Mead
  • 1 Gallons of Water

For my base I start by boiling a gallon of water....while the water is boiling I pour the honey in to a mixing pot, then I use the boiling water to get the rest of the honey out of the jug...when jug is clear, discard the rest of the boiling water (the hotter you make your base, the more cooling you will need to do). Now you have honey and water, its time to add the Welch's Juice and Yeast Nutrient....mix everything together and pour in to fermenter...add cold water to bring up to five gallons...mix or shake to combine ingredients and aerate.
At this point you will want to add strawberries...I prefer to puree my berries and place them in to the fermenter, its my experience that it helps speed the process and really brings in the berry flavor...the draw back is that you will need to rack it another time to get it crystal clear.
Pour in yeast and primary ferment for 2 weeks, rack to a secondary for 3 weeks and finally rack again for 1 week for clarification.
Bottle and let age for 3 months and give it a try...at 6 months it's a piece of art!
Click to expand...
Question: I am going on week 5 in the fermentation process and I am still seeing fermentation action. So since I am new to this mead brewing stuff what is my next step to get this to stop? Or will it stop in time? Just waiting for this to clear up and stop to be able to bottle and age and was wondeing if this was normal for mead?
20180722_085741.jpeg
 
I finally popped a bottle of this mead today after aging for 6 months and wow!!! This is absolutely amazing. I made 2 batches, one with D-47 and one with 71b-1122. This bottle is from the D-47 and its absolutely delicious, I can't wait to share with friends and family. Slight honey and strawberry in the nose, very "clean" or "fresh" smelling. The taste of honey is very present, but not overpowering at all. The strongest notes of fruit I get are the strawberry followed by the grape. The fruit perfectly balances out the honey for a well-rounded mead with a decent residual sweetness. This was my first try at making mead and I'm glad I went for this recipe. I've only tried a few store bought meads and really didn't like them. Mad props to the OP!z4QVQ80rRBqvKtRKJtJovQ.jpg flCVCtslSEShpVTyB+X7tg.jpg
 
Hello everybody. I just racked my mead this morning. I also got to taste it and it didn't taste like I had hoped for. It really tastes bitter a lot and you can not easily tell the fruit flavours. I used mangrove jack's m05 mead yeast. Started at 1.098 and finished at 0.99. This gives me an appx 14% abv, a bit high I think. I am thinking of backsweetening it before bottling. Any advice?
 

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