Cranberry/Pomegranate Ginger Ale Mead

[Shortbeard]

Hello Everyone,

I think I caught the Mead bug cause I am planning on making another one. I could use some help as I want a Soda like tasting mead. I was thinking of a recipe like this.

Take 4 ounces of minced ginger root and 1 gallon of water bring to boil remove from heat and let steep for 1 hour.

1 gallon of Knudsen Cranberry Pomegranate Organic Juice.

2.25 Lbs of frozen Cranberries

In Fermenting Pale mix the first three ingredients, add 1 tsp K2CO3

use 8 lbs Costco Kirkland Brand Liquid Honey (Its whats available the local Apiaries are shut down)

Juice from 2 lemons

Water to 5 gallons

1 Pack Nottingham Ale Yeast Re-hydrated with Go Ferm

Follow a Dap and Fermaid K nutrient Protocol.

The goal is to get 9% ABV and bottle condition for Carbonation.

Questions:

1: Will this be enough Ginger flavour? Should I add some shaved Ginger?
2: How Much Pectin should I add and when?
3: Should I add the Frozen Cranberry to secondary?

I have a couple days till the nutrients arrive via the postal service so any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[viking1984]

By a soda tasting mead, do you mean very sweet? I am far from a mead expert, but I would use the frozen cranberries in secondary and add ginger in secondary also and let it extract the flavors until it reaches the flavor you are looking for. I have never used pectic enzyme, so I cant be much help there other than mentioning than I have read it is used mostly in primary, but if you add the cranberries in secondary I would think you could add it then. Good luck.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Shortbeard. Interesting recipe but I would think that diluting the fruit juice with so much water will give you a very flavor-thin drink, while using only 1/2 lb of cranberries for each gallon will not provide much additional flavor. Why not simply use enough of the fruit juice to make the 5 gallons and keep the water for cleaning the carboy.
You want to add pectin a few hours before you add the yeast. And the juice of those lemons? Is that to increase the pH of the must? That's not wise when you are fermenting honey. Personally, I would add any additional lemon juice if - BIG if - if it was needed just before bottling , and I would check for that by tasting and not simply dosing the mead with the acid - You are after all, fermenting cranberry juice and pomegranate - neither which are known for their alkalinity...

 

[bmwr75]

2.25 lb of cranberries is only about enough for a 1 gallon batch in my experience. Most meads use about 3 lb. of honey per gallon, but if fruit juice is used (no water), that amount can be cut by 50-60% typically. You need to use a hydrometer to measure the original Specific Gravity of your mixed up batch to know for sure how much honey to add in total. Forget the lemons like bernardsmith said.

 

[Shortbeard]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Let me address a couple of things you brought up. I came up with the numbers for honey and fruit based of a brewing calculator I found online. https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/calculator/

The lemon was from the homemade ginger ale recipe I have from Grandma so if it will adversely affect mead would the rind be a better way to add the flavour? by rind i mean zest no pith.

As for why not use all juice....well my wallet objects. Plus I don't want to bury the mead flavour I want a light and refreshing drink that hints at its flavour profile. I do have extra honey if I need to boost the gravity.

I guess the thinking was between the juice and berries I will have 2.5 gallons of cranberry mead and 2.5 gallons of ginger ale mead and combined I hope to make cranberry ginger ale Mead.

 

[bernardsmith]

You can certainly add lemon juice - very different from rind - but I would add the juice after the fermentation is done. Honey has no chemical buffers and the yeast can drop the pH to 3 or lower. At that level of acidity your fermentation will stall. Seasoned meadmakers add any acidity needed before bottling, not before they are aging the mead.
In my opinion - and you are perfectly free to disagree - rather than allow your wallet to determine a recipe you might want to consider creating a smaller volume of wine or mead. There is no law of nature that requires every batch to be 5 gallons. Three gallons is not chopped liver, and even one gallon results in five bottles of wine. But this is your wine. It may turn out with just the richness of flavor that you are looking for. Good luck!

 

[bmwr75]

I've never made anything larger than a 3 gallon batch of mead. It just gets too expensive for my wallet to make 5 or 6 gallon batches that might not turn out as desired.

 

[Shortbeard]

I thank everyone for their input. I make 5 gallon batches cause those are the size of the carboys I have. I am awaiting some information on a job move before I pick up smaller brewing supplies but I am fine playing with my 5 gallon batches.

I threw this into the primary today with a few changes

1 gallon of Just Cranberry juice from Knudson

1 gallon Just Pomegranate Juice (the Pomegranate/cranberry one is >80% apple juice)

1 kg frozen cranberries

7# Kirkland Brand liquid Clover Honey

4 ounces 3/8 ginger and the zest of a lemon brewed in 2 gallons of water by bringing to a boil and letting sit for an hour. Pitched 1 tsp Potassium Carbonate, 1 tsp Dap, 2 tsp Fermaid K into the brew at the end.

topped up to 5.5 gallons to account for liquid loss.

Re hydrated the Nottingham Danstar per instruction plus goferm

Pitched to a starting Gravity of 1.056

The hope is it ends about 7% ABV

Now to wait and follow a Bomm like protocol for nutrient and degassing

Smells great.

Wish me luck.

 

[Shortbeard]

Transferred to secondary last night. Final Gravity was .998 so ferment is done.

Not enough ginger flavour so will be adding another 4 ounces grated, should I add pectin to the ginger?

If I want to sweeten a little bit as the cranberry is a touch tart would splenda work and not restart fermentation? Or effect the ability to bottle condition?

Thanks everyone.

 

[Shortbeard]

Bottled today with 5 oz of honey added to bottle condition. I am quite happy with how this ended up turning out adding the second batch of ginger really improved the flavour. It tastes exactly like Canada Dry Cranberry ginger ale. Hopefully it carbonates well and that doesnt alter the profile too much.

 

[harlond]

Pics or it didn't happen?

 

[Shortbeard]

Someone said pics

 

[AkTom]

How did the carbonation turn out? Looks good.

 

[Shortbeard]

Well after 1 week it is a little soft it is the first time I tried honey as my priming sugar I am holding out hope that it will still carb up a bit more over the next week but my guess is I should have doubled the amount of honey and used 10 ounces for 5 gallons

 

[harlond]

Ooh, looks good. Got a cranberry melomel going, hoping it turns out as well.