new cherry melomel

[Kevin Gallagher]

I am making a 12-gallon cherry melomel. I am using:
30 lbs of honey
8lb organic frozen dark cherries
16oz organic tart cherry juice concentrate.
I use a conical fermenter usually add the fruit to the primary fermentation.(no secondary).
I was thinking of adding half of the juice concentrate 8oz and all the cherries in the beginning and 8oz of juice after the fermentation has stopped to strengthen the cherry flavor.
suggestions or comments appreciated
Kevin

 

[videojunkie1208]

I think I would add the Cherries at the start, add 8oz juice at the 1/2 sugar break, and then add the other 8oz juice when you get close to finish (yes, it will cause a bit of re-fermentation). I did something similar with the last cranberry I made and it really punched up the flavor.

What's your target SG, and what yeast are you using?

 

[Seamonkey84]

I would post this in the mead section. but to your question, you can really do it both ways. I prefer adding most if not all of the fruit up front, then maybe add some at the end, but still let it restart fermentation. That way the yeast works on the fruit, and your not just flavoring or mixing in juice.

 

[videojunkie1208]

I prefer adding most if not all of the fruit up front, then maybe add some at the end, but still let it restart fermentation. That way the yeast works on the fruit, and your not just flavoring or mixing in juice.

I have found that adding all the fruit up front tends to have a weaker flavor profile as the yeast will usually attack the fruit sugars before the honey. Staggering the fruit additions allows you to blend the fermented flavors with more of the retained unfermented fruit sugars.

 

[Kevin Gallagher]

I am making a 12-gallon cherry melomel.
Using:
30 lbs of honey
8lb organic frozen dark cherries
16oz organic tart cherry juice concentrate.
3 tablespoons cinnamon
lalvin 71b yeast
I use a conical fermenter usually add the fruit to the primary fermentation. (no secondary).
I was thinking of adding half of the juice concentrate 8oz and all the cherries in the beginning and 8oz of juice after the fermentation has stopped to strengthen the cherry flavor.
suggestions or comments appreciated
Kevin

 

[Kevin Gallagher]

I think I would add the Cherries at the start, add 8oz juice at the 1/2 sugar break, and then add the other 8oz juice when you get close to finish (yes, it will cause a bit of re-fermentation). I did something similar with the last cranberry I made and it really punched up the flavor.

What's your target SG, and what yeast are you using?

not sure what SG I will get never used this yeast before lalvin 71B

 

[Kevin Gallagher]

I would post this in the mead section. but to your question, you can really do it both ways. I prefer adding most if not all of the fruit up front, then maybe add some at the end, but still let it restart fermentation. That way the yeast works on the fruit, and your not just flavoring or mixing in juice.

I would post this in the mead section. but to your question, you can really do it both ways. I prefer adding most if not all of the fruit up front, then maybe add some at the end, but still let it restart fermentation. That way the yeast works on the fruit, and your not just flavoring or mixing in juice.

I would post this in the mead section. but to your question, you can really do it both ways. I prefer adding most if not all of the fruit up front, then maybe add some at the end, but still let it restart fermentation. That way the yeast works on the fruit, and your not just flavoring or mixing in juice.

I have found that adding all the fruit up front tends to have a weaker flavor profile as the yeast will usually attack the fruit sugars before the honey. Staggering the fruit additions allows you to blend the fermented flavors with more of the retained unfermented fruit sugars.

 

[Kevin Gallagher]

I have the fruit pulverized and frozen in three SS round porous containers so I can stage them. Do you have any opinion on freezing and pulverizing the fruit first ?

 

[Maylar]

A meadmaker I know uses 40 lb of fruit in a 7 gallon melomel. Use the juice and concentrate as part of the water, add cherries to secondary after stabilizing.

 

[CKuhns]

I do a lot of melomels...
How and or when you add your juice and or fruit depends upon the flavor profile your looking for.

If your looking for the honey flavors to come through with a light Tart Cherry profile front to back then your on the right track. I would consider adding the juice concentrate up front in primary and the fruit in secondary. You might want to double the juice concentrate. I use a gallon (Non-concentrate) in a total volume of 5 gallons. Then add the cherries in secondary checking it after 4 or 5 days and each day until it hits the flavor profile you are looking for.

Couple of suggestions that might help with the fruit. Be sure the cherries are pitted (Pits can cause some really harsh flavors.) Drop them in a sanitized mesh bag with a handful of marbles (No need to even thaw them) and drop them right in your conical. Makes for easy clean up and the marbles sink the cherries so you don't have to worry about the fruit floating and or getting "funky" by being exposed to the head space.

If your looking for the fruit to be the "star of the show" then fruit concentrate and fruit in primary. For Tart cherries I do about 2 pounds of fruit per gallon. As @Maylar suggested some folks hit it with much more fruit and often do both fruit in primary and secondary.

 

[Seamonkey84]

Freeze and thaw helps break up the fruit and extract juice, it’s a good thing.

 

[videojunkie1208]

Based on your ingredients (without knowing the concentrate) it looks like your shooting for a stariting SG around 1.110 (ish). Could be a bit higher with the concentrate. My guess is that 71b will ferment to completion (14% +/-) and leave you a pretty dry mead. What nutrient regimine are you following? because keeping the yeast happy will reduce your off flavors, and help with a quicker fermentation.

I highly reccomend this tool: https://gotmead.com/blog/the-mead-calculator/ to help with recipe creation.

If you were hoping for something sweet, you're probably going to need to sulfite and backsweeten.

It looks like if you reduce your target volume to about 9 gallons, you'd wind up with some residual sugars, especially if you add the concentrates late and you wouldn't necessarily need to backsweeten as the yeat has a 'tolerance' ~14%ABV.

 

[Kevin Gallagher]

would this include the water and honey to make 9 gallons?

 

[Kevin Gallagher]

looks like I should be adding more fruit to bring out the cheery flavor

 

[videojunkie1208]

My $.02, if you're developing a new recipe, go small. After several very expensive disasters over the years - including a strawberry mead on this forum that I thought I knew what I was doing - I am learning that small disasters are easier to swallow than dumping 5 gallons of money and time down the drain.

I get it. Meads take so long that you want to make enough to make the effort worth it. It's why I have a CF10 instead of a smaller fermenter.

Back to your recipe. Depends on if you want a cherry MEAD, or a CHERRY mead. Play around with it. You've got enough honey to make several 2-3 gallon batches and try different things...

 

[Kevin Gallagher]

probably go with what I have and then back sweeten if necessary. I have done a lot of small batches in the past. PIA, been doing 7 gal batches in the conical which has a capacity of 16 gallons. In the past I would cold crash out side to stop (New England) the fermentation but now I am more interested in playing around with the chemicals to stop the fermentation. Doing larger batches is so much easier with a conical where you can drop the lees out the bottom, getting lazy these days (

 

[videojunkie1208]

I agree about the conical fermenter! I love mine. Saving up for more fermentation space... I am moving to making test batches in my Flex+ (now that I have it - I'll probably grab another one soon...) and bigger established recipes in my CF10.

Several people in my circle of friends react badly to sulphur compounds, so I try to brew with as few chemicals as possible.

 

[Kevin Gallagher]

Based on your ingredients (without knowing the concentrate) it looks like your shooting for a stariting SG around 1.110 (ish). Could be a bit higher with the concentrate. My guess is that 71b will ferment to completion (14% +/-) and leave you a pretty dry mead. What nutrient regimine are you following? because keeping the yeast happy will reduce your off flavors, and help with a quicker fermentation.

I highly reccomend this tool: https://gotmead.com/blog/the-mead-calculator/ to help with recipe creation.

If you were hoping for something sweet, you're probably going to need to sulfite and backsweeten.

It looks like if you reduce your target volume to about 9 gallons, you'd wind up with some residual sugars, especially if you add the concentrates late and you wouldn't necessarily need to backsweeten as the yeat has a 'tolerance' ~14%ABV.