Replacing fruit with juice in recipe?

[Microphobik]

Hi,

So I want to make a black currant mead but don't have access to fruit so I was going to use juice instead. How do I calculate how much juice to add in place of fruit in a recipe? Is it equal arts or should I use less juice than fruit?

If anyone has a good black currant mead recipe that is medium dry, I'd love to get it

Thanks.

 

[WVMJ]

Have you tasted the juice you ware going to use yet? Currants are high in acid and very tart. If you like that then use 100% juice, if that is a bit harsh for you then start cutting the juice with water or even apple juice. If your source of juice is Ribena it has sorbates in it to stop yeast, make sure your juice doesnt have any sorbate. What kind of honey do you have? What yeast are you going to use? You can judge how much honey to add based on how alcohol tolerant your yeast is. Either adding all the honey at the beginning or backsweetening depending on how high you want to alcohol to go. A little bit of oak goes very well with black currants. WVMJ

 

[Microphobik]

Have you tasted the juice you ware going to use yet? Currants are high in acid and very tart. If you like that then use 100% juice, if that is a bit harsh for you then start cutting the juice with water or even apple juice. If your source of juice is Ribena it has sorbates in it to stop yeast, make sure your juice doesnt have any sorbate. What kind of honey do you have? What yeast are you going to use? You can judge how much honey to add based on how alcohol tolerant your yeast is. Either adding all the honey at the beginning or backsweetening depending on how high you want to alcohol to go. A little bit of oak goes very well with black currants. WVMJ

Hi, I'm familiar with currants and familiar with what Black currant mead tastes like. I've just never made it myself and I'm in New Zealand where I can't seem to find any of the Vintners Harvest fruit bases that it seems many use. The stuff I was looking at is this: http://www.barkers.co.nz/products-shop/no-refined-sugar/new-zealand-unsweetened-blackcurrant-juice/

It's all real juice, with no sugar or preservatives. The only thing in it aside from the juice is some vitamin C.

It says, "This syrup doesn't include reconstituted juice, added sugars, or sweeteners; just the goodness of over 450 squeezed blackcurrants." I don't see the word "concentrate" anywhere but they do suggest diluting it to drink it. I am assuming that is just a flavor recommendation and this is not a concentrate, but I'm not really sure.

The honey is a New Zealand bush honey. Basically a wild flower honey. The yeast is Lavlin 71B.

I had a really nice medium, dry Black Currant mead from Moonlight Meadery called "Embrace" and I want to do something like that. I just have no idea how much juice I should put in there and all the recipes I can find call for whole fruit.

Any ideas?

 

[CanAusBrewer]

Does the juice have nutritional information? I have used nutritional information on a can of apricot nectar to bottle prime a wheat beer.

 

[Microphobik]

Does the juice have nutritional information? I have used nutritional information on a can of apricot nectar to bottle prime a wheat beer.

Yep: http://www.barkers.co.nz/products-shop/no-refined-sugar/new-zealand-unsweetened-blackcurrant-juice/

 

[CanAusBrewer]

So you have 92.4 g sugar in the whole bottle. I am sure someone else must be familiar with a formula to calculate how much additional fermentability this provides? Like I said, I have only used this method for bottle priming.

 

[Microphobik]

I have no idea how to go about it. Has anyone ever added black currant juice to a mead? I know it's pretty string stuff. Just wondering how much I should add.

 

[fatbloke]

Small increments. Mix then taste.

Just remember it's gonna be a multi-stage process.

There's little enough sweetness in them anyway. Take that away and you have nasty, acidic little beasts. Just like raspberry. You still often get a good aroma, but with the sweet bit, sharp as hell.

You'll likely have to add little bits until you get enough depth of flavour, then add sweetness to sweeten which also masks the acidity....

 

[WVMJ]

BLoke are you a Ribena drinker? We found a Brit store in town and they had Ribena, sugar shock and enamel erosion, but it makes a great addition to a port to give a little depth of flavor, I always liked those descriptions about ports, dark chocolate, leather, currant, when we make a port we can just add those in ready made. WVMJ

 

[fatbloke]

BLoke are you a Ribena drinker? We found a Brit store in town and they had Ribena, sugar shock and enamel erosion, but it makes a great addition to a port to give a little depth of flavor, I always liked those descriptions about ports, dark chocolate, leather, currant, when we make a port we can just add those in ready made. WVMJ

Not routinely Jack. It's quite expensive and since it was bought out by the corporate liars at GlaxoSmithKline, they seem to have changed it, as it doesn't taste as good as I recall as a kid.

But as I understand it, they are still, the biggest grower of black currants in the UK.........

 

[MindenMan]

1 Pound of sugar into 1 gallon of water/liquid gives a 1.046 static gravity,
and since 1 pound of sugar weighs 453 grams, and 1 gallon equals 3.78 liters, 94 grams of liquid sugar, it would seem that 94 grams of sugar into 1 gallon of water should give a static gravity of 0.0094. Does this help?