Step feeding with concentrate?

[ErinRae]

Hi Everyone,

I started a cherry mead yesterday and was thinking about step feeding it since I didn't get close enough to SG I wanted to.

for 4 gallons:
12.5 lbs of Wildflower honey
1 can of vinters harvest sweet cherry
1-250ml of tart cherry concentrate
using EC-1118

I'd like to make this around 18% with a touch of residual sweetness. But after all these ingredients I'm still at 1.112 - which ~15.25%. I don't want to buy more honey and was going to secondary on a ton of cherries. Cherries have a much more milder flavor then I thought and the sugar is a lot lower too.

I was thinking about step feeding with either frozen apple or grape concentrate. Has anyone used concentrate and had nice tasting results? And then I'd use one more can
for the residual sweetness and rack on the cherries.

 

[Arpolis]

I have not used concentrated juice with a cherry melomel but I have made wine out of white grape peach and really like the results. I think there is an apple cherry flavor combo that I am sure would be fine. Honestly I don't think you will get something you hate using white grape, grape, apple or other combinations but it will muttle the flavors if you use a non cherry flavor and this may take some more aging before the flavors meld well. Why not just use additional tart cherry concentrate?

 

[ErinRae]

If I can find frozen cherry concentrate I will. I noticed that the sugar in cherry is low so it takes a lot to get the gravity up. Also I don't want to increase the liquid ratio too much. Going to look tonight hopefully can find some!

 

[Arpolis]

Just looked on the Welch's web site and they make an apple grape cherry cocktail frozen concentrate. If you can find that then that may be good to try. Best of luck on your endeavors.

 

[WVMJ]

I have done it with the black cherry concentrate available at natural markets, I think it was tree of life brand. You have to be careful of how much additional acid you are adding. I forgot one day and added an extra bottle of conc to a port we were making, we had to add both everclear and sugar to bring it back in balance. I like the cherry taste boost it gives but wouldnt consider using too much as a sugar source, just add more honey. WVMJ

 

[ErinRae]

I ended up adding an extra kg of honey and now I'm up to 1.118 sg. Just trying to get the gravity up without spending a fortune on honey. I probably should of picked up a lower tolerance yeast to start!

WVMJ when you say your acid was too high and u had to stabilize...did the ferment hault? Was it too acidic to taste? How did u know you we're off balance?

 

[WVMJ]

When it hurt my teeth! You could easily taste it after everything had fermented to the end. I never made it to dry because I was step feeding it, we prefer to start at a reasonable SG like 1.1 and when it drops to 1.01 add another .01 of honey or sugar to 1.02, let that finish, then add another .01 worth of honey until the final addition just stays at 1.02, then the yeast is done. If the bees keep dying you will look back on these days as grand with low honey prices. I had to stablize not because the acid was to high but because we had just added more sugar in the form of the concentrate plus it had stopped fermenting at a high SG because I had been step feeding it, the acid levels had nothing to do with stablizing decision.

When we make a fruit mead we like to add a lot of fruit in the primary, I will macerate the fruit, press out the juice and then measure the TA of the juice using and acid test kit and adjust the TA based on an the honey having very little acid.

WVMJ

I ended up adding an extra kg of honey and now I'm up to 1.118 sg. Just trying to get the gravity up without spending a fortune on honey. I probably should of picked up a lower tolerance yeast to start!

WVMJ when you say your acid was too high and u had to stabilize...did the ferment hault? Was it too acidic to taste? How did u know you we're off balance?

 

[ErinRae]

Thanks for clarifying! I'll take your approach and not add any more additional honey (or concentrate) until I've dropped down to around 1.01 or so and then just step feed until I hit my desired FG. I'm thinking I'd like the FG around 1.000 just because I'd like to rack on top of at least 10lbs of cherries. I've always added fruit in with the primary ferment and want to see the difference when I add it in secondary.

Yesterday when I added the 1 kg of honey (2.2lbs) I went from 1.102 to 1.116-8 so maybe I can assume then if I stick with the same
size addition my gravity will go up by 0.014 (roughly)

Arpolis I'm going to keep my eye out for the apple grape cherry concentrate as well thanks for the suggestion! Sounds like a great compliment to be added with all the cherries. I found that cherries had a much more mild flavor then I thought.