Jack Ratt Lyme Bay Black Cherry Mead, 75 cl

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Take your cherries and cut them in half. Store them in a bag in the freezer overnight to break down the cell walls of the cherries. Place the cherries in your second carboy. Add some pectic enzyme to help break down the cherries. Living here in Hamilton - kind of in a “Fruit belt” - has spoiled us rotten when it comes to fruit. Fresh local peaches, apples, cherries, plums, pears, and more! You can use 1 tbs of unscented bleach per gallon of water rather than easy clean. Just rinse everything off after sanitizing with it. I like to chop the cherries (in a food processor) or mash them (with a potato masher), and let them sit in the honey for a couple hours before starting on the wine making.

Once you've mastered the basic recipe, you can start adding fruits and spices — or you can make a cyser (apple mead) or pyment (grape mead). This is not cleaning the equipment, it is sanitizing the equipment so no stray yeast or bacteria can contaminate the batch. Cherry mead, often called “cherry melomel”, is usually made like a country wine. You make a country wine with small amount of fruit, 2-6 lb, per gallon of water (250-750 g/L) with enough sugar to bring the alcohol up to 12% and acid to balance. You would do something similar to make a conventional cherry mead, but use honey instead of sugar. Also fruit would be at the low end of the range. I’m not going to do that. For a little bit more spice, you could add 1-2 cloves at the beginning of the brewing process. Be carefully – one whole clove goes a long way!

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Choose Appropriate Yeast: Select a yeast strain that has a high alcohol tolerance and can withstand the desired ABV. Different yeast strains have different alcohol tolerances, which can affect the final ABV. The flavor of your cherry mead can also be enhanced by blending it with other ingredients or add-ins. For instance, you can try adding spices like cinnamon, cloves, or ginger to impart warm and spicy notes. Additionally, incorporating oak chips during aging can lend a hint of vanilla, tannins, and a deeper color to your mead. If you are drinking cold mead, it is best served at 12 – 16°C, as this is when the best tones of the drink are revealed. To get it to this temperature, store your mead in the fridge and before serving, allow it to sit in the glass for a few minutes at room temperature. It will not reach room temperature in that time, but it also won’t be too cold. Next, prepare your cherries. You can use either fresh or frozen, but make sure they are pitted. Tart cherries work well for complex flavors, while sweet cherries provide a richer taste. Weigh out the correct amount, keeping in mind that 2-3 lbs is generally suitable for a 1-gallon batch.

The flavours of the mead can and often will develop with every sip, and you will notice this most after swallowing and exhaling – known as the ‘tail’. The more sips you take, the more the flavours and sensations develop. Glassware When it comes to brewing, creating your very own concoctions is always the best way to go. Try following these simple guidelines on mead brewing, and feel free to modify the ingredients or adjust the amount according to your liking. Who knows, you might end up making your very own foolproof Viking blod mead recipe. You’ll probably have a bit left in the original honey jar, just add some warm water to the jar, shake it up, and pour that into the fermentation jug. Add a little more warm water to the fermentation jug until you have about the same amount of water and honey. True Viking Blood Mead is from somewhere around the 1300’s, and the details are rather sparse and sketchy. All we really know is that it’s cherries and honey, in some proportion, with water. Not a very auspicious beginning to this highly touted mead recipe, right?Additionally, the variety of cherry can alter the taste of your mead. For a more tart profile, opt for sour or red tart cherries. On the other hand, if you prefer a sweeter mead, you can use dark or Bing cherries. Remember to balance the sweetness of your cherries with the type of honey you choose; a more neutral honey works well with sweeter cherries, while a flavored honey like orange blossom pairs nicely with tart cherries. The Must Preparation Honey Dilution

Is there a certain type of glass that you should drink mead from? Well, the suggestion is often to enjoy cold mead from a clear, stemmed wine glass (one for white wine or port) and hot mead in a whisky glass. However, if you wanted to channel your inner Viking and drain your mead from a drinking horn, we won’t stop you!

Sweet and Sour

As in wine, the primary balance in mead is between sweetness and acidity. The pH of honey varies, but the average is around 3.9 — between the pH of most wines (3.0 to 3.6) and most beers (4.0 to 4.7). During mead fermentation, the pH drops, sometimes below 3.0. So mead is at least as acidic as white wine, which is most often in the 3.0 to 3.4 range, and sometimes more acidic. First, you’ll need a glass gallon carboy — this is where you'll store your mead while it ferments. If you don't have a glass carboy, any food-grade, sanitized gallon container will work. Next, set up your bottling station with clean, sanitized bottles, a bottling tool, an auto siphon, and a funnel. Place the bottles on a towel or clean surface to prevent slipping and organize the other tools within easy reach. The more water you use, the less impact the fruit will have. In deciding exactly how much, consider the amount of wine. You shouldn’t make more second wine than original wine, and maybe only half as much. Since I estimate three gallons of finished cherry wine, that leaves a 1.5-3 gallon range for my cherry mead. I decided on the high end of that range because fruit meads are often made with less fruit than comparable wines. The amount of honey depends on your alcohol target. Making Mead: A Complete Guide to the Making of Sweet and Dry Mead, Melomel, Metheglin, Hippocras, Pyment andCyser

Using the auto siphon, transfer the cherry mead from the secondary container into each bottle, leaving about half an inch of headspace at the top. The bottling tool will help control the flow of mead and ensure consistent headspace in each bottle. If a funnel is necessary, place it at the mouth of each bottle to minimize spillage. Make Mead Like a Viking: Traditional Techniques for Brewing Natural, Wild-Fermented, Honey-Based Wines andBeers Siphon Hose - I use a 3 foot siphon hose in this instructable. I recommend not going any smaller than 3 feet because it can cause unwanted air to enter your mead when transferring the mead to the secondary fermenter. The larger the siphon hose, the better. Here is a link where you can buy a siphon hose: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/5-16-id-siphon...Archaeological evidence puts mead as being one of the oldest alcoholic drinks in the world after traces of the honey-based drink were found in China from over 9,000 years ago. This means mead has been enjoyed by some of history’s ancient civilisations, from the ancient Greeks to Norse marauders. Cap the jug and shake well to mix it. You’ll probably have quite a bit of foam after it’s mixed; that’s ok, it will subside in a little bit. Once everything is sanitized, take your siphon hose and hook it up to the siphon. After these are connected, connect the bottling wand to the other end of the siphon hose. The Erik the Red Cherry Mead recipe was formulated to have a high probability of delicious success for a beginning mead-maker. If you follow the instructions closely, you’ll have a wonderful mead to drink in a couple of months. Here, I’ll cover the process in detail and explain some of the differences between old-school mead recipes and more modern formulations. Clean Up Your Act Age your mead. The character of your mead will change significantly as it ages. This is especially important with mead!