Cranberry mead = fantastic!

Mead, wine, beer, and any other form of alcoholic beverages, as well as vinegar.

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Cranberry mead = fantastic!

Postby WWFSM on Wed Oct 16, 2013 10:51 am

This is so yummy, I needed to share it with someone.

My mead was stuck and I had some (no additive) cranberry juice left over - so I put them together last week and it is so amazingly yummy. It has all the best elements of cranberries without any of the nasty bits, and the mead flavour is really well balanced.

What's even more incredible is that it looks like runny blood. Perfect for Guy Fawkes or Halloween.

I'm going to rack it today, ferment it somewhere warmer than normal, so that it can be ready to bottle by the end of the month (fingers crossed).

Though I need to put up a new batch soon because there isn't going to be any left to age for next year. This time I'll measure everything better and write it down.
Doing my best to be the change I want to see in the world, one meal at a time.
http://wholewheatfsm.blogspot.ca

Currently Culturing
Kombucha, perry, cider, wine (red and white), mead(s), miso, sourdough, & seasonal veg my garden gives me
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Re: Cranberry mead = fantastic!

Postby justineaton on Wed Oct 16, 2013 12:34 pm

Sounds good, all I have going right now is a few didn't cider but I would like to make a mead sometime soon. Right now the one I am most excited about is my spiced pumpkin cider, made similar to a pumpkin ale but in a hard cider. It smells awesome!
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Re: Cranberry mead = fantastic!

Postby WWFSM on Wed Oct 16, 2013 12:39 pm

Spiced Pumpkin Cider!?! (swoons) That sounds fantastic!

Tell me you have a recipe and are willing to share it? Pretty please?
Doing my best to be the change I want to see in the world, one meal at a time.
http://wholewheatfsm.blogspot.ca

Currently Culturing
Kombucha, perry, cider, wine (red and white), mead(s), miso, sourdough, & seasonal veg my garden gives me
WWFSM
 
Posts: 153
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2013 11:10 am
Location: Canada, Left Coast

Re: Cranberry mead = fantastic!

Postby justineaton on Wed Oct 16, 2013 3:09 pm

I looked and looked for a recipe with no luck so I decided to wing it. I have been keeping notes though and if it turns out good I would be glad to share. I did talk to a few people attempting it at the homebrewtalk forum and everyone seems to be taking a different approach, I used canned pumpkin, carmelized it by baking and then added it right into my Apple cider in primary with sugar and pie spices. I have been stirring it up everyday like I usually do with my primary and the pumpkin always floats back to the top so when it comes time to rack it to my carboy and airlock it should be easy enough to scrape it all out first. Alternately I see some people dissolve their sugar in 3-4 gallons of cider and boil their fresh pumpkin chunks in 1-2 gallons of water with the pie spices then strain it into the cider and pitch the yeast when the temp is right.
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Re: Cranberry mead = fantastic!

Postby justineaton on Sat Dec 21, 2013 12:58 am

Well I finally cracked open a pumpkin hard cider after two weeks of bottle conditioning and it was great! This is easily the best cider I have made yet, the thing that really surprised me was how clear it is. When racking I couldn't even see it moving through the tube, is not until you are looking at a larger volume that you can see the color of it which is typical cider with a slight orange to it. My fg was 1.020 when I bottled it and after two weeks it is very slightly carbonated (cider usually dries out at 1.000 my Apple wine is just a hair under that but it has been fermenting for 6 months) abv is 8.9%. All the pumpkin sank to the bottom and I lost about a gallon of the five gallon batch with the pumpkin sludge but it was worth it. Next time instead of doing pumpkin and pumpkin spices I will buy libby's all natural canned pumpkin pie which is just the pumpkin with the spices in it. If you still want to try this, just add your pumpkin right to the cider in primary. Add as much sugar as you want depending on how strong you want it to be and that's it, I left it in the primary for about three months but that will be different depending on how much sugar you use. I only racked to secondary to get the pumpkin sludge out before bottling.
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Re: Cranberry mead = fantastic!

Postby justineaton on Sat Dec 21, 2013 1:01 am

Sunday I am bottling my dry hopped cider. I have high expectations of this one as well. It is just cider and sugar fermented completely flat at 9.3 abv (a little higher than I was shooting for) and then dry hopped with Amarillo hops for a week.
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Re: Cranberry mead = fantastic!

Postby FermentingYeti on Mon Jan 20, 2014 5:22 pm

Did you add the cranberry juice straight or mix it with anything first? I have a cyser going now that is taking its time fermenting despite plenty of straight from the tree apples (that spent a few months in my freezer before being juiced) and a ginger bug. I read a recipe that recommended crushing cranberries and sprinkling sugar and orange juice over it before adding to the mead. I've already got a good amount of sugar in my ginger bug, though. I'll keep an eye on it and add some organic cranberry juice if it doesn't get going soon.
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