HEB had some nice looking big cherries on sale for 1.98 per pound.  And I've been wanting to try a squished fruit cider/wine for awhile so I figured why not?

Here's what I'm thinking of, so far:
Aimed at a 2 gallon recipe:

1 gallon of HEB select brand apple juice. (I've made cider from this, I know it makes good hard apple cider)
1/2 gallon of HEB select "Montmorency Tart Cherry Juice"

4.5 pounds of pitted, then frozen, and food processed cherries.  Not sure how much juice this will add.  Will top off with apple juice if it is under 2 gallons.  I'm going to include about half of the pulp/skins in the must just to see if it adds any color to the final result.

I will take a gravity reading and add sugar if necessary to bring it up to 1.065 or so if it is lower than that.  It should be.  There appears to be only slightly more sugar in an 8 ounce serving of this montmorency cherry juice than heb apple juice.   And HEB apple juice has read around 1.048 to 1.050 the last few times, IIRC.

Going to use Safcider AB-1, as I've had great results with that in the past.  I will probably use a bit of pectic enzyme as well, since it will have some pectins in there from the fresh cherries.


So here's what I actually did:

7.5 pounds of whole cherries, pitted and frozen.  I put those in a big pot on the stove and slowly warmed them up and mashed them as I went.   Continued this until consistency was where I wanted it and temperature reached 150.  Then I turned the burner off and let it cool.   Goal was to get it to 150f for 15 or more minutes to kill any nasties on or in the fruit.   Then I dump the fruit and juice into a nylon bag in a measuring glass so I could get an idea of how much juice I was getting.  For future purposes, 7.5 pounds (at least of these big cherries) equals about 10 cups of juice.   I then tied off the bag of cherry skins and set it to the side to throw into the fermenter as the last thing.

3 pounds of honey.  

6 quarts of HEB select Montmorrency Cherry Juice

Zest of 1 large orange

1 cup of black tea (2 bags)... probably not needed since I'm adding the skins back.  The cherry skins probably have alot of tannin.

1 tsp of pectic enzyme

2 grams of Fermaid K

1 pack of Red Star cote des blanc

All went into a 3 gallon wide mouth fermonster.  Even though its a 2 gallon batch, I needed the extra volume for the solids.

Will let that sit for a month, then pull the bag, and check gravity.  If its done, I'll taste it and see what acid and sweetness it needs.

lol, they're price-dropping them again tomorrow... $1.48 a pound.    I'm going to load my freezer up tomorrow.

Miscalculated, it pays to read labels.   The cherry juice comes in 1.5 qt containers.   So I wound up doing 5 qts apple juice, 3 qts of cherry juice and a packet of safcider AB-1.  SG 1.048

The cherries are in the freezer, I will use them for some straight cherry wine later.

@djkest

What's your opinion on blackberry blossom honey for mead vs other types?  Was thinking about buying a bulk 5 gallon pail of honey (way cheaper that way) and the two big options I see are

Clover at $65 per 5 gallons
Blackberry blossom at $90 per 5 gallons

I think my next mead, I want to try a cherry melomel or vikings blood or whatever the nomenclature is.   I've got a bunch of cherries I pitted and threw in the freezer.   Like 15 pounds.

I think I want to make a 3 gallon batch with 10 pounds honey, 15 pounds of chopped and squeezed cherries (solids in a mesh bag), 4 bags of black tea for tannin, juice of 1 large lemon for acidity, zest of 1 large orange, plus fermaid at regular intervals for first 3 days of fermantation.

Was also thinking of going with red star cotes des blanc again because I know now from experience it will go at least to 16% abv but probably not much more as the advertised alcohol tolerance for it is 12%-14%.  And I know that 3 pounds of honey per gallon of water will get me to about 1.122 starting gravity.  So between the slightly more honey and the bit of sugar from the cherries, I should exceed the alcohol tolerance of the yeast and it will finish out with some residual sweetness without me needing to backsweeten.

Or my assumptions are all wrong and it will finish out dry anyways.

I am assuming you mean that price per gallon? That's about 12 lbs.

Otherwise hook me up, lol.

Blackberry Blossom is a great honey, but it doesn't taste the way you think it would. I am a big fan of using the best honey you can find/afford. I am making a Hawaiian Lemon Blossom honey mead with raspberry, this honey is not cheap but the results pretty much speak for themselves.

Also, free yourself from the mental block of backsweetening. I've won 33 medals in commercial competition and each mead was backsweetened to some degree.

The easiest way is to plan on fermenting to dryness, by keeping the OG at 1.120 or lower.  It is hard to calculate the sugar contribution from the fruit however. Fruit does typically lead to a healthier fermentation.

Sorry, I guess I should have posted the link, lol

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09GW4YZWB?tag=arfcom00-20

You're right, that stuff is only 1 gallon.  I don't know why I thought it was 5 gallons.

Some friends of mine in east Texas host hives for this company and their bulk stuff is about $200 bucks per 5 gallons bought directly or $220 on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016L0Y8VE?tag=arfcom00-20

That property is partly swamp and tons of stuff grows there including cypress, oak, maple, pecans, hickory, gumball, hackberry, willow, a million native wildflowers and grasses, etc...  but it is supposed to be really good honey.   I might try to get a few freebie pounds to try it.

Thanks, I will bump the honey down a bit, keep the cherry weight the same, take an initial gravity reading and stir in some additional honey to reach that 1.120 desired starting gravity if needed.

I'm not really averse to backsweetening per se but I'm a little leery of trying to heat stabilize and I'd like to avoid xylitol as much as possible going forward.  I'm not super thrilled with how my last cider turned out using xylitol to backsweeten.

One thing I'm really not sure about is how much acid to add and how much tannin.   Kinda just shooting in the dark based on other people's recipes.   But then I guess there's personal preference involved and the only way to know is to try.

Chemical stabilize. It sounds scary but it isn't, most commercial stuff is done this way.

For 5 gallons:
1 TBSP potassium sorbate*
1/4 TSP potassium metabisulfite

*you can sometimes use less, depends on the final ABV and pH mostly. figure 1-3 grams per gallon.
Metabisulfite reduces over time as well which is what happens sometimes when commercial wines "fall off a cliff" after a certain amount of aging.

Here's how you do it:
Ferment until completely done
Rack into secondary vessel
Mix in stabilizing agents
Wait 1-2 days
You can now add sugar, honey, fruit juice concentrate, etc to sweeten- no xylitol needed.

Thanks man, that's what I will try!

So basically 1.5 grams of potassium metabisulfite and 1.5 grams of potassium sorbate per gallon?

Out of curiousity, why both?

You can Google it if you need to know.

But no, the metabisulfite is 1/2 tsp per 5 gallons and sorbate is 1/2 tsp PER GALLON.

So here's what I actually did:

7.5 pounds of whole cherries, pitted and frozen.  I put those in a big pot on the stove and slowly warmed them up and mashed them as I went.   Continued this until consistency was where I wanted it and temperature reached 150.  Then I turned the burner off and let it cool.   Goal was to get it to 150f for 15 or more minutes to kill any nasties on or in the fruit.   Then I dump the fruit and juice into a nylon bag in a measuring glass so I could get an idea of how much juice I was getting.  For future purposes, 7.5 pounds (at least of these big cherries) equals about 10 cups of juice.   I then tied off the bag of cherry skins and set it to the side to throw into the fermenter as the last thing.

3 pounds of honey.  

6 quarts of HEB select Montmorrency Cherry Juice

Zest of 1 large orange

1 cup of black tea (2 bags)... probably not needed since I'm adding the skins back.  The cherry skins probably have alot of tannin.

1 tsp of pectic enzyme

2 grams of Fermaid K

1 pack of Red Star cote des blanc

All went into a 3 gallon wide mouth fermonster.  Even though its a 2 gallon batch, I needed the extra volume for the solids.

Will let that sit for a month, then pull the bag, and check gravity.  If its done, I'll taste it and see what acid and sweetness it needs.

The whole fruit was kind of a pain in the butt the way I did it.  I might try a food processor next time or something.

Bottled.  Finished at 1.010.  A little higher final than I was expecting.  Last batch I did with this same yeast it went all the way to 1.002.  

Backsweetened with xylitol.  Will try backsweetening with honey and using the metabisulfite and stuff to arrest it next time.


11.81% ABV is still pretty respectable.  

Tastes pretty good even now.   Doesn't really have a super strong ethanol taste even as young as it is.   Though it could be the tartness masking it?   Those cherries are pretty tart.