Starting this as a show mead, intending to add frozen cranberries in secondary. It won't be ready for the holidays this year, but oh well. We'll be calling this batch Cranberry Melomel.

Ingredients in this batch

2017-10-14_23_20_56_2
Batch 036 after bottling.
  • 7.25 oz. blueberry varietal honey from Santa Barbara Blueberries.
  • 1 lb 14 oz. orange blossom varietal honey from Torn & Glasser.
  • ½ tsp. of Valley Brewers yeast energizer.
  • 1 tsp. of Fermax yeast nutrient.
  • Filtered tap water to about 90% of a gallon.
  • ½ packet White Labs WLP500 Monastery Ale yeast.
  • 12 oz. Ocean Spray whole cranberries, bought fresh, then frozen at home (added on 23 November 2016).
  • 9 oz. Ocean Spray whole cranberries, bought fresh, then frozen at home (added on 6 January 2017).

Picked WLP500 for the yeast because it's supposed to work well for high-gravity beers and to emphasize fruit character. Sanitized everything, then poured the honey into the carboy, then poured in the yeast energizer and yeast nutrient. Poured in water to a somewhere under a gallon in the carboy (because I'm leaving space for the cranberries in a few weeks). Agitated for several minutes to oxygenate, then drew off a sanitized hydrometer tube's worth and measured the gravity. Poured the hydrometer tube back in a shook for another few minutes. Pitched in the yeast at 82℉. Popped in a fermentation lock and filled it to the line with vodka.

Added bought-fresh-then-frozen-at-home cranberries on two separate occasions, 23 November 2016 and 6 January 2017.

Brew date: 12 November 2016.
Original gravity: 1.106.
Bottling day: 8 February 2017
Final gravity: 1.001
Estimated ABV: 11.5%

Yield:

  • 8 x 12 oz. beer bottles
  • hydrometer tube

Total: Approx. 100 fl. oz., or 80% of a gallon.

Observations

  • 2016-11-13T18:22: Small bubbles are visible in the carboy, but no large-scale bubbling yet.
  • 2016-11-13T18:22: There's visible carbon dioxide discharge from the fermentation lock, but no real bubbling visible inside the carboy.
  • 2016-11-23T20:00: Added 12 oz. frozen Ocean Spray cranberries to the must.
  • 2016-11-24T10:22: There is clearly carbon dioxide discharge once again from the airlock. The frozen cranberries had clearly also expanded; drained off 1 cup of must (yeasty! kind of delicious! gravity is 0.993!) to make room and prevent airlock overflow while I'm out of town.
  • 2016-12-03T04:37: Got back from a little over a week on the road; there is now very little very little carbon dioxide discharge from the airlock.
  • 2017-01-02T21:44: It's tart. Still cloudy. Cranberry flavor is not as strong as I'd have expected.
  • 2017-01-05T16:48: Put more cranberries in the freezer.
  • 2017-01-06T23:02: Added 9 oz. frozen Ocean Spray cranberries to the must.
  • 2017-01-07: Xenia pulled out an unspecified amount of must because the expanding cranberries had forced it into the airlock. Thanks, Xenia!
  • 2017-01-09T13:22: Poured off another few ounces of must as the cranberries expanded a bit more.
  • 2017-01-13T04:48: No more must has needed to be removed.
  • 2017-01-30: Tart. Promising. Letting it sit on berries longer.
  • 2017-02-07: Put in a cooler with ice (and with batch 037) to cold-crash.
  • 2017-02-08: Removed from ice; bottled (yielding about a hundred fluid ounces at approx. ABV 11.5%), even though a good amount of this Belgian yeast was still in suspension. (But if it hasn't settled by now, it's going to have to settle out in the bottle, if it does at all.)