Cranberry Mead
Source: John (The Coyote) Wyllie
Mead Lover's Digest #243, 9 December, 1993
Ingredients (for 2 gallons):
- 1 gal Oceanspray cranberry juice. (Good jug too!)
- 5 lb vernal honey (clover-alfalfa)
- Palmful raisins, chopped
- 1 tsp yeast nutrient
- ½ tsp acid blend
- Champagne yeast
Directions:
- Heat the honey with some water (1:1 is fine). Pasteurize or boil. I campden-treated the juice. Shouldn't really need it though. Add the rest of the goods, divide the juice between two gallon jugs. Divide honey mixture. Pitch yeast, bring up to a full gallon. (10/17/92)
- I fermented one in a closet upstairs (60s) and one in the basement at lower 50s. They both fermented forever. In January I transferred to a secondary. The SG was 1.010. Added 2 cups/gallon dissolved corn sugar to top it up. The upstairs one was bottled 1/31. It was, and still is, cloudy.
- The downstairs one was bottled 7/5. It was clearer, sweet and strong. It did finally clear. and was significantly better than the first.
Notes:
Some of this broth lasted a full year. The last bottle disappeared with my folks at X-mas, celebrating their survival of the Pasadena fires. It is very sweet, and tasty. Nicely balanced. It has become lightly carbonated—even though it's corked. Nice touch though. Light red/orange color, clear, fruity nose. It has a full body, almost syrupy, and is quite strong!