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I was given 5 12-ounce bottles of Montmorency Cherry Juice Concentrate so I decided I would try to brew some things with them. I am making up a batch of Cherry Melomel which sounds very tasty, and I plan on doing some cherry wine with the rest. I found a couple recipes online of people who had used a similar cherry juice concentrate to brew with. The brand they used said that 32 ounces of the concentrate was equivalent to roughly 25 pounds of cherries. I assume the brand I have is similar, and so I went with a similar use of about 1 pint of concentrate per gallon (only using 12 ounces for this mead, but will be using 16 ounces for the wine I make).
Process:
I added my honey to a 1-gallon carboy. I then added some warm water and shook the carboy and water up for a few minutes to get the honey mixed with the water and to aerate it. I then added my cherry juice concentrate, some yeast nutrient, and my yeast. I measured the OG, a bit higher than I was expecting but might provide some sweetness in the finished mead to counteract the tartness of the cherries. Sealed it with an airlock and put it in my brew room to start fermenting. I will have to keep an eye on it, since my last melomel (blackberry) foamed through the airlock within a few hours of pitching the yeast.
4-13-12: Put into primary carboy. OG measured at 1.130, giving it an alcohol potential of 17.5 %ABV.
4-14-12: Fermentation has begun, and it is not foaming a lot so I don’t think I’ll have an issue with the airlock on this one.
4-25-13: Bottled into 10 12-ounce bottles. FG measured at 1.012 giving a strength of 15.9% ABV. It tastes pretty tart, but has some of the honey sweetness still. I will let it age for a while.
Tags: cherry, concentrate, honey, juice, mead, montmorency