Now, mead is not one of my favorite things for some reason. I mean, I should like them, right? Who don’t like honey?

Oh I have had a few that were phenomenal, and also some that were the worst homebrewed things I ever had. (one was so bad it turned me off of an entire genre of beers)

I have made a couple of meads in the past. They ranged from ok, to maybe not. Mostly because of ingredient choices. Somethings just aint cut out for mead.

But I’m not a quitter. I’m going to find a combination that I like sooner or later. And this past version may be just that. Cranberry mead.

Now I put a little thought into it this time, I was looking at a 3 gallon batch. Lower alcohol so it can be drinkable relatively sooner than normal. A sweeter version. And,, well… cheap. Meads can quickly deplete the wallet quickly.

So what I came up with is: Cranberry Mead
5lbs Costco Wildflower Honey
3 lbs can Vinters Harvest Cranberry Puree
3.25 gallons filtered water
Nutrient
Nottingham Yeast

Using honey and puree is just a matter of dumping and stirring. And while yes I did figure on a bit of displacement, I didn’t figure on quite as much as we got. After getting everything mixed in as measured, it appears we have about 4-4.5 gallons of must.
Am going to assume we will lose atleast a .25 gallon on first rack then maybe another .25 between the next rack and bottling.

The last wine was the same volume and we just racked to my 3 gallon carboy and a separate 1 gallon fermenter. (its nice to have odd ball sizes of jugs laying around) But in the future I will have to adjust for this. 

We had an OG at pitch of 1.052,, and I would expect the Notty to stop around 1.010. That would be around 5.5%, and perfect for what I’m looking for. 

Will be doing staggered nutrient additions, which for mead, especially cranberry, is really needed because the honey has nearly nothing. So I’m going to put in ½ teaspoon today. Stirring every day for 5 days but adding nutrient only every other day. This helps the yeast by releasing some C02 and getting that nutrient in.

This right now is some tasty stuff. Would be a good mixer for some vodka. I hope it holds some of this character when its finished. I guess we will see.