Continuing on my theme of making mead again, we had a huge harvest of Montmorency Cherries this year so I decided to make a mead with them.

Recipe

• 5lbs clover honey
• 1lb local blackberry honey
• 1lb wildflower honey from my hives
• ~4g Lalvin K1V-1116
• 3.8g Fermaid Go-Ferm
• 9.6g Fermaid-O
• 1gal fresh frozen Montmorency cherries
• 1L tart cherry juice

Data

SG: 1.072
FG: ?
ABV: %
Ferm Temp: 60-70F (ambient in fermenting room)

Steps

The honey was dissolved the honey in heated water as it was heavily crystalized, and filtered tap water was added to make a final volume of 3.5 gallons.

100ml of 50c water was used to disolve 3.8g of Fermaid GoFerm. Yeast was added to the mixture after its temperature dropped below 40C.

The yeast/nutrient slurry was pitched and then I heavily aerated the must.

I will be following this nutrition schedule which is based on the TOSNA formulas.

Nutrition Schedule:
0hr 3.8g Fermaid Go-Ferm
24hr 2.4g Fermaid-O
48hr 2.4g Fermaid-O
72hr 2.4g Fermaid-O
6 days 2.4g Fermaid-O

June 20 2025 - Signs of heavy fermentation are present, the current must temp is 64F.

June 21 2025 - Added the first nutrient addition late, forgot to add it last night at the 24 hour mark so it got added at 730AM. Fermentation is extremely active, adding the nutrient addition caused the expected foam explosion in the fermenter.

I added the 1L of tart cherry juice at around 7PM. It provided a really nice change in color which was the main goal.

June 22 2025 Decided to just stick with the offset nutrition schedule and added 2.4g of Fermaid-O at 730AM.