I’ve still been brewing, but I’ve slowed down a little. We had a ton of mead in bottles and needed to drink some down to avoid buying more bottles! Some of the earliest brews have aged over a year and turned out quite well.

Our strategy is to set at least one bottle aside and let it age more than a year to see how the flavor changes and develops. So far I haven’t had any that really turned out badly. Of course, some are better than others – but that’s what experimentation is all about!

Next up for experimentation… Cranberry Mead! This is another 1-gallon batch using local honey and locally sourced berries. We didn’t have much honey harvest this year so I’ve been using some Wildflower Honey from Glorybee foods instead of our own.

I started with 1 pound of frozen cranberries. I got these from Hentze Family Farm in Junction City. It’s a small operation with a farm stand most known locally for its cherries. I’ll probably get some cherries this spring to do another cherry mead.

When fruit freezes, the water usually breaks down cell membranes – this allows the juice to flow free – To get them opened even more I heated them up in some spring water and then mashed them with a potato masher.

Using the warm water mixed with 3 pounds of honey, I added the cranberry mash to a mesh bad and let it cool down enough to pitch the yeast. I’m using Lalvin D47 yeast for this plus a little Fermaid K to kickstart the process.

This was a very active fermentation for the first couple of weeks and I pulled the cranberries out at the two-week mark but left it to ferment in primary for a solid month.

It started with a gravity of 1.114 and ended with a gravity of 1.012 making it about a 13.3% ABV. That’s a good number since I ended up with a bit less than a gallon and quite a bit of headspace in secondary. That does have a risk of giving off-flavors, but very unlikely to become vinegar.

It’s still pretty cloudy so I’ll leave it in secondary for a month (or maybe two) then bottle it. From a sample taste at the moment it’s nice with a little sweetness and a bit of tannin quality probably from the cranberries.

More to come in Part 2 when its done in secondary fermentation!