Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

I want to try cranberry as a flavor to a dry sparkling mead. I'm looking for suggestions on what to use. I've thought of whole frozen berries, and then I saw a cranberry wine base. I was wondering what precautions I'd need using this very tart fruit. Am I going to need special chemistry to get it to ferment down to near or below 1.000 ? Any suggestions on when to add and how much? (I was thinking 2lbs in 5gal??)

Just get yourself 2-3 cans of frozen concentrate, you can always start with one or two and add more later, but it will ferment out completely so each addition you will need to give it a some time to ferment to achieve your flavor profile, which with mead is a long time. Also adding the frozen, it should be just pasteurized only, no preservatives and by adding it at the beginning of your mead making you will bring in lots of nutrients your mead needs, otherwise you will need to be on a schedule of nutrients.




From: jjbuck [mailto:brew-recipes@crbeernuts.org]
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 8:30 PM
To: brew-recipes@crbeernuts.org
Subject: Cranberry dry mead


I want to try cranberry as a flavor to a dry sparkling mead. I'm looking for suggestions on what to use. I've thought of whole frozen berries, and then I saw a cranberry wine base. I was wondering what precautions I'd need using this very tart fruit. Am I going to need special chemistry to get it to ferment down to near or below 1.000 ? Any suggestions on when to add and how much? (I was thinking 2lbs in 5gal??)




Brother John Brewing
The Monk at the Marion Monastary

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Most cranberry "juice" is either cranberry juice and high fructose corn syrup, or, for the better stuff, cranberry juice and apple juice. I'd watch the labels. I think in the organic section at HyVee, or at New Pioneer in IC, you can get 100% cranberry juice. I haven't tried it in a mead, but my take on it is that a little would go a long ways.

Cranberry sauce in a can? Cool Thanksgiving Mead!

That really does sound like a good combination, one that I had not thought of previously.

Marion HyVee does not have canned berries except with lots of corn syrup. No frozen berries either. I got juice with just cranberry and sugar and corn syrup (no apple juice). The whole berries are out of season but I hoped to get frozen. Anybody got a package or two in their freezer left-over from the holidays? I'd like to stay with pure cranberries if I could.

If you can't find them any closer, I'd check w/ New Pioneer in IC/Coralville.

Thanks! Never occurred to me. I'll bet they have many different juices etc.

On a slightly closer front, check out the "organic food" section at the boosier HyVees (either the Marion one or the Edgewood Rd one), as they will likely have dried ones or juice w/o the extra sugar.