Okay, update with 2 out of the 3 recipes. But first I'll answer the questions. These are extremely young meads, and the rush to bottle the cherry is due to it tasting very good as it is, and my being impatient. Just sampled the peach/pear that I started along with the cherry, and it will certainly need a lot more aging.
As a note, I do not have starting specific gravities for these, because I was impatient and started them before my hydrometer arrived.
Sweet Cherry Melomel:
Started 8/19/2011
1 gallon batch using
4lbs Hannaford brand clover honey
20 rasins
1 bag sweet cherries, pitted and halved (~3lb bag)
1/2 packet Lavlin K1-V1116
Rehydrated yeast in ~100° F water only. Split packet in half with peach pear mead.
Put airlock on and forget about it.
Rack 10/27/2011, color dark red and opaque, SG 1.072
Taste: Deliciously sweet, almost entirely covers the alcohol.
(Will be testing taste and SG again today, will report back soon.)
Pear/Peach Melomel:
Started 8/19/2011
1 gallon batch using:
just under 4lbs Hannaford clover honey (lost some in the honey jars and in a required must pour-off to get it to fit with the fruit)
1 medium sized peach, sliced (no pit)
1 medium ripe bartlet pear, sliced
1 medium not-so-ripe bartlet pear, sliced
~35 rasins
1/2 packet Lavlin K1-V1116
Rehydrated yeast in ~100° F water only, split packet with Cherry Melomel
Put on airlock and forget about it.
(Break hydrometer after racking cherry melomel. Decide to wait until new one arrives to rack the peach pear)
Rack 11/3/11, translucent light peach color, still cloudy.
SG 1.040
Taste - a little hot, has a bit of a burn after it goes down as well, pear is stronger than peach (as expected), but needs to mellow a lot.
(This one I'm in no rush to bottle or clear or anything, it needs to age, and that's fine with me.)
The third batch was the first one started, basically before I knew anything, and that's the one that tastes pretty bad (it didn't last time I racked it about a month ago, but now it's just horrible. Dunno what happened.) That recipe is in the mead log section somewhere, I'll dredge it up later and ask for help on that one in particular. But these two, particularly the cherry, are the ones I wanted to talk about in this thread.
EDIT: Cherry melomel tested again for SG today 11/3/11. SG of 1.074. My SG went up... something is wrong here.