for my next trick....

[WhiskeyPriest]

I'm getting ready to brew my second mead. Here is my recipe Idea:

16lbs Wildflower honey
3 gallons water
2 gallons apple juice/cider
Lalvin K1-V1116
Energizer and Nutrient

Crushed Mahleb, Mace, and some vanilla beans in secondary

Maybe age wth some Oak.

Most of the Cyser recipes I see use all Cider, and no water. Does this make it too sweet? Is juice or cider better?
another option would be to use 4.5 gallons water, and 1 quart tart cherry juice concentrate at 68 brix.

Maybe I should try another strain of yeast... 71B-1122?

I've never used Mahleb, but I'm intrigued with them.

It is just an amalgamation of several recipes I've seen. I'd appreciate your thoughts.
-WP

 

[akueck]

Sounds interesting!

Using juice instead of water won't make it any sweeter unless the extra sugar from the juice puts the must past the alcohol tolerance of the yeast. Be aware though that fruit juices tend to super-charge the yeast a bit and they might out-peform their listed tolerance.

Juice and cider are basically the same thing. Whatever you use, be sure it has NO PRESERVATIVES (like sulfites or sorbates).

Good luck!

 

[ucflumberjack]

i was wondering about using some juice concentrates. i found a website with a few different ones and i kind of want to try one but some of them are really expensive and i kind of already have my next 5 batches planned out

 

[Riadfodig]

I enjoy making cysers myself, and actually just started another batch a few weeks ago. The main reason for using all juice and no water in cysers is to maximize the apple flavor in the end product. You need to be careful, though! If you use juice as the base for your mead instead of water, that's a lot of sugar that is not measured. Instead of adding all of your honey to the must up front, add a smaller amount, measure the sg, and keep adding honey until you get to the desired starting sg.

I highly recommend using all juice instead of part juice/part water because of the more pronounced apple flavor in the end product.

Also, you mentioned using water plus a cherry juice concentrate. Using concentrates like this opens all kinds of possibilities. Fermentation of fruit tends to change the flavor of it (compare grape juice to wine, almost no flavor similarities). But by using water as a base, letting fermentation complete, and then adding the concentrate, you have effectively used a larger volume of juice than you actually added to the must. For example, my local grocery store has a cranberry juice concentrate, 8 oz, that reconstitutes to 64 oz of juice. I could add that 8 oz concentrate to a finished mead and end up with a lot more cranberry taste without having diluted the end product to a much lower alcohol content.

Whatever you end up doing, you're going to love the taste of a finished cyser