My Coca Cherry Mead.

I love cherries. They are in my top 5 fruits. A mead had to happen.

Primary

2 weeks in the bucket 48 oz Tart Cherry Juice for lots of cherry flavor 5lbs of clover honey 36 oz of black cherries frozen Lavlin 71b-1112 re-hydrated with yeast energizer pectic enzyme, yeast nutrient Water to a gallon

I heated up the juice water and honey into a pot, brought to a simmer right below a boil and added in the honey bit by bit. While it was heating up I poured the cherries into my bag (seriously bag + bucket = so much win) the crushed then up with my hand. I poured the liquid on top. Added in the pectic enzyme, nutrient, energizer. Then whipped it up with my hand blender with whisk attachment. SG was between 1.27-1.32 the foam obscured it a bit.

With the yeast I rehydrated it with a bit of yeast engergizer. Didn't put the nutrient in as it has DAP in it. After it sat for a bit, I added a bit of must to it. Let it sit for 17 mins, it got a nice foam on top of it, so I added more must then let that sit for 20 mins. After the 20 min mark I dumped it into the bucket, stirred her up then sat the lid on top.

During the first three days I don't seal the bucket since I aerate three times a day. After the first three I sealed her up and let her blurp for two weeks.

Here is a photo of it in the bucket

Secondary 

2 weeks then racked onto 12 oz of black cherries 

After the two weeks was up I racked it off the fruit and onto more cherries and some coca nibs. The gravity was 1.001. At this gravity it was dry as a bone but it was wonderful! The taste of the cherries was thick without being cough syrup like. I let The Wife try some and even though she does not like dry wines she liked this one.

Tertiary

2-3 oz of cocoa nibs 

After sitting for another 2 weeks on the extra cherries I racked this off onto 2-3oz's of cocoa nibs just to give it a bit of extra flavor. I sample it again but did not take a gravity reading. The flavor had gotten even better. The cherry flavor was a bit more pronounced and it smelled wonderful.

Quaternary

(admit it, you just learned a new word)

I let it sit on the nibs for quite some time. I don't really remember how long. I think maybe a month or longer. The nibs did not impart as much flavor as I had hoped. Though it did add a bit of complexity to the mead. It was around this time I broke my hydrometer in the making of a future post (see what I did there?) so I could not take a gravity reading. After giving very small samples out to everyone we all agreed it needs to be backsweetened just a hair. If the gravity is still 1.001 then I would take it maybe to 1.010.

Personally I think the color on this is FANTASTIC. As of today's date it is still in the carboy bulk aging. It was sorbated and sulfited a week ago. I will backsweeten it this weekend when I trek up to the brew store to buy yet another hydrometer. I plan to let this one sit for a while before I open it up. Tell me what you think of the color. Any suggestions on additions? I will most definitely be making this one again.