The Midnight Cherry Mead

Hello all! It's been a while since I have posted anything. Thankfully The Wife was holding it down. Any who it has been waaay too long since I have posted up a mead. A lot of my past meads were already in secondary or already bottled by the time I posted here. This one, however, will be posted up in real time. As of the date of this posting, this mead has been in primary for about 24 hours.

This post will also presume you are not completely new to brewing. So I will skip certain obvious steps, like sanitizing.

 To start I got my biggeset stainless steel pot and put the temp on low. To it I add 32 oz black currant juice and 32oz cherry juice.

 This stuff was tart, but dang good flavor.

 Same for the cherry, tart but good flavor.

 Next I heated up the honey in the bottle so it is easier to pour. Some people hate the idea of heating up honey, but I am fine with it as long as it is not boiling.

After you mix in the honey and get it all dissolved (*FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING MAKE SURE IT DOES NOT BOIL) go ahead and dump your mixture into the bucket or carboy of your choice. I chose a bucket because it is my only piece of brewing equipment that is 2 gallons.

 A few photos of me taking a gravity reading. It is hard to read, but the gravity came to 1.060.

 These are the nutrients I use on my mead. Pectic enzyme to help break down the pectin so it is less cloudy. The other two are to feed the yeast.

 Next is time to aerate the mixture. I like to use my stick blender.

 .......So this isn't working.......

 Oh yea, crap, wrong stick. Got the one without holes on the top.

 YEEEAAAAA WHIP IT UP!!!

 Now that is more like it. Foamy, means bubbles and oxygen which is good for yeast. Also note how how that temp is. 

You cannot, I repeat CANNOT pitch  yeast at that temp. All you will do is kill them. 

So stick your brewing container into a clean sink full of water and ice and wait till it cools down. 

Much better! I like to pitch between 75-79 degrees. There are lots of docs on pitching temps. Do whatever works for you. 

I got my yeast slurry dumped in. After a lag phase of about 6-8 hours. She started to burp for me. Right now the container is in the closet burping along. I plan to aerate it daily to get some oxygen in there to help the yeasties. 

The second part will be up in two weeks when primary is over and we move to secondary. See ya in two weeks.  when the gravity drops. 

Edit: Part 2 is up.