Tart Cherry Juice in a Mead?

Other Fermentables
1

I have an 8% dry mead conditioning in a carboy at the moment. I picked up a litter of tart cherry juice from whole foods (not from concentrate if that matter) which I was thinking about adding to the mead for flavor/backsweeting. Since I keg I’ll probably just add it directly to the mead without stabilising it. I’ve previously added fresh cider to hard cider for the same purpose and no fermentation sparked back up.

Anyway, I wondered if anyone has tried this before and if 32 oz in a 5Gallon batch sounds like overkill?

2

I have put added a liter of tart cherry concentrate to 5 gallons of dry cider and it gave a nice medium-sweet, cherry flavor. 1L of straight juice won’t be overkill. You might not even notice it.

3

I’ve used (presumably) the same juice for kriek.

From my notes, I used 2 bottles (64 oz) in 4.75 gallons and got a LOT of cherry flavor.

I think the aroma is too subtle in the Whole Foods juice, which is why I like a combo of juice and whole fruit or puree. But again, this is for sour beer.

Since the mead is kegged, try a few blends in the glass first.

4

In a good kriek you can easily add 300 grams of fresh krieken per liter of lambic. Not sure how that translates to concentrate…

5

Yea, that’s what I’ll do. Maybe I’ll pick up a second litter in case 1 doesn’t provide the character I’m hoping for.