Apple Blues and Very CherryDouble Disaster
Long time no brew. After Marcia's freezer died we were able to save some fruit. This double batch has apple juice and blueberries in one half, and pie cherries in the other half. Melomel.
Ingredients:
Yeast notes. Vintnor's Harvest CL23 wine yeast. Instructions say not to rehydrate, so we didn't. This yeast went into AB. Lalvin D47 rehydrated for VC.
March 13, 2015 - We started the honey in the kettle with 3 quarts water. The fruit had been in the freezer for a while before the freezer died. Then it was partially thawed before it was transfered to another freezer. The blueberries and apple juice were still a bit frozen when we started, so they went into a separate kettle where they were heated gently until completely thawed and slightly warmed. Meanwhile the honey was fully crystallized so it took a while to get it to dissolve and warm. We added the must chiller when the temperature got to about 155F. We started the timer for 20 minutes when the temperature got to 160F. The temperature got up to 170F during pasteurization. Once the must was cooled half of it went into the bucket, with the blueberries and apple juice. The other half went into a carboy, the cherries will be added later. More water was added to both bucket and carboy, yeast pitched, yeast energizer added. Then they were topped off with water and stirred well, and both stored with bubble locks.
June 26, 2015 - racked AB off the fruit and into a carboy.
August 6, 2015 - sanitized bucket with a new (for us) sanitizing solution. Then we put the thawed pie cherries into the bucket and racked the plain mead onto the cherries. Now it's Very Cherry.
May 6, 2016 - bottled Apple Blues and then racked Very Cherry.
September 7, 2016 - when many bottles were filled with Very Cherry, but not yet capped, an empty bottle was accidentally dropped, knocking over most of the bottles. Much mead was spilled on the floor. There was just enough left to top off all the spilled bottles. Very sad; a Double Disaster.
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