Pomegranate Mead

Classification: mead, melomel, pomegranate mead

Source: Rebecca Sobol (sobol@ofps.ucar.edu), Mead Digest #473, 4/14/96

This mead still has a nice red color, but it's fading to orange. Good pomegranate flavor comes through nicely. It's pretty dry and doesn't really sparkle. Still has a bite that I associate with a young mead that needs more aging. The last few sips from my glass tasted better and more like pomegranates than the first few sips. Try a gourmet grocery store, or possibly a middle-eastern grocery store for the pomegranate juice.

Ingredients:

10 pounds raw alfalfa honey from Terry Dorsey (a local beekeeper)
5 t yeast nutrient
1 t gypsum
Eldorado Springs water - enough for 5 gallons
1 package Lalvin (EC-1118 we think) Yeast (started 3 days earlier in honey water)
6 qts. R.W. Knudsen Pomegranate juice

Procedure:

Heat honey with water to almost boiling. Add gypsum and yeast nutrient. Skim scum. Keep hot for about 10 minutes to pasturize. Add juice and let sit covered (heat off) for 20 minutes. Cool, pour into carboy and add water to make 5 gallons. Pitch yeast. Stir and store with blow-off tube.

Racked on July 7, 1995.
Hydrometer reading (8/2) = 0.995.
Hydrometer reading (10/12) = 0.995.

3/4 cup corn sugar boiled with 1 cup water. Pour liquid sugar into pail, rack mead into pail and stir before bottling. Bottled October 12, 1995.