I have been looking for a few hobbies to get into till the weather decides to either get cold and stay cold so I can go ice fishing or till early spring when the ice starts coming off the lakes. So I decided to get into making mead and wine as a new hobby and today I made my first double batch of Cherry Mead using a recipe I modified from stormthecastle.com.

Ingredients:

1 Gallon of Water
3 Lbs of Honey
1/2 pound frozen black cherries
1 cup of orange juice
1 packet of champagne yeast
1 tsp of yeast booster
1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
1 cinnamon stick

Directions:

Sanitize everything that is going to come in contact with your must, I use onestep.
Then fill your gallon jug slightly over 1/2 the way up with water and add your 1 cup of OJ. Then add your 3 pounds of honey and yeast booster. Place lid on jug and shake vigorously until the honey dissolves into the the water. After the honey is dissolved into the water add your 1/2 pound of cherries, pectic enzyme and cinnamon stick into the jar and fill the rest of the way up with water (Make sure you leave enough head space to allow room for when you pitch your yeast and the gases made from the yeast don’t force your airlock out or worse cause your jug to explode.) and shake your jug vigorously until everything is mixed well. I then placed my jug in hot water in the sink till I got the temperature up to 75 degrees.
Follow the instructions on your yeast pack and pitch the yeast when ready. Seal the jug with a stopper and airlock.

I use the large mouth 1 gallon glass jar instead of the standard 1 gallon glass jug because its easier to get the fruit in and also its easier to clean afterwards.