[saintpierre]

I am kicking around the idea of using juice as a substitute for whole fruit.

I am planning on using a gallon of honey (local wildflower, weighs 10# +/-) for the mead...

I was planning on using something like R.W. Knudsen's but I am concerned the juice will provide the complexity that whole fruit will.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Mixed juice/fruit?

[udubdawg]

RW Knudsens is great; I've used blueberry, tart cherry, black currant extensively, cranberry and a couple others on occasion.
However I do always use SOME whole fruit.

[saintpierre]

Excellent! What ratio of fruit to juice (lbs to gallon) do you use? 5lbs/1gallon?

[udubdawg]

I don't have a hard/fast rule.  Depends on the specific juice (some of them are very powerful, others more delicate) and the batch size, and things like how big the bag of frozen fruit is.  I keep it simple, so using a gallon of juice and a 2x 3-lb bag of blueberries, for instance, is definitely something I've done.  Pretty sure that was a 3.5-gallon batch; ask AmandaK how it turned out. 
I do tend to stuff 25C and 28B with fruit character and then blend in "straight" cider or mead to taste later.  Easier to go too high and blend to get the balance I like than finding out later I'm low on fruit.  YMMV

if that 100% blueberry juice was just slightly cheaper, I'd drink it every day.  the juice, not the melomel.
well, both.

[saintpierre]

I was thinking a 5 gal batch of sweet and sour cherry melomel. I can get sweet dark cherries (frozen) and would use rw Knudsen tart cherry juice. That juice is fairly strong IMO.

How about 2 gal tart cherry juice, 6 lb cherries, 10 lb honey, top up to 5 gal with water? That would yield 4.5 gal I think...


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