I have had some great success using just fruit juice to make my melomels.
In fact, any one who has made a cyser or perry knows how well a mead can be made with juice.
You can use any juice that you want to make the melomel. I have used juice from apples, pears, grapes, black mulberries, elderberries, lemons, strawberries, plums, and pomegranates.
Bottled juice will work well as long as two things exist:
1) the fluid is 100% juice (none of this "Contains 11% real fruit juice"
)
2) the juice contains no preservatives.
If you have juice concentrate, re-hydrate as per manufacturer's instructions. The juice should have a typical specific gravity of 1.035 to 1.050.
I like making my juice the hard way - straight from the fruit. It can be a long, labor-intensive process, but it is well worth it.
You will need a LOT of fruit to obtain enough juice to do brewing. I am blessed to have a number of friends with fruit trees in their yards who share their bounty.
In general, a pound of fruit will result in 3/4 cup to 1 1/4 cup of juice.
- 100 pounds of grapes resulted in 4 1/2 gallons of juice
- A pound of frozen raspberries resulted in 1 cup of juice
- a full flat of overripe strawberries (16 pint containers) resulted in 1 1/2 gallons of juice
- and 40 pounds of lemons resulted in 2 gallons of juice.
Brian K
