Hard Cherry Limeade

Well, I am trying out a new recipe. This is based on Miriam's Hard Lemonade recipe, posted in the GotMead forums. Unfortunately I had some major problems with just getting this one started. First I messed up the calculations. I converted the units to American units for a 1 gallon batch, and wrote that down in my recipe book. But I had planned on making a 5 gallon batch. So when I went to the grocery store for supplies, I bought enough for 5 gallons. When I started mixing up the must on Saturday, I dumped in the limeade, put the cherries in a bag, then proceeded to add the amount of water and sugar specified in the recipe. The recipe for ONE GALLON. Then I wondered why my 6.5 gallon bucket looked less than half full. I checked the O.G. and it was way too high, so I added water until it was brought down to the recommended 1.060. This was about the time I looked at the recipe and realized what I had done. I was so frustrated I wanted to scream, so I decided to fix it the next day. Besides, I had to wait to add the yeast anyway, since I added campden.

The next day I started boiling more water and adding sugar to it, and then dumping it into the bucket, 5 quarts and 5 cups, respectively, at a time. I did this twice before I realized I was going to run out of room if I added any more. So I stopped there. Rehydrated the yeast and pitched it.

Final recipe for what's in the bucket:
7 12 oz cans frozen limeade concentrate
1 6 oz can frozen limeade concentrate
3 t. nutrient
1 campden tablet
2 16 oz jars maraschino cherries, with the syrup reserved for sweetening and flavoring later
4 pounds of sugar
13 1/4 quarts of water
Premier Cuvee yeast

O.G. 1.070 at 94F (not adjusted because all my charts are still packed away somewhere)

I have been stirring the bejeezus out of it. I am kind of worried about the temp, because this is supposed to be kept warm to counteract the high acidity of the must. Our house stay at about 74F, on the cool side. I guess it's doing okay, though, because when I stirred it this morning I got lots of nice foam.

Updates on my other brews:

The 3 other brews I have here at the house (Cranberry Mead, Strawberry Wine, and Cherry Vanilla Mead) have all slowed down a lot. The moving prolly did it, along with temp shifts and whatnot. I am not overly concerned though, as they were all looking good at last S.G. reading. They are really quite pretty, and look to be starting to clear.

The leftovers from racking the Cherry Vanilla Mead were deemed unsuitable for topping up purposes because I left them in the fridge uncovered for too long (24 hours). Therefore, they were drank. OMG! Yumminess! My roommate said "Now, that's some good beer!" He hates beer, so I guess this was a complement. But now he wants me to make my meads sparkling, because these bottles were carbonated from stopping the fermentation in the fridge. *shrug* I told him that if he wanted to help with capping the beer bottles, I'd think about it.

I finally took a peek at my Ancient Orange over at my mom's house. About two weeks left to go, according to the recipe, maybe more, and it is BEAUTIFUL! It has already cleared a huge amount, but the orange and raisins are still floating. I think it will definitely be ready for bottling at the beginning of next month. Just in time for my birthday!

And in other brew news, I have my pumpkins sitting in in the brew pantry ready for baking and turning into Pumpkin Wine and Pumpkin Pie Mead. I am going to make one gallon of wine, one gallon of mead with just pumpkin pie spice, and one gallon of mead with pumpkin pie spice and pumpkin. It should be an interesting taste test next Halloween.

Also, I finally got a hold of a bottle of Chaucer's Mead. $11 at my local liquor store. Wow. It tastes really good! And from everything I have read on the forums, my brews will more than likely taste even better. YAY!!