Feedback on a Melomel Receipe

[72Chevelle]

I got my hands on 7lbs of fresh local blackberries today. Last year I made strait blackberry wine and loved it, still have a few bottles put away. This time I wanted to do something different. I am going to try and make a good melomel. I am looking to have about 13% ABV so using a mead calculator online I came up with this recipe.

Estimated OG 1.100

10lbs honey
7 lbs blackberries
2lbs strawberries
2 lbs (1 qt) tart cherry juice
Water to estimated 4 gallons or water down to 1.100
1 pkg Wine Yeast yeast probably Lalvin 71b-1122
Yeast energizer at re-hydration
Staggered yeast Nutrient

Mix honey, water, and juice in primary. place fruit in a mesh bag and submerge in primary. Let it sit 24 hrs come back and squeeze the mesh bag and check sg, add sugar or water to get to 1.100 and pitch re hydrated yeast. Ferment Dry and stabilize with Sorbate and add meta powder. Wait 2 days and back sweeten if needed.

My question is
1. Does this recipe seem like a good one?
2. Should i add pectin or will the skins on the blackberries have enough?

Thanks

 

[loveofrose]

Everything looks great except for energizer at re hydration. I highly suggest GoFerm for rehydration and TOSNA for the SNA. It really makes a big difference on quality of the mead.

TOSNA: www.meadmaderight.com

 

[Drewed]

my only thought is that 10lbs of honey is almost a gallon, add to that the fruit juices and I bet you will be using less than 4 gallons of water.

Are you only soaking the fruit for 24 hrs, squeezing it and then throwing away the pulp?

 

[72Chevelle]

my only thought is that 10lbs of honey is almost a gallon, add to that the fruit juices and I bet you will be using less than 4 gallons of water.

Are you only soaking the fruit for 24 hrs, squeezing it and then throwing away the pulp?

no I was going to keep the fruit in contact for the entire primary. I used a calculator (http://gotmead.com/blog/the-mead-calculator/) and it shows target volume at 4 gallons so really all I will be doing is using about a gallon of water to dissolved the honey, adding all the other ingredients and then filling the primary to 4 gallon mark. The next day once everything has stabalized I will check S.G and water down more if needed. Hopefully that will work.