Bear No Fruit: Making Novel Meads with Store-Bought Juice

Fruit meads are delicious! But making melomels with whole fruit can be a mess, and a brewer’s options for using fresh fruit may be limited by where they live, what equipment they have, or the time of year. In this seminar, explore techniques and recipes for using store-bought juice instead of whole fruit. Recipes will go beyond apple cysers and grape pyments to include citrus, berries, and even root vegetables. Take a step-by-step look at recipe formulation and walk through a case study on how to adapt a recipe to a particular juice.

Learning Objectives

• Learn what types of mead can be made with store-bought fruit and vegetable juice
• Understand the pros and cons of using juice as compared to whole fruit
• Discuss how to source and choose juices
• Learn how to build a melomel recipe around a specific juice
• Step through a case study illustrating how juice can be used and adapted to a recipe

About the Speaker

Arthur Franke is a homebrewer and home meadmaker from northern New Jersey, where he is a member of the Bergen County Brew Crew homebrew club. He has been brewing since 2011 and making mead since 2013. His brews have medaled in the New Jersey State Fair, New York City’s Homebrew Alley, and other regional competitions. He is passionate about exploring novel mead flavor profiles and open recipe sharing.