Super Simple Cherry Mead

For this mead, I went back to the basics. This is using the no-boil method for mead making. Mead usually needs some form of yeast nutrient because honey doesn't often have the necessary food for it, but since this is a melomel, the fruit will provide the extra food.

This is definitely for the beginning or more casual brewer, and it doesn't take much time.

4 gallon batch

Tools
easy brewing cleaner/bleach such as this
5 gallon bucket (with hole drilled for airlock)
airlock
paint stirrer - that has never been used for actual paint
drill

Ingredients
3 lbs, 1 oz sweet cherry puree (Vinter's Harvest)
12.5 gallons clover honey
1 tsp citrus acid blend
up to 3 gallons purified spring water
1 Red Star Yeast (choice of which is up to you - sweet, dry, easy to choose from many brewing sites)

Steps
Sanitize all the tools. First I used the dishwasher and then with the bleach.

Step One - murder a bunch of cherries and drain their blood. Or you could just pour in the can of sweet cherry puree which only looks like blood.

I wasn't joking.

Step Two - pour the honey

Step Three - Add water up to the 4 gallon mark and acid blend. Stir until all the honey and puree is dissolved into the water. (I try not to knock the sides and bottom with the drill.) This step takes awhile.

Step Four - Pitch the yeast. You can create a yeast starter if you want, but that one is totally up to you. I've done it with and without and been fine either way.

Tighten down the lid, store some place with a relative steady temperature. Place on the airlock.

7/21/13 Update
Fermenting nicely!

8/4/13 Update
Added 4 pounds of sugar.