Pitching the yeast... you guys should really do the true viking way of pitching the yeast! (or at least old Norwegian tradition (and other countries)) Kauking - The Yeast Scream You scream at the yeast while pouring it in! Many people just shout or scream. In some places in Norway, people may shout variations of "hush, go away!", while in Estonia some shouted "At 'em! Go get'em, boys!" There were more variations, too. The idea behind it was to make the yeast strong and make the people who drink it cheerful. Also, some superstition was involved. Brewers believed the scream could scare away house elves / nisse / and other supernatural creatures, and therefore not able to spoil the brew.
cherries are actually native to china as are all stone fruit, the romans introduced cherries to Europe in 74 BC...Europe was under a block of ice during the last age, nothing is ''native'' in Europe
@@theman5946 sure there are. Black currant, most popular root veggies, some plums and bramble berries. Nothing that we eat now is truly “native” to anywhere as 99% of our diet has been genetically selected to yield better crop. This selection even shows itself in the wild. If you go back far enough in time, nothing is native to anywhere. There are many ways that seeds or fruits of plants could have dispersed globally over a long period of time, even before humans. The cherries we eat today are so vastly different than the ones that Vikings or even the ancient Chinese ate that they would be unrecognizable when presented to people
@@theman5946 Imma fact check that- there are wild cherries. What you say there were no DOMESTICATED/CULTIVATED cherries there. Ive seen wild trees here in meadows and forests where people havent trodden for a long while. Fruit is just tarter and smaller.
Made this recipe a few months ago and just bottled it. Gave some samples to friends and it was quite popular. It's also nearly 16%, which explains the joy it created.
I should’ve watched this video instead of the first one you did it would’ve answered all my questions. You-all are so good, again thank you so much. This past year has been tough on everyone. You have given quite a few people a little nudge to learn something new and to enjoy it.
Jithran Sikken right?? That’s one of the reasons I like this channel. Brian and Derika (hope I spelled those correctly) seem like really down-to-earth people.
I made the first batch before. It turned out great! I used Red Star wine yeast Premium Blanc. Same, frozen cherries, only I didn't mash them up. I just made sure they were cut in half. Only I made it as a trial run in the one gallon jug. I had a little more then the measured amount of cherries. It turned out great. Once a day, I gave it a stir for the week it was fermenting... I racked it and let it sit. There was a small gathering that happened and me and some friends got into it a few days early. The most of the lease was settled. There was just the normal off gasses still bubbling, but slowly. Everyone had it and enjoyed it. I also had a blackberry melomal that was complete along with a standard mead. We drank 2 gallons of mead.
I just wanted to say Thank you for the wonderful videos. My husband and I have made several of the meads and are favorite is the Viking Blood. We have received several compliments on how wonderful it is.
Going to have to try this method, tried it the other way with sweet dark cherries and I didn't care for the way it came out. Tasted almost salty but my wife likes it so she is going to drink it (along with the 2 gallons of ginger beer she had me make again).
I'm going to try making my first mead soon, and I have a TON of cherry trees in my area (I'm from Sweden, and yes, cherries do grow here naturally). I might have to try making a cherry mead, it'll probably just be a small batch since I've never tried it before, my main ferment is probably just going to be a regular mead.
Just finished my secondary fermentation of this recipe and the gravity readings were OG: 1.125, FG: 1.032, with a final ABV of 12.21%. Used D47 yeast. As an initial taste testing at bottling, it's got plenty of sweetness and tartness since a lot of the sugars didn't ferment out. Very drinkable now. As a note, I think my next batch of this will include some oak chips to round it out even more. Good recipe, ya'll
Can’t wait to see how this one turns out :) Hopefully better than the last one. I DID enjoy that old video, by the way. Lesser quality is nothing to be ashamed of; your channel was still pretty new, and you were developing your style.
I think Brian is aging in reverse. I love these guys videos. They have helped my brewing process by sharing their knowledge and experiences. looking forward to more videos.
I made this and my fiends love it. A friend of mine had me try a chocolate almond wine from a local brewery. So I bought some cocao nibs and added to a bottle to try for a cherry cordial vibe.
I started a batch of vikings blood last wednesday and... some things happened. It was definitely a learning experience but it seems to have worked itself out now. Smells like swediesh fish tho so hopes are high!
6 gallons bubbling away here. I added a tea of hibiscus, w vanilla, cinnamon, allspice, and ginger. I did use sweet cherries, but cut the weight in half. AND, I used a stage ferment. The tea and Tart cherry juice added in the second addition of primary ferment. Fount the tannin in the hibiscus and tart from the cherry juice toned down the "sweet" cough syrup taste. But with things bubbling away...only time will tell the final taste!
I made my first batch last year from a 5-gallon base mead, which I then siphoned off into smaller one-gallon jugs with different fruits. It turned out pretty good. I made raspberry, cherry, and blueberry. The raspberry ended up being the best smelling and tasting mead. We used frozen fruit that we sanitized by heating to 160 degrees for 10 mins before adding it to the base mead. This kills any wild yeast or other what-nots. I think my next batch will follow your juice only method. I'm interested in seeing if the lemon zest you added imparts anything after it's aged. My biggest mistake was adding fruit before it finished fermentation completely, which then the yeast fired back up and almost caused a blowout. It definitely added more alcohol too. The other thing I learned was to siphon the clear mead off more than what you think you need to. Anyway, great video; I'll be sure to follow along and see how yours turns out!
Here's a tip: If you end up with foam in your graduated cylinder, just overfill a bit, suck the foam out with your turkey baster, then drop your glass thingy in and take the gravity reading.
Just bottled. Tastes like a nice medium-dry red wine. Just the right amount of sweetness. Honestly, cherry taste is subtle, but that could be my limited palette, or the fact that it's 2 months old and needs to mature. However, I'm drinking it now, and it's completely presentable as is. 2.2 lb frozen black cherries/2.2 lb frozen sour cherries/3 lb honey/1 gal H2O/handful black raisins/yeast/yeast nutrient. On the shelf for a year. At the same time, just bottled a peach/ginger mead. Tastes like a nice peach wine cooler, but without the cheap, white wine taste. I can't taste the ginger much, but the same limitations apply as above (both brewed on the same day). Hope the info contributes to the community. Love!
Now that is how I make it.. But I use Indian Summer 100 % pure pie (Montmorency) cherry juice.. Fabulous stuff. I've lately fallen in love with using ground frozen cranberries to make intensely flavorful mead.
Hi Brian and Derica! I made this using Lakeland Pure Tart Cherry Juice and it is hands down the best brew I've made so far! Thank you so much for sharing!
Just a little info regarding sweet vs sour cherries. Besides the sweetness factor they also have different flavors. And if you are growing your own cherries there are different varietals with different flavors and sweetness and colors.
Wild cherries add that special uniqueness. I added 25% to my elderberry wine last year, wow what a huge improvement to my elderberry wine. Chokecherries are rich in tannins, so go easy on them with other high tannic fruits.
redstone1999 good info to know. I just found a wild elderberry near my house so next year i am trying elderberry wine. Of course no Idea if i can also find some chokecherries
I wish I was your neighbor and I could be your taste tester you make so many exotic brews with interesting flavor combinations my mouth waters watching these videos. Keep up the great work
I made a 5 gallon wine, not a mead, with 18 POUNDS of fresh cherries, all hand pitted in one sitting by moi. It turned out well. I do not know ABV because I did not have a hydrometer when I started. The last reading I've taken was 1.010. Very nice, but still working as a week ago it was 1.060. I wish I had known to keep it in primary longer though. Probably would have only been 2 weeks. I kept it in primary for 7 days. Working on wild blueberry now, and will apply lessons thusly.
I used to make a cherry wine from white grape juice and a cherry anise cordial that is unfortunately no longer available, it was delicious so I think I may try this recipe with the addition of some star anise!
I have a cyser that I added cherries to in secondary. I racked it off the cherries and lees a few months back and just tasted some today and it's fantastic.
I have a gallon batch running right now of Cherry Mead. I used sweet cherries, and made a black tea w/ orange and lemon, generic clover honey (i'm in Korea, there's no good honey to be had in large quantities here), and Nottingham yeast. The lesson I learned was to crush the cherries, not blend the cherries. Turns out, when they're ground, they like to cause this... growth...
Hi Brian and Derica, I am currently waiting for 10 packets of Lalvin D47 to arrive... and my SO has been inquiring about brewing something with a little less defined honey flavour... after his first ever taste of ginger mead (sweet-ish and carbonated). I’ve been binge watching your videos which I absolutely love and been taking copious notes. SO loves beer (well, Belgians often do!). He even enjoys unsweetened Kriek Lambic (for those who don’t know, that’s tart cherry beer). And he lokes champagne... a lot! Preferably the unsweetened ones. Just as this video started I was thinking about making this. My local supermarket sells frozen tart cherries in 500 gram packets at a reasonable price and if I remember correctly the ingredient list is just that: tart cherries. Might go for this one. Bet he’ll like it even if it’s got residual sweetness. Thank you so much for your videos! Keep ‘em coming!
As a brewer and a chemist your tshirt gave me a headache. BTW squeezing the air out of the pipette bulb before sampling is a very very proper chem lab technique... but enough geekiness, I looove your videos. Great channel!
Pitching yeast. In times past, wines and beers were made in large vats. Yeast was in "cakes". You tossed or "pitched" the yeast to different areas of the vat to get the fermentation off to an even start. At least, that's what I was once told.
The hell with the Vikings Blood, gimme some of that Elijah Craig on the shelf behind ya! You can keep the WSR though lol. In all seriousness great vid!
In reference to a good natural sleep aid and pain reliever, look into wild lettuce. It's a weed that grows just about everywhere. I dehydrate it, grind it into a powder and fill gelatin capsules with it. I take 2 or 3 at night about 20 minutes before I want to go to sleep. I've been doing this for about a year now. It works great for me. 🤷🍻
Sweet meads/melomels are made by using more honey than your yeast can convert to alcohol. If you back-sweeten a mead with an ABV below what the yeast can tolerate, you'll just restart fermentation and the sweetness in the added honey will become alcohol instead.
O.K. I'm back, took the lid off the 6.5 gallon fermenter bucket to flip the Brew Bag over . Decided to take a reading , after 7 days fermentation . 0.990 , I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's done . It started at 1.090 . By my calculations if you use 131 it's 13.100 . If you use .135 it's 13.500 . That was the SWLA WINE 🍷. The Juice Wine started at 1.080 finished at 0.994 . Both need to be Back sweeten , the color is fine in the Juice Wine , need to add something for color in the SWLA WINE . Took em both out to the block building for secondary or clarification , with the rest . I've noticed that what I keep in the refrigerator , the Sediment drops quicker . I keep a few choice gallons in the fridge . 🤠
So, I'm sitting here, just finished watching this video. I "had" a couple 8 ounce bottles of Cheribundi juice. Down to one. Tastes great. Brian, did your juice have apple juice in it? Mine does. Oh, don't get the white label bottles, they have stevia in them. steve
I recently subscribed to you guys and just wanted to say you are extremely well at explaining the "whys" and "why not" and that is much appreciated. As well as having great and interesting content and being a awesome couple! Thanks! I will be watching! :)
Hi! Great video! I'm just making now the way sou showed us in the previous video. It's now 9 days past (I just removed the cherry today, it lost the half of the total weight), and everything looks okay. And yeah, that is my really first ever brewing (or making mead). So I'm feeling myself brave. :) I hope, it's gonna be okay, but i'll do some improvements, and i'll do some ideas from this video too (I have problems with the color, here in Hungary, the sweet cherry has really bright color inside, even if the outside looks pretty dark). Anyway, it's very good to see you, revisited the old one, this video is a very good thought provoking. Thank you for uploading. :)
I started a 5 gallon batch of the original Viking Blood on the 8th July. By the time its ready to age, I may take off a gallon and add some fresh sweeten chokecherry juice to give it a bit of tannin. I did not know that the first recipe would make a dry wine. I will taste it once it ages 4 mths. If it's too dry for me, I will pasteurize it and sweeten with my fresh wild black cherry juice ( as they will be collected and juiced by then).
I have been trying to wrap my head around the Sg. I THINK, (think) the reason the Sg was farther off from what you initially hoped for was a dilution math issue. So, if the Cheribundi had a Sg 0f 1.055 and the Honey was 1.070 you'd expect about Sg of about 1.125. However, converting the Sg to "Sugar-units" you find that the Cheribundi has about 17.8 ounce/ gallon (BUT you only use three quarts). So you only really contribute 75% of that or 13.35 ounce sugar/gallon with the juice (a Sg of about 1.042). The Honey sugar contribution of about 22.8 ounce sugar/gallon (Sg 1.070) is fixed. So, your total sugar/ gallon is roughly 36.15 ounce/ gallon with a Sg of about 1.112. I think you were around 1.110 from the video. I hope that makes sense :) I Love your Videos!!!!!!
Ah, good thing i looked u up. Was about to make some with some sweet cherries. I will have to hunt the tart. But i am planning on back sweetening like i do with my other wines after the yeast is dead
My second batch ever was a cherry currant melomel back in early 2015. I still called that Vikings blood because there was 3 quarts of black cherry juice to 1 quart black currant juice. Both were RW Knudsen juices. It made the batch really special. We cracked open a bottle of that when my boss was in town week before last. I think I might do pretty well on my performance appraisal at the end of the year now. I used Lalvin D47 for that one and it was initially very harsh because I live in Texas and that yeast prefers a temperature that's much less than what I keep my thermostat on in the summer (It was at the upper edge and at risk of being a hot ferment). I did a second batch with Lalvin 71B (which is when I started my staggered nutrient addition routine) and it was my favorite early-drinking batch to date of mead. What follows is an exhaustive commentary of cherries and flavoring techniques with many diversions..... Since then, one of my best friends is now my brew partner. We've experimented and made some really good stuff, but also some gross stuff like a hatch pepper hard cider, and also a hard cider that we used brown sugar instead of white sugar to kick up a bit. We named the hard cider with brown sugar "Dark Heart". Hated it, but another friend of ours loved it so he got 40 bottles of it. The same friend that liked the Dark Heart had a really great hard lemonade with cherry recipe. He used Realemon, which I don't like because you have to let it offgas (preservatives) before you use it. My brew partner and I made a very successful hard lemonade out of nothing but RW Knudsen organic lemon juice (no preservatives), sugar and water. It's Reddit famous. We've figured out that we actually can use the Kirkland brand lemonade from Costco and just added sugar to make it the starting gravity we wanted.. We attempted our own hard cherry lemonade after that. Pure cough syrup. Gross. We asked our friend about his recipe and he just adds in confectioners cherry flavor to get the effect before he bottles it. Gosh. Sometimes the simplest things are lost on me. We've gotten pretty decent at the mead thing though. A local brewery wanted us to show them how it's done and lent us a PID temperature controlled 20 gallon conical fermenter as well as furnished 60 pounds of locally sourced honey. A trial batch? Oh, twist my arm. So far, it's just made me want a temperature controlled conical fermenter :-)
From history on the net: "Viking farms included apple orchards and such fruit trees as pears and cherries." So the vikings most definitely had cherries...
Hey Brian I found a good way to get rid of the head foam after I shake the carboy. I used a turkey baster to take out the phone worked lime a champ. Love your channel
I just did a batch of ginger ale mead with D47 and it fermented up to 16% so here's me crossing my fingers for you that your batch doesn't go dry like mine did lol.
Love your channel! I made this. It started with a SG of 1.18 and after 4 months (and a couple of rackings and degassing) it is at 1.024. Did I do something wrong? Can I bottle it? It has cleared I just found it odd that the SG hasn't dropped further. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
If you started with 1.180 and it's at 1.024, that's 21% ABV. Not many yeasts are capable of that. So I'd say it's done and you've created something pretty incredible for your first try.
I just put together a gallon of this following your ingredients and directions. How will it turn out? Only time will tell. I enjoy your videos. Thanks!
Hey I'm glad you mentioned the whole putting fruit solids in there. So hypothetically, for a friend, if a guy put a bunch of crushed blueberries into a blueberry melomel but didn't previously know that pectic enzyme might be necessary or that it existed then saw bits still floatin' around a couple weeks in, how might said 'friend' filter the fruit out come racking time? Thanks, from my friend of course, definitely not me.
I just happened to have a ton of blueberries handy for my first two batches of mead, so I used them instead of raisins. They took a while in secondary to clarify, but they did clarify. One of them was still a bit cloudy as bottling approached, so I cold crashed and it went the rest of the way to a deep gemlike blurple color
Why do you steep the tea for so long? I always learned if you want stronger tea add more tea. Just curious love your guys channel and am wanting to actual try to start my own channel. you guys are awesome!!
New to your channel. Love all the vids. Even the looooong ones. 2 words: Lingonberry Mead. Lingonberries are very prevalent in Scandinavia. I would be very surprised if it weren't a thing.
know this is a bit late but i can tell you as a person that live in denmark, we got lost of cherry. wild charry is commen and they tast good, a not that sweet but they are here.
just found you by accident after watching some make moonshine vids then 4 of your mead vids... 1 your THE CRAZY MYTHBUSTER GUY OF BREWING :) 2 i totally need to get some brewing gear ive gotta try making my own mead :)
I LOVED that video, it brought me here! Nice to see your wife again!❤ and some more of your face, beards DO age a man... keep up the great work! Sub'd! 🌱👏👏👏👏👏
I have watched all your Vikings blood videos I have made about 10 one gallon batches of Vikings blood I play around with the ounces of tea but the longer it sits and ages the better it tastes me and my wife drink a bottle everytime we grabbed the Chesapeake Bay it's like Tradition now
I so want to try this. I've toyed with the idea of making vikings blood using frozen sweet black cherries from Costco with their big bottles of honey (3kg bottle, I believe) maybe with bread yeast or the Lavin (Lalvin?) you used in your earlier video and see how that turns out...I haven't tried to yet, but it's a goal I have in mind for the near future... =)
i literally just started a batch of your first "Viking blood" Mead video two days ago. lmao I will tell if it tastes like cough syrup. probably will end up making the 2.0 version as well at some point. (by the way your Channel has been really helpful. Thank you.)
I made a mead fed with oranges during fermentation then back sweetened with pomegrnate molases, this made a delicious sweet mead, as I have persian ancestry and orange and pomegranate are very persian flavours I call it Xerxe's blood.
First off, your videos are awesome! You have a new subscriber! I'm on my 3rd batch of cider and this Viking blood sounds like a fun new project. I was thinking of making it 'double blood' with blood orange juice, and using fresh pressed cider instead of water. If i don't want cherries (i don't particularly care for the taste) what would be the best substitute for the dark color? Pomegranate? Blueberry? Blackberry?
My husband and I just started making mead. The first one we did was the regular mead using the black tea and orange peel. It is currently on second fermentation. We decided to try the cherry mead we used all the same ingredients, except we used lavlin 71b-1122 yeast, and we keep getting juice in the airlock. We removed some juice to give it more head space but it continues to fill up. Do you have a suggestion as to what we should try next? Have you ever had this problem? Thank you for the informative videos we really enjoy them!!
