Making Pomegranate Meade

As soon as I got to La Mesa, I walked around my mom's neighborhood. I was delighted to find that pomegranates were still ripe. I found a tree in the neighborhood that was full of pomegranates, all of which were widely cracked open. I asked the woman who lived there and she said I could pick as many as I wanted.

Well, there was no way I could hope to eat all of them, as they were cracked and at peak ripeness, some starting to mold. To preserve this abundance I decided to make pomegranate meade, or honey wine.

With the help of my brother, we picked a good amount of fruits, avoiding moldy ones. I took the fruits home and separated the juicy seeds from the skins, inner membranes, etc so I had a container full of juicy seeds. I ran them through the blender, straining out the really course stuff, and was left with a thick, frothy juice, some of which we drank fresh. In two plastic pitchers I mixed the right amounts of honey, pomegranate juice, and water, and then mixed in a champagne yeast I had bought. The honey was local through People's Co op. I was hoping to use honey from my own bees but hadn't harvested it yet.

Here's the meade in its 'primary' fermentation in the plastic pitchers.


I've done wild ferments with just honey and water before but with this one, adding the champagne yeast made a big difference. The fermentation really took off, and within 4 days I transferred the meade to a gallon airlocked jug.



Now, a month or so later, the fermentation has really slowed. I sampled the meade and it's pretty good. It definitely has a bite to it from the pomegranates, though.