Prickly Pear Mead

[The Padre]

How many of you have made mead with the fruit from the prickly pear cactus? I am about to make my second one. My first one was made 2 years ago and has been a favorite one to open up on special occasions. What I am most curious about is how much fruit you used, how you processed it and whether you were able to keep any of that beautiful color that it has at fermentation but mine lost in about a years time.

[BarefootLion]

I was stewarding a comp in the fall, I think it was the runner up Best in Show mead was prickly pear or maybe just got 1st in its category. I kinda lost track since Best in Show was the same mead maker. I don't remember anything special about the color, it was just tasty.

[The Padre]

I made the mead, 4 gallons, with about 3/4 of a gallon of prickly pear juice that I juiced out of 2 1/2 gallons of fruit and added about 12 pounds of honey to it. It has that deep dark purpleish red color to it. I do not think I will be able to keep the color based upon what you and a few others have said, but I am ok with that as it produces a fantastic mead.

[Rex]

I just made this mead and am about to keg it up. I added 6 pounds of fresh prickly pears about 3/4 through primary. I cut the skins off and just added the flesh of the fruit in a hop bag. After a week the mead was fully fermented down below 1.000 gravity and all that was left in the bag was a little fiber and jelly like residuals. Tasted amazing and I am looking forward to the final product!

[The Padre]

I have enjoyed this mead just about every time I have made it. I have found for my taste though that it seems to do better as a semi sweet to sweet dessert mead rather than dry. I have five gallons right now that I need to bottle up from this past summer's crop.

[USMCMatt]

There's a killer recipe for this in the newer joy of homebrew mead section you should check out.

[KC-Dave]

I made a 5 gallon batch. 2 gallons of honey and 2 gallons of juice.

Juicing them was a bitch. I wore thick sewer gloves to handle them. I cut them and scooped out the guts with a spoon. I then fed it all through a juicer, which removed all the pulp and seeds. I filled a magnum when it was one year old and forgot about it for 3 years. When we opened it, it was a wonderful golden color, not the electric fuchsia pink that it was when it was new. It might lose some color, but the flavor was out of this world.

There is a juice company in Northern California that sells the juice fresh frozen. The next time I make it, that's how I'm gonna roll!