Devo9

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I want to add some strawberries to my secondary for one of my meads. Do I need to do anything special to sanitize it first, or can I just rinse them with tap water then add them? Should I rinse with campden water mix? Do I need to use something like Sanstar? Or could I use bleach and water, then rinse them again?

I guess the same question goes for vanilla beans...

Thanks!

nukinfuts29

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I'm not sure, but i definitly would NOT use bleach on the fruit. It's one thing to use it to rinse a carboy, it's another thing entirely to apply it to fruit.

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Devo9

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Yeah, I didn't think so...

Insomniac

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I would just give them a good rinse/wash with water, freeze, thaw, and chuck them in, the alcohol should kill off most things.

GMA

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You could soak them in a campden bath over night if you really wanted to... but I would agree with Insomniac.

ExoticMeadMaker

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I agree with insomniac as well, but would like to add that I "wash" all my raw fruits and veggies with a product called Veggie Wash. Its all natural, and does a good job cleaning the fruit/vegetable of waxes, pesticides, dirt, etc.

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does anyone else find themselves sitting, starring at their mead in process?

Matrix4b

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+1 on simply adding it. Personally, I like to add my fruit in the secondary as juice if possible. Beings it is strawberries and the pulp is tied to it more here's my suggestion:

I would freeze the fruit, thaw, puree in blender and toss in a little pectic enzyme when blending. Let sit for an hour then try blending again and then toss that into a mesh bag in the carboy or brew bucket.

If it was blueberries, pears, cherries or the like, I would say to run the puree through a screen a few times to seperate the pulp from the juice but it has been my experience that strawberries don't seperate from the fruit very well.

Matrix

Devo9

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I could try running it through my juicer.

I had found an online source for strawberry juice, but they only deliver to Toronto... Oh well

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Gamrchick

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First, be careful about juices. They can have preservatives which you won't want. Second, strawberries have a lot of sugar. Make sure you have a lot of head space in the carboy or use a blow off tube. My experience was 5 gallons of mead in a 6 1/2 gallon carboy with a blow off tube and we were still cleaning strawberries off of the walls.

DirtyGerman

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I was thinking Puree and boil? to kill wild yeast and bacteria Or is that over kill?