I have been seeing recipes for melomels where the fruit such as orange wedges pushed through the small opening of a carboy during initial fermentation. My question is how do you get the wedges back out after racking to the secondary?
I want to try an Orange/Cinnamon melomel once I find a tried and true recipe.
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“Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman - or a bad woman; it depends on how much happiness you can handle.” - George Burns
You can use just about any tool that you find handy. You turn the carboy over to get the orange pieces near the opening, and you can use a bottle brush, a coat hanger, crochet needles, needle-nose pliers, a hemostat, or just about anything else to grab them or pull them though.
This process is exactly why I now ferment most all fruit batches in a bucket.
What Medsen said. As an added bonus, if you use a bucket, you can put the fruit in a grain bag or some cheese cloth for easier removal. I just pulled the pineapple and ginger out of my latest batch last night so that things can settle back down before I rack it to secondary this weekend. I'm also expecting to lose less of my mead by doing so.
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Why yes, my house does smell musty. Thank you for noticing.
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“Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman - or a bad woman; it depends on how much happiness you can handle.” - George Burns
I had made a hard lemonade once and cut the lemons into 8's. After racking into a bottling bucket the remaining lemons in the carboy had become so hydrated and squishy I could shake them out over the kitchen sink. They just shoot right out.
I cut the fruit small/thin enough so that it goes right in without being forced. When it's time to clean up, I fill the carboy with water, invert, and start swirling to create a cyclone inside, and 95% of the fruit matter swirls right out.