how do you know how much fruit to put in?

**claphamsa** · 03-16-2010, 05:26 PM

Im now fixated on the lemon meade

how much lemon to use? would it make sense to add some, wait a month, taste add more? etc etc... i cant really think of any other way....I made a ruby red grapefruit meade about 3 years ago... and its pretty brutal, way too much grapefruit, I jsut dont want to make that mistake!

gratus fermentatio · 03-16-2010, 06:15 PM

I can tell you from experience that good citrus melomels are tough to do. I've never tried the JOAM, but I made a lemon melomel about 3 years ago & it's still pretty brutal. I did learn a few things though. I added roughly 24oz of lemon juice to 3 gallons of young show mead & got ZERO lemon flavour from it. I learned to use the zest, but still got little lemon flavour from it as well. It's high ABV stuff, so maybe the lemon is just covered by the fuel taste.

I think your best bet is going to be to make a straight show mead & let it age a year, then add fresh lemon zest, some lemon zest simmered in a little water & maybe a lemon extract made from zest, juice & vodka. You can always ad some juice if you want more acid. This way will take longer, but I think it'll give you much better results. Just be sure to use a good varietal & NOT "wildflower" honey; I think that's a big part of why my lemon melomel isn't very good yet.

If you have a copy of The Compleat Meadmaker by Ken Schramm (who has an acct on this site) he list some fruit amounts for various fruits & intensities of flavour on page #117. If you don't have a copy, you really should get one. Ken recommends 3-5lbs of citrus in secondary for mild fruit character, 6-8lbs for medium & 9lbs or more for strong fruit character. Just be sure to avoid the white pith as it adds a nasty bitterness.

Hope you find this info useful. Regards, GF.

**claphamsa** · 03-16-2010, 06:24 PM

THANKS I have the book, but havent consulted it in a while... i will pull that out tongiht!

**jezter6** · 03-16-2010, 08:06 PM

I made Homebrewer99's lemonade mead. Pretty good, except that it has serious pulp solids in it that even SuperKleer wouldn't drop out.

LightningInABottle · 03-17-2010, 02:27 AM

Bigelow's makes a lemon green tea that you could use to give it an extra lemon taste. I did a similar thing with my orange mead by using a mulling spice that had orange peel in the mix. That seemed to give it that extra orange taste with out over powering it.