More fruit flavor

I've been doing a couple of melomels (blueberry, pineapple, and a few others) and they've turned out pretty good, but while they have a fruity flavor, you're unable to tell exactly what fruit it is.

I've heard that to remedy this people can add fruit to the secondary, and I'm going to try this, but a couple of questions that I have is when is it added? Do I just add it when I rack it to my secondary container? Is there a certain amount of time that I need to leave it in for? I usually have a process where I have it in primary for a couple of weeks, move to secondary until it's done fermenting, move it to another carboy to age (and rack as necessary). I realize some of this is subjective, but if anyone has any insight it would be appreciated!

Also, does anyone have any other methods of getting a flavor to be more recognizable?

Thanks for the help!

Sounds like you want a fruit bomb. In that case, you need to add more fruit!

Add fruit to primary and let it go to 1.00, then rack on to more fruit. Freezing the fruit ahead of time and addition of pectinase also help extract more flavor.

Generally, a few months on the fruit should extract all the goodness it can get.


Better brewing through science!

I'll give it a try, thanks!

+ 1 to what loveofrose said. Depending on the type of fruit, I usually plan on roughly 3 - 4 lbs of fruit per gallon of must. Some fruit, like black currants, are pretty intense, so I'll use less; strawberries though, require more to reach the same level of flavour.

I like to put fruit in primary AND secondary/tertiary. I've left mead on fruit as long as 4 months & got great results. Of course, it depends on the type of fruit & the recipe; you might want to leave it on the fruit for less time. If you haven't already, I'd suggest you read this:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0937381802/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
I have a copy on my shelf & still refer to it.
Regards, GF.

We like to add fruit at the beginning and give it a boost in the secondary also. Be careful of things with seeds like blackberries that can add to much tannin and bitterness, no need to really go over a week with most fruit. Sometimes we just add right at the end of the primary for a couple of days just before racking to the secondary. WVMJ