Adding fruit to mead in the secondary

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!

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.

Yeah, I didn't think so...

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

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

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.

+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

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

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. :cross:

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

I have had good success with steaming.

DirtyGerman said:

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

Click to expand...

Boiling not neccessary. It will only bind up the pectins. Great for making Jam but not so great if you want to brew with it. Just wash, puree. I wouldn't think that the wild yeast would be a problem. Spoilage not a problem if you put it in the secondary. Just sanitize your equipment prior to using said equipment.

And don't worry, it will turn out fine. Again recomending the fruit in the secondary fermentation. Less explosion, more flavor.

Matrix

Super old thread. Hoping someone sees it though. How long due you leave the fruit in the secondary before racking again for bulk aging?

I wrote a recipe a while back that included some guidance for fruit in secondary. Look in the Mead recipe forum for a recipe called "Detailed Melomel Recipe." Obviously flavor is subjective and each of us taste a little differently but should give you a good starting place. Realized after reading the recipes last update it needs to be updated with some additional stuff learned but the fruit part hasn't changed.

Tried to attach the link - Hope it works
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/detailed-melomel-recipe.587928/