Any tips on adding fruit to mead?

I saw alot of people on youtube adding oranges,raisins and berrys to their mead. But i've read posts of people being concerned when their fruit starts to mold. When during the brewing process is it appropirate to add fruits, how should the fruits be treated to avoid molding? Any personal preferences on what spice and fruits go good together?

tenchu_11 said:

I saw alot of people on youtube adding oranges,raisins and berrys to their mead. But i've read posts of people being concerned when their fruit starts to mold. When during the brewing process is it appropirate to add fruits, how should the fruits be treated to avoid molding? Any personal preferences on what spice and fruits go good together?

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Think about it...... fruit starts to go mouldy if exposed to air/oxygen and is at too warm a temperature doesn't it.

What exactly is alcohol ? It's anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti etc etc etc and it's also a preservative.

So, adding it to meads ??? well it's up to you. If the recipe suggests it goes into the primary, then fine but I have found that it tends to blow a lot of the flavour/aroma out the airlock during the first vigorous stages of ferment. So I'll either add it to secondary, or even finish the ferment and then steep the fruit in it. That way, I find that it will give a more fruity flavour and that the mead is drinkable earlier.

As for mould, well if the fruit goes into secondary, the alcohol and the CO2 will normally prevent mould. If I put it into a finished ferment, then I'll normally put it in a fine mesh straining bag, and not de-gas the mead so that it will release enough CO2 over time to create a protective blanket of gas - and deny O2 access to the fruit. It'll also be in a straining net and the alcohol stops it rotting.

S'up to you want you do but you can always just search around. There's lots of guidance about this......

regards

fatbloke

tenchu_11 said:

I saw alot of people on youtube adding oranges,raisins and berrys to their mead. But i've read posts of people being concerned when their fruit starts to mold. When during the brewing process is it appropirate to add fruits, how should the fruits be treated to avoid molding? Any personal preferences on what spice and fruits go good together?

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I've never had mold growing in any fermentation. I've added fruit to mead in primary, secondary & tertiary, all with good results. You'll lose a certain amount of fruit flavour in primary, but you get a fermented fruit flavour that way. In secondary, and especially in tertiary, you'll get a flavour closer to the actual fruit. I'll often add fruit to both primary AND secondary/tertiary to get more depth of flavour.

If you use fruit that floats in primary, you'll need to "punch the cap," or push the floating fruit down under the surface a couple times a day to avoid mold & such. Often the fruit will sink to the bottom on it's own, which eliminates the need to punch the cap.

If you add fruit to seconday/tertiary the alcohol will likely kill off anything that would do damage, so you should be good to go. That being said, I always freeze/thaw any fruit I use a couple times & I'll often sufite it too. Usually, if your sanitation is good, you'll have good results. Regards, GF.

I think most molds need an oxygen rich environment .

I found a recipe for a 1 gallon batch of mead using an orange and some raisins. it has stopped fermenting now and so i filtered it to get rid of any sediment and so my mead is rather clear and it tastes rather dry with small hints of honey, the orange in my opinion gave it an unusual flavour it needs more time to age but gets better tasting each week and i never had any trouble with mould.

here is the recipe i used
1 gallon spring water
3 pounds honey
1 orange (sliced into 8 pieces)
25 raisins
1 packet of yeast

to make a pomegranate melomel should i just add the pomegranate to that recipe or replace the orange with pomegranate as the orange is the yeast nutrient or something.

any advice on how i can alter my recipe to make a melomel if it is needed would be most helpful

Maybe using campden in conjunction with fruit-addition would help?
I added strawberries to a mead in secondary and there definitely seemed to be some white stuff forming after a week.
More recently I've found that yeast seems to form on the fruit, which I guess isn't a problem!

You are speaking of making a new batch...using pomegranate? You can make a basic mead and then introduce the pomegranate when you transfer to secondary. Or you can incorporate the pom during primary phase. Or some in primary, and in secondary. People do it both ways.

FWIW, the raisins are your yeast nutrient while the orange provided acidic component. You mention the mead is dry...that is probably so. Did you happen to take a hydrometer reading to see where it was? Can always sweeten it up by stabilizing with k-meta and sorbate and then adding your sugar source...but you want to make sure your ferment is complete by using hydrometer. With mead making aging is key. You may have a batch you think is disgusting initially, but a year or two or three years later it is liquid gold.

Does the fruit require any sanitation when being added to the secondary? I'd be afraid of adding some nasties to my sanitized mead.

Were you punching down the fruit a couple of times a day? WVMJ

Peppers16 said:

Maybe using campden in conjunction with fruit-addition would help?
I added strawberries to a mead in secondary and there definitely seemed to be some white stuff forming after a week.
More recently I've found that yeast seems to form on the fruit, which I guess isn't a problem!

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We add most of our fruit right into the primary, and use a lot of it so loosing the essence of the fruit is not an issue. Also, I am not trying to make jam, I want fermented wine, the taste of the fruit fermented is what we are after. Once we have that I sometimes boost the aroma by adding some strawberries at the end of the intial fermentation for a couple of days. Then we rack into a carboy and let it finish. For our melomels we really like to backsweeten with honey to bring out the honey taste just a little more. WVMJ

Flaviking said:

Does the fruit require any sanitation when being added to the secondary? I'd be afraid of adding some nasties to my sanitized mead.

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Depends on fruit source: fresh/frozen need treatment with SO2, canned have already been treated, dried have typically been treated. I always read labels and treating regardless will not hurt anything.

saramc said:

Depends on fruit source: fresh/frozen need treatment with SO2, canned have already been treated, dried have typically been treated. I always read labels and treating regardless will not hurt anything.

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Sorry, Would you mind expanding on what SO2 is, please?

Thanks.

Flaviking said:

Sorry, Would you mind expanding on what SO2 is, please?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

Campden, k-meta

Flaviking said:

Sorry, Would you mind expanding on what SO2 is, please?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

SO2 = Sulphur dioxide. This is the gas created by adding metabisulphate to wine/cider/mead must. Campden is a brand name for the product that comes in a handy premeasured tablet form.

Campden Tablets (sanitizer):
Typically, 0.55 gram each. One tablet per gallon yields about 75 ppm. We recommend 1/2 tablet per gallon at each racking or 1 tablet every other racking. Crush the tablets and dissolve in water or wine before adding. For larger batches (5 gallons) most people prefer the powdered form of the chemical. Campden tablets may be either potassium metabisulfite or sodium bisulfite.

Regards, GF.

If you do buy Campden tabs please be sure to check their concentration, they do vary though the most common is potassium metabisulfite. The sodium version can be used in wine but most shy away from it due to its sodium component--but many do use it for a sanitizer. Plus, not all brands of Campden dissolve without leaving a sediment which is due to its compounding method. There is one that I have found to be totally sediment free, but I forget who makes it. The granule version of k-meta is available in bottles or bags. And be sure to read the instructions for use--different concentrations are out there. That rule actually applies for every additive out there(nutrient, energizer, enzymes, sorbate, fining agents, etc.). And do not forget that things expire, writing the date you open any container is a good practice to get in to. Nothing worse than finding out your sorbate 'died' and fermented out the honey you just added to backsweeten your mead.
If you want to take the guesswork out of SO2 additions you can buy a SO2 Test Kit. A great investment, and not too expensive either.

So LHBS did not have what you suggested.. they just advised me that the alcohol content should kill anything on the fruit... Which makes sense..

I bought some fresh oranges, dipped them in star san and then threw them into the secondary and racked on top of it. Hope that will be ok.

My Starting Gravity was 1.086 and specific gravity when I through in the oranges was around .994. I would guess not much could live in that.


Not to derail.. but I have a larger gap between my mead and airlock than I expected. About 5-6 inches.. Should I be concerned about this? I shook it a little once the airlock was on to hopefully release a little CO2 and push the oxygen out. Is that what I am supposed to do?

bump

You need to find another local homebrew store. WVMJ

my experience has been fruit added to the primary tends to lost it's aroma & taste. this didn't ringt true with the mango mead but i used 22 lbs of mango, don't know how much it was after juicing. i loss about 1 1/2 gallons because the plup refused to settle. didn't have the ability to cold crash.

i have been good with using raisins for a rum flavor in spiced mead.

i ve had very little experience with melomels and think adding clear juice to the secondary or back blending would be good.

finished my first brochet today will pitch tonite.

GD

tenchu_11 said:

I saw alot of people on youtube adding oranges,raisins and berrys to their mead. But i've read posts of people being concerned when their fruit starts to mold. When during the brewing process is it appropirate to add fruits, how should the fruits be treated to avoid molding? Any personal preferences on what spice and fruits go good together?

Click to expand...

Hey if it’s any consolation I can say that I’ve been using sweet and dried fruits. Like snack fruit packs in secondary. I’m experimenting with strawberries in this fashion. But I can say that blueberry are really nice. It also adds that nice dark color that you might be used to getting with adding fresh blueberries. So if you’re cautious of adding fresh fruits this might be the way to dip your toes without too much worry.