Mango/Pineapple Mead

Before I spin my wheels, has anyone ever made pineapple mead, or mango mead or a combination of the two?

I have heard that there is an enzyme in pineapple that makes fermenting it problematic. However that is second or third hand information that I never really followed up on personally.

I think you are thinking about papain (sp), and enzyme found in meat tenderizer and I think its found in papaya but thanks for the heads up. I'll need to check into that.

I'm making a piña colada melomel currently. I used shredded coconut, some vanilla beans, a mix of leftover honeys, as well as pineapple juice for all the liquid. It fermented just fine but tastes pretty funky right now. Perhaps that will improve with time/ backsweetening

I'm gonna give it a try I guess. I have chopped pineapple and mango frozen now. When the time comes I'll get it out and crush it up a bit and throw it in with the hot honey for a few minutes prior to cooling it down and pitching the yeast. Any suggestions as to any additional spices that might accentuate the flavor of the mangos and pineapple?

I have made mango mead before and it turned out really well. Some vanilla really helps bring out the flavors. I would also make sure you have some pineapple and mango left over for adding to secondary, the aromas for these fruits are both rather delicate and can be easily lost during fermentation. Aging will help bring them back but if you are going to have some residual sweetness anyway adding the fruit to secondary will put a lot of those flavors back in and possibly reduce the aging time.

Atek said:

I have made mango mead before and it turned out really well. Some vanilla really helps bring out the flavors. I would also make sure you have some pineapple and mango left over for adding to secondary, the aromas for these fruits are both rather delicate and can be easily lost during fermentation. Aging will help bring them back but if you are going to have some residual sweetness anyway adding the fruit to secondary will put a lot of those flavors back in and possibly reduce the aging time.

Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, what was your vanilla to mango ratio?
Regards, GF.

I'm making mango mead right now. One thing to keep in mind, mangoes have a decent amount of sugar. If you're doing your primary fermentation in a carboy, that means you'll need to leave quite a bit of head space or you'll be cleaning it off the ceiling. If you're using a brew bucket, you should be fine.

Atek, how did you add your mangoes in the secondary? In chunks in a brewing bag seems to work, but I'm also considering running them through a blender and foregoing the bag.

@Gratus
Here was my recipe, it was one of my first self designed and could certainly have been done better but in all honesty in came out surprisingly well.
4 Mangos frozen then chopped
4.5lb silver bo clover honey
water to 1 gal

I skinned and sliced the mango and placed in the carboy, the mango not the skins. Dissolved 4.5 lb of honey in 2qt water and added to the carboy, topped up with water and pitched EC-1118. Racked off the fruit 12 days later. Fermentation finished two months later and I added 1/2 vanilla bean split. Bottled 10 days later. It was tart, sweet, mangoey with a nice vanilla touch that smoothed it out a ton.

Issues with this recipe?
1. too much mango, should have broken it up and used half in secondary (will get to that more later).
2. WAY too much honey, EC-1118 did its job and cut it down a lot. I did not take an OG but according to the mead calc 4.5lb honey in 3qts water comes out to 1.215. I did take a reading after racking and before and after topping off. After racking the gravity was 1.010 so EC-1118 had a wonderful feast. After topping off it leveled at 1.000

I made another batch recently. I made a sweet show mead and split it into 5 gallons after fermentation completed. Then added 2 mangos chopped and left until the fruit was more white than yellow. This actually turned out more mellow but still mangoey. I miss the tartness that I had with the other one and it could simple be due to the time of year the mangos were purchased. I also did not add vanilla to this second one and it would have accentuated the Mango flavor very nicely.

@PaddyMurphy
you can do chunks in a brewing bag, pulverized in a blender, etc. It really doesn't matter too much. The biggest difference is going to be cleanup and clearing. I would think pulverized would make it cloudy and require more rackings to finally clear. I simply cut them into chunks and toss then in the carboy, no bag required. I give the carboy a gentle swirl at least once a day to keep the floating fruit from drying out or molding.

So to wrap this up here I would now make my recipe as follows:
2 mangos frozen then chopped Primary
2 mangos frozen then chopped Secondary
1/2 split vanilla bean Secondary
2.5-3lb honey
K1V-1116

I would also make sure you follow the SNA guidelines which I did not know existed when making my first mango batch. I will say the yeasties do seem to like mango.

Thanks, I might have to give this a shot.
Regards, GF.

Well I had to give it a go. I used frozen chopped mango's I bought at the store. Had to cut those even smaller to get into my free Carlo Rossi Sangria bottle. Enough for about an inch covering the bottom of the jug. 3.5 lbs of wildflower honey, 1/2tsp of yeast nutrient and K1v-1116 packet of yeast.

I just pitched the yeast instead of activating it in warm water. Got a burp out of my air lock every now and then in the first few hours. Woke up this morning and you can see the must with a gazzilion tiny bubbles rising to the top and my airlock with healthy burps in it.

This is going to be interesting!

DrVertebrae said:

Before I spin my wheels, has anyone ever made pineapple mead, or mango mead or a combination of the two?

Click to expand...

I've been working on a batch of this for awhile now, I started with a three gallon batch of orange blossom traditional that I worked out and finished at 1.015, racked into secondary onto 2 pounds of real ripe fresh pineapple and 2 pounds of fresh mango (I'm fortunate enough to have a grocery produce department that will clean/cut the fruit for you giving me nice spears that easily went into the carboy).

I gave a real gentle swirl every now and then so the fruit stayed loose. I also had thrown 2 vanilla beans split into it, figured it wouldn't impart a lot of flavor but I had them and they were getting a little old and with no immediate plans on using them other wise I figured why not since I wanted to order some fresh ones anyway. Two days (almost a month later) I tried a taste sample and it was awesome, not cloyingly sweet but pleasant tropical sweet, pineapple and mango both distiguishable and just enough tartness to make it pop. So I racked off of the pineapple/mango onto 3 pounds shredded unsweetended coconut....

In a month I think it'll get another taste to see if it will go into bulk aging or sit on the coconut a bit longer. I'm curious if the coconut will mellow it out some where a little acid blend may be in order to brighten it up. It's actually clearing better than I expected I considered pectic enzymes a bit late as this was really a last minute decision to go the tropical route (had the fruit for another purpose but it reached the point of borderline over ripe so in it went)

I noticed posts about concerned with pineapple effecting ferment as sometimes fruits can, this is easily resolved, save the fruit for secondary or very late in primary.

WIMARIPA said:

I'm making a piña colada melomel currently. I used shredded coconut, some vanilla beans, a mix of leftover honeys, as well as pineapple juice for all the liquid. It fermented just fine but tastes pretty funky right now. Perhaps that will improve with time/ backsweetening

Click to expand...

I have one of these in the secondary right now too. With fresh pineapple, fresh coconut--including the water (and I was later told that coconut is fungicidal--didn't seem to kill anything), a fresh mango, couple banannas, orange juice, and lime (added too much). 1.5 gallon batch

I got the funky taste and smell as well in the begining, and every time I tried it it tasted quite different.

Debating whether I want to throw more fresh fruit in there now.

I originally started this thread back in Feb. I don't have my log handy here but I think it was in early March when I started it. I racked it about three months ago. I took a peek this morning and it is crystal clear. Get some spare time and I'll bottle it. It sure is purdy.