Seeking your best berry melomel recipe

I am ready to start my first 5 gal. berry melomel and don't want to throw a dart blindly for a great recipe. I would appreciate any assistance, your finest melomel recipe and any tips you may offer.

TIA
John
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Check out Ken Schramm's Mambo in Your Mouth melomel recipe in The Compleat Meadmaker if you have it. Made that one in September '08, bottled it in November '09. Very happy with it, and now I'm waiting for berry seasons to roll around so I can make a bigger batch of it and age it for a longer period of time with a little more oak influence.

I do have Ken's book and currently have his Medium Show Mead in one primarys. My concern with the Multi-Berry Melomel (Mambo in Your Mouth) is the need for oak aging which I do not have barrels for aging yet. I also don't want something that is to sweet so the oak aging would seem to be a must. I prefer my wine a bit dryer.

You can use oak chips for the oaking, no worries about a barrel.

I say do it!

Or even better, IMO, oak cubes. And it turns out dry

Perfect, I am all over this. Thank everyone!

I guess I should ask...do the oak chips go ine the carboy (secondary) or 3rd racking for 6months or so aging before bottling? They will fit in the carboy mouth?

I used 2 oz of French Heavy cubes in a tertiary carboy when I made it. I kept the fruit in, punching down the cap daily, for a couple month, and then racked the mead into a glass carboy on top of the oak. I did my primary and secondary in plastic buckets.

If you decide to use chips instead of cubes, you should taste frequently. Chips infuse a lot quicker than cubes, and so you could over-oak the mead easier.

Either way, once the oak gets to the point that you like it, or just past, then you want to rack off of it and age a little longer. The oak will mellow with some aging and integrate into the rest of the flavor profile