Mango Melomel (complete with humorous annecdote!)

Well, I brewed up some mango melomel yesterday.

So my recipe for this one was simple enough:

• 8 lbs frozen mango chunks, thawed, and run through a blender with some water until liquid-ish
• 15 lbs Clover honey (SueBee, nothing fancy here)
• water to 6 gallons

Once the honey and mango juice were suitable heated and cooled, I ran them through the blender on its 'aerate' setting. I alternated adding the mango/honey juice and water to try and mix them up. Once I had enough in there, I pitched K1V-1116, and shook it to give it a uniform consistency. I'm planning on adding 4 more pounds of mangoes to the secondary.

Awoke this morning to find my carboy sputtering, and mango goop in the airlock, as well as on the carboy, the counter, the floor, and the ceiling. At least the dogs cleaned up the stuff on the floor.

Did you leave any headspace?

huesmann said:

Did you leave any headspace?

Click to expand...

Yes. Apparently not enough, though. I've siphoned off enough to make sure there's enough headspace now.

Well, I transferred it onto 4 lbs of mango chunks for secondary fermentation. It looks like some of the mango fibers precipitated out with the yeast poop. After secondary, I think it'll have decreased enough in volume to go into a 5 gallon carboy.

Please let me know once this is drinkable. I want to know how much mango flavor came through.

Let me know too. Mango seems to be a fruit that doesn't have a whole lot of flavor.

Dare I ask how big your carboy was?

I just had that happen to me on my first 5-gal batch of beer.. happened in the middle of the night, so I had to put away my gun and change my pants before I could fit it with a blowoff tube

Tw0fish, it was a 6 gallon carboy. Once I get all the fruit bits and whatnot out of it, it'll probably fit in one of my 5 gallon ones, though.

Well, I have long since decanted this, and felt I should update people on it. I went way overboard with the mangoes; they overpower the honey completely. If I ever make this recipe again, I'll modify it by reducing the amount of mangoes by at least ½, and probably use a juicer, rather than a blender on the mangoes in the primary.