Kiwi Mead and Peppermint Metheglin

Hello, I started brewing a couple months ago. So far I've done a cider which turned out pretty well. Right now I'm working on 2 one gallon batches of mead. One is a kiwi melomel and the other is currently a plain mead. They are both relatively small with starting gravities of 1.075. Both are in the primary and almost ready for the secondary. I had a couple of questions I was hoping you could clear up for me.

For the plain mead, I would like to turn it into a peppermint metheglin. I was thinking I would steep pepperment in boiling water and use this to top up the secondary (along with a little extra honey) and then place the now sanitized peppermint into the secondary as well. Then in 3 months I'll bottle it if it looks ready.

For the melomel, I've heard that the kiwi flavor will mostly be blown out the airlock so I should add kiwi to the secondary. Do you think it would be more effective to mash up the kiwi or leave it whole? And what would be the proper way to maintain sanitation with the fruit? I used metabisulphite in the beginning to sanitize, but in the future I want to switch to the natural method with no heat or chemicals as I have heard that is better.

And last question: could someone clarify something about oxygen exposure? I know it is best to test your mead for the gravity in order to track fermentation, but won't this expose it to oxygen every time you do this? What makes it okay to take the stopper out?

Thank you so much!

nobody knows?

I don't know about the peppermint but i'm doing a kiwi mead the now, I did a 5l batch and put 24 kiwi in primary and used a crushed Campden tablet to sterilise the must, I just peeled the kiwi and cut it up in to little bits and chucked it in. then made a mistake by getting the stick blender in about it. strained out the kiwi mess after about 10 days but was not easy with the pulp from the sick blender. Then a month ago fermentation had stopped at about 1.010, never took an og, but to be honest it could just be a traditional mead not allot of kiwi flavour or colour. The same happened to my plumb so i'm now ageing on some more limps of kiwi dunno if it will pick up the taste or not. Only tryed it because I had a dream I was making kiwi mead. Think if I was doing it again I would not put so many kiwis in primary.

And as for oxidisation, I just drop my sterilise hydrometer in to my Demi johns, means you can hardly read it cos of the bend in the glass but you can read it to the nearest ten which is good enough for me

Got me thinking about it so I thieved a bit, to see of it need more kiwi, has the smell, and has allot of body, might be the result of all Those kiwis up front

With Kiwi fruit, the taste changes completely if heated or fermented.

If you want that light, slightly gooseberry acidic taste, then you need to make a strong-ish base batch, then hit the secondary with the fruit i.e. top and tail them, then just slice skin and all into secondary.

Then you get a little of the colour and enough of the original fruit flavour to be able to tell what it is.

Don't heat kiwi's as they change and give a cooked flavour like apples do.

The mint one that the OP mentions, just steep some pieces of mint in the batch during secondary, start with 2 or 3 and then leave it for a couple of weeks to a month then taste, that should give you an idea whether you need more or not - don't forget, a dry batch flavoured with mint probably isn't too good, as most of the time we associate mint flavour with sweetness to you may have to back sweeten as well.

As for the OP's ? about oxygen exposure etc....... CO2 is heavier than air, so the removal of the bung to take a test is unlikely to be a problem, equally it's the same as when aerating during the first 1/3rd of a ferment. You're adding some O2 in to help with the yeast development, but due to the nature of honey, being rather anti-oxidant by nature, the added O2 doesn't oxidise the brew like it would do with a beer (hence beer makers preferring to make starters to ensure a large, healthy yeast colony while keeping it away from the wort - which has lots of other of the naturally occuring chems that will oxidise easily......honey musts don't do that).

Of course, if there's fruit in the batch, it will be fractionally more sensitive, but that's less of a problem as the honey is also preservative and any early stage aeration tends not to affect the fruit either.

{edit} I can't remember which is the predominant acid in kiwi fruit of the top of my head, but if you did want to increase that aspect a little, maybe some acid and back sweetening would do the trick - if it (the predominant acid) was malic, then sulphites reduce the issue of possible MLF occurring and if it's tartaric you may need to get the flavour right, but then cold crash the batch to make sure that you don't get "wine diamonds" in the batch/bottles if chilled {/edit}

So in 2 months, it will be time to bottle this batch. I'm planning on keeping the kiwi a dry mead and making the mint a sweet/semi-sweet mead. Please tell me if there is anything else I should do/change besides:

Day 1. add potassium metabisulphite
Day 2. add honey to sweeten the mint metheglin
Day 2. bottle both the mint and the kiwi mead.

Any other things I should do?

Thanks in advance!