Will fruit with skin ever drop?

I am sitting on two different meads right now that have skinned (as in they still have the skin not they have been de-skinned.... wow this is getting confusing) fruit in them. Both have lemons and oranges in them that I left the thick, porous skin on.

Yes, I realize the possible consequences of doing this. Its done and cannot be undone. I'm over it.

Question is... will this fruit ever drop? Its been about 4 months bulk aging on each and they are clearing nicely below the fruit layer but the fruit doesn't look like it is going anywhere. I plan on continuing to bulk age for at least another 3 months before bottling.

I am not in any hurry but I thought some of the fruit would be dropping by now for sure. I have Ciders and beers and other meads and wines to drink in the meantime so no big deal... just wondering.

Fatbloke is going to tear me a new one in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

My oranges and raisins all sank in my JAOM.

My blueberries never did for my blueberry.

luda007 said:

My blueberries never did for my blueberry.

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Good to know as I have a blueberry around the same age as well.

sonofgrok said:

Fatbloke is going to tear me a new one in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

Click to expand...

No he's not.....

It seems that some citrus fruits either have more air tight skins or that your fruit wasn't "unwaxed" (guessing here).

As there must be a reason why the fruit holds onto some of the CO2 to keep it floating.

One of the main (apparently) reasons for letting the fruit drop is that all the time the fruit is floating, some of the sediment will settle on it so that as soon as its moved it doesn't matter how clear it was, some of the sediment is brought back into suspension i.e. cloudy.

Well this is what tends to happen with JAO and bread yeast anyway....

So I'd have thought cold crashing would be a good first step then if that doesn't work, maybe the next step would be racking it away from any sediment and residual fruit and then use finings....

Its all just a guess and what I'd try. All my JAO type meads, the fruit has dropped and cleared fine.

I'm just some bloke who enjoys making meads and open source IT, so if I can pass something I've learned, on to others so they don't repeat my mistakes, that's excellent......