Removing fruit?

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B192734

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So the raspberry mead has been sitting in the secondary for a couple of weeks now. When i racked it over, I added a few more pounds of fruit, and was wondering now if it should be removed now that the color and everything has been leached out. If it should be removed, how would I do that? Should I rack into another carboy, or what? And when i do, should I add a little water to top back off, or should I add a little water/honey mixture to top off to keep the sweetness?
 
I wouldn't leave the fruit in there for longer than two weeks. I'm not sure how you have the fruit in there, but I just pull out the bag. I am assuming you didn't use a strainer bag, and if that's the case you will have a hell of a time getting all the fruit remnants out. Unless somebody corrects me you'll have to rack and rack and rack and rack unless you get some kind of find strainer.

You can use honey/water, but you better stabilize first. If you haven't added Campden tabs and Potassium Sorbate fermentation will likely restart and you won't be left with any sweet. If you don't care about having residual sweetness then sure, put in more honey/water and it'll just ferment into more alcohol.

Hope that helps. :)
 
I do have some Potassium Sorbate. So I can use a little f that because I don't want to continue to ferment away the sweetness. I can rack through a strainer. I have a really fine one that I can use. If I were to top off with Honey/water, what kind of ratio would I use. Don't want really super sweet, but not nonsweet either.
 
I was more worried about making sure it was all topped off and reducing the headspace. I am planning on letting it age for a while. I have been told that you don't bottle until everything goes clear. Then let it age for a while after that.
 
Then just add water and worry about sweetening it later, unless you are worried about adding too much water that it will lower your percent too much, and then add some honey.
 
So the raspberry mead has been sitting in the secondary for a couple of weeks now. When i racked it over, I added a few more pounds of fruit, and was wondering now if it should be removed now that the color and everything has been leached out. If it should be removed, how would I do that? Should I rack into another carboy, or what? And when i do, should I add a little water to top back off, or should I add a little water/honey mixture to top off to keep the sweetness?

Just rack it to another carbouy. Sulfite if you feel the need to & top up. You can add sanitized marbles to reduce headspace through displacement, or you can add boiled & cooled water. If you add any more sugars (honeywater) you may kick off another round of fermentation. Regards, GF.
 
If I did use the potassium sulfite, wouldn't that effectively stop the fermentation even I added more honey into it? I think that I am probably looking at maybe 3-4 cups of liquid that will need to be added to totally top it off.
 
If I did use the potassium sulfite, wouldn't that effectively stop the fermentation even I added more honey into it? I think that I am probably looking at maybe 3-4 cups of liquid that will need to be added to totally top it off.

Well, sorbate only stops yeast from reproducing. It doesn't kill live yeasts. But if your yeasts are already spent, it would prevent them from waking back up. Granted, if you waited awhile, they wouldn't wake back up and be really really dead.
 
So then theoretically I could rack into another carboy, shutdown the yeast, Add the water/honey and it'll ferment a bit then if the yeast can't reproduce it'll drop out and the fermentation will stop and it'll be left with whatever leftover honey wasn't able to be converted, and keep that sweetness? Am I missing anything or mis-understanding something?
 
Okay, wine is my thing, not mead, but I believe it works the same way. I see that you have two options

1. Rack, sorbate and sulfite (sorbate works better with sulfite), and then add water and honey for sweeteness. Let it age for awhile (I'm gathering it is young), which will also help disappate the sorbate/sulfite taste along with improving mead flavors.

2. Rack, probably sulfite just to make sure the water you add doesn't have contaminates. If you add honey at this stage, it will start fermenting again, and you would have to start over. Let it age for six months or so in which the yeast starve to death and completely die out. I believe if you rack again, your mead would be purged of all the yeast, and then you can add honey without the sorbates. Somebody else want to verify this process?
 
Alrighty. So I am going to rack off of the fruit today. I will put a bit of sorbate in, top off with water and a little honey, let it go and then later I can add more honey of I think it needs a little sweetness. I think that will be my plan.
 
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