Blueberry Mead by Christmas???

There are two schools of thought (and plenty of debate) on when to add fruit to your mead. Many people believe that, to preserve the fruit character and aroma, fruit should be added to the secondary fermentation. This method works well but can have a couple of drawbacks. The fruit will have to steep in the secondary fermenter for many weeks or months to extract all the goodness the fruit has to offer. In addition, considerable aging will be needed to have the fruit and honey meld together into a great beverage. Renewed fermentation could also result from the sugar in the fruit. If primary fermentation was completed in part by the alcohol content reaching the yeast’s tolerance level, fruit added to the secondary will dilute the alcohol content (fruit is typically 70% water) allowing the yeast to reactivate.

After my first few batches I started fruit in the primary fermentation (FPF). There are many benefits to this technique. Fruit will provide many of the nutrients needed by the yeast during fermentation and help to regulate the pH of the fermenting mead must. FPF will typically take much less time than traditional mead fermentations. [I’ve won awards for meads that were six weeks out of the primary with this method.] Fermentation of mead with an original specific gravity up to 1.145 should be complete in three to four weeks in most cases.

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