When do I add the fruit?

I am making a batch of strawberry/banana melomel. It has been 8 days since I made the mead. It consisted of 18 lbs of raw clover honey and the yeast and the usual yeast nutrients.

When is a good time to add the fruit?

From what I have been reading here and in books often it is added after primary fermentation is done. Not all the time but often. I think the idea behind adding it later is more of the fruits flavor can come through. Racking onto your fruit your first racking is a one option. I would expect peaches and bananas to both break down quite a bit. I know the peaches in my Peach/Blueberry melome did. I put my fruit in my primary(plastic bucket) and after two weeks or so I scooped them out with a strainer. I am in my secondary right now and am thinking when I rack again to rack onto some more fruit. I didn't have near as much fruit flavor as I was hoping for.
Sorry for the long rambling reply. I was up early with my son and typing between helping him and drinking coffee.
BGH

Definitely add late in primary or into secondary. This will give you much better retention of flavor and aroma. Depending on the type of container you use for primary it might be easier to put the fruit as you rack into a secondary container. In terms of sediment and debris, sometimes it's helpful to put your fruit in a disposable muslin bag. Either way, it should eventually settle and you can rack into your final bulk aging/settling container.

I secondaried mine for about a month. Then terciaried for bulk aging.

Do most of you guys use a fermenting BUCKET for the secondary for adding the fruit? I have a number of extra carboys that I could use for secondary, but that seems like it will be a pain in the butt adding the fruit through the small opening.

I added 17 lbs of fruit to primary bucket AFTER the first week of fermentation. There was enough alcohol for me to feel safe about sanitization and I didn't lose as much fruit character to fermentation out-gassing. I used a big mesh bag and tied te end to keep the fruit in. Worked perfectly. Fermentation really takes off after the fruit was added.

Q2XL said:

Do most of you guys use a fermenting BUCKET for the secondary for adding the fruit? I have a number of extra carboys that I could use for secondary, but that seems like it will be a pain in the butt adding the fruit through the small opening.

Click to expand...

I don't use buckets for mead...the debate is whether or not the plastic is too porous and will eventually allow oxygen into the mix given the much longer time frames you age mead for. Is this real? I don't know...may be completely negligible for all I know, but still, I use glass for my meads. I still use better bottles and plastic buckets for beer, and you better believe they're easier to use, especially when it comes to making additions to the secondary!
For the glass carboys that I use for mead, I just puree the fruit, and use a big funnel to get it through the neck of the carboy into a waiting muslin bag that I've put through first..tie it off and drop it in before siphoning the waiting mead from primary. On the back end, you sometimes have to destroy the bag to get it out, but they're disposable and cost pennies for a reason...