Blueberry Melomel- please advise

Yesterday I prepared a mead that I plan on turning into a blueberry melomel. Here's the basics:

This is a one gallon size batch. I used 2 3/4 lbs wildflower honey, a gallon of water, yeast nutrient and yeast energizer, and Lalvin D-47. OG was 1.083, so this will finish very dry. I wanted dry, but maybe not THAT dry. Either way, it was all the honey I had.

My plan: yeast was pitched yesterday. After 7 days, I will add more nutrient and energizer. (Should I add more before that?)

After 14 days in primary, I am going to rack onto 3 lbs blueberries that I squish up nicely. I plan on letting it sit on the blueberries for 2 weeks, then rack off the berries and let it bulk age for 3-6 months, then bottle.

Thoughts? Will the blueberries in secondary add a sweetness back to it since it's going to be DRY to begin with? Is two weeks long enough to leave the mead on the berries?

I have done a couple of blueberry batches. I have a 6 gal blueberry lemon in the works. Expect it to ferment completely dry, Yes adding the blueberries will add some sweetness back but even in the secondary expect all that sweetness to be completely taken away again. It has happended on all my batches. I recomend leaving the blueberries on a month. then potasium sulfating and leaving it a couple of days to a week, THEN backsweetening with 3 more pounds of honey, since this is a galon batch. Even with the racking loss the additional honey water will bulk this up more, you may end up with 1 1/2 gal so be prepared to have a second container just in case.

Ok, sory you wanted semi-dry. So only add 1-2 pounds of honey at the end.
I think that this will still produce a semi-sweet to semi-dry taste.

Hope it turns out well.

What about a second dose of blueberries when I add additional honey? Worth it?

I add my blueberries in the secondary. Then after I give it a month, I rack off of the blueberries and mix in some potasium sorbate to stablize it. Meaning I stop the yeast. Then after giving the potasium sorbate a day, I backsweeten, or add more honey to sweeten it. If you don't stop the yeast it will just eat up the sugar again.

A bit more of a process but worth it. You don't add the blueberries in the primary, you also don't add the blueberries and extra honey at the same time.

Sorry if my process was not clear.

I just found this calculator for backsweetening, http://web2.airmail.net/sgross/fermcalc/index.html, click the sugar tab and input the info and bam! For semi dry(around 1.004) you would need 3.45 ounces of honey.

Well, this is in secondary now. On a whim I racked my mead onto the yeast cake/dregs from the blueberry wine that I made on the same day the mead was made (just racked the wine off the yeast 5 minutes before). I also added 1 3/4 lbs blueberries (squished up) and some high alcohol yeast nutrient. Took a gravity reading and I'm at 1.000. My plan is to let it sit for a month, then transfer to a bulk aging vessel and backsweeten then.

The question is, how much honey to add? Sagnew440, I looked at that online calculator and couldn't figure out what it was telling me. 3.45 ounces doesn't seem like much of an addition, but then, I've only got a gallon of mead.

Thoughts?

That's a lot of work. You could just add the berries at the start.

This is a test to see if I can post pics

[img:800:681]http://www.pbase.com/beekeeper/image/136830616/original.jpg[/img]

This is raspberry melomel 2 months after starting the whole process. I've made literally hundreds of bottles of mead, often with fruit and I never take more than 15 minutes to prepare a batch and then never do anything except to rack it once.

I could also just go buy the type of thing I want to drink. I thought doing the work was part of the fun.

Everything I've read says fruit in the secondary is the way to go.

Whatever. I make hundreds of bottles every year and it seems to me common sense that the more steps you take the more opportunity there is to mess up. I pour everything in together at once and in a month and a half am drinking passable to good melomels and meads. I've posted some pics but evidently a mod has to allow them first.

RedGuitar said:

I could also just go buy the type of thing I want to drink. I thought doing the work was part of the fun.

Everything I've read says fruit in the secondary is the way to go.

Click to expand...

Concur there RG.

It would seem that with a lot of the more vigorous yeasts, flavour and aroma elements can be blown straight out the airlock, whereas if the fruit is put into secondary, if there's still fermentation going on, it will much some/all of the sugars in the fruit, but you tend to end up with more colour, aroma and fruit flavour in a mead/melomel/etc, that's ready to drink quicker (it's why I avoid champagne yeasts - as they do seem to be the biggest offender in this way).

Some use part of the fruit in the primary, sort of like replacing some nutrient, then some in secondary and even some in tertiary/post ferment so that there's even some of the fruit sugars left in the finished product....

Also, in response to TimV.... if you've found a nice, easy/simple way of making the batches that taste good to you, then that's excellent. The problem is more about there not really being any real standards to what we make. Not only are there differences in the honey, but also water, quality of fruit, etc etc, hence the differences in approach taken by different people in their mead making. Hence the "taste" is relative.......

In fact, the only standards I've heard of, are those published by the Polish government in respect of the Polish type methods that are used to make Poltorak's, Dworniaks, etc etc - and while they can only be enforced within Poland (they're not even legally recognised throughout the whole of the EU), that's not to say that they don't give enough info about how these types of meads are made, so we can also have a go.

Just my tuppence worth.....

regards

fatbloke

RedGuitar said:

The question is, how much honey to add? Sagnew440, I looked at that online calculator and couldn't figure out what it was telling me. 3.45 ounces doesn't seem like much of an addition, but then, I've only got a gallon of mead.

Thoughts?

Click to expand...

It doesn't seem like a lot, but I've used the calculator to sweeten up an apple wine a few weeks ago and then measured with my hydrometer and it was right on.