adding fruit to mead

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kjones

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i was thinking tryin something with some blueberrys that i have. I was thinking of buying a mead kit and just adding the blueberrys to it.? any suggestions?
 
Why buy a kit if your just going to add fruit to it. Just make your own mead and leave the middle man out. Buy some honey like 2 and a half pounds for every gallon. Boil the honey in same water and scrap of the foam then let set until blood temperature. Then add your fruit 1 to 2 pounds for every gallon with some pectic enzyme(helps brake down the fruit cell wall) along with any spices that you'd might like -- Irish moss, Gypsum, etc. and a campden tablet. Add the yeast(I use red star), then stare once a day for three days, then put it in a carboy with a airlock. Rack when the settlement is high enough. Easy stuff.
 
One thing I'll mention about blueberries is that it will make your mead kinda greenish...(mead is basically yellow plus blue). With that said, I'd do the primary fermentation depending on how you like your mead.

For a dry mead I'd go with about 10-12 pounds of a mild honey for 5 gallons, for a semi-sweet, about 15-16 pounds and a sweet mead about 20 pounds.

After the primary, go into your secondary and rack on top of the fruit. I use the Oregon fruit purees in a can that various homebrew stores offer. They're handy, and you don't have to worry about micro-organisms off of fresh fruit, possibly causing a bad batch. If you're going to use fresh berries, just wash them good and then I'd freeze them. Freezing fruit breaks the cell structure down and allows for a better "mush" in the secondary for flavor.

Hope this helps. Make sure you pick the right yeast also ... if you like it sweet go with a sweet mead yeast or a sweet white wine yeast. If you like it dry, go with that variety of mead yeast. I wouldn't use champagne yeast though, unless ... well you like champagne. :)

cheers

~r~
 
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