Is it time to bottle or instead rack to tertiary?

I have a blueberry hibiscus melomel that I had in primary for 23 days before racking to secondary which it's been in for 84 days.

It's been around the 62-64'F range for its entire primary and secondary fermentation and I used Lalvin D-47.

OG was 1.110
SG at racking to secondary was 1.032

I feel like 3 months in secondary is getting about as long as i'd like it to sit on the lees (or does it matter?) and was going to either bottle or rack to tertiary for the long term aging.

If you were in my shoes, would you rack or just bottle it?

TandemTails said:

I have a blueberry hibiscus melomel that I had in primary for 23 days before racking to secondary which it's been in for 84 days.

It's been around the 62-64'F range for its entire primary and secondary fermentation and I used Lalvin D-47.

OG was 1.110
SG at racking to secondary was 1.032

I feel like 3 months in secondary is getting about as long as i'd like it to sit on the lees (or does it matter?) and was going to either bottle or rack to tertiary for the long term aging.

If you were in my shoes, would you rack or just bottle it?

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Yes, rack it. You don't want it sitting on lees.

Once it's perfectly clear, and there are NO new lees in the carboy after at least 60 days, it's ok to bottle or age longer in the carboy.

Yooper said:

Yes, rack it. You don't want it sitting on lees.

Once it's perfectly clear, and there are NO new lees in the carboy after at least 60 days, it's ok to bottle or age longer in the carboy.

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Just racked it. The SG made it down to 1.010. I'll let it sit for another couple months before bottling.

It already tasted great and didn't have the usual hotness that some of my other meads have had at this time in their lives. I'm already thinking about scaling this up into a 3 gallon batch instead of the 1 gallon batch I've got going now.

It looks great!

I love deep red meads. Gonna fire up a heavy duty melomel this Christmas for maybe next year or year after.

MarshmallowBlue said:

I love deep red meads. Gonna fire up a heavy duty melomel this Christmas for maybe next year or year after.

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I'm really digging the color of this one. I think it'll make for a really nice summer mead with the hints of blueberry and hibiscus.

I've been wanting to try a cranberry one that would go well around the holidays but haven't started doing any research for that yet. Maybe racking a base mead onto a cherry / cranberry combo in secondary would be nice.

man that looks tasty. My Mead is still way to hot, gotta wait another year I suppose.

How much blueberry did you use for your gallon? Did you crack the skins on the berries?

I know precisely zip about mead, but that is one tasty looking glass!

CrazyMFJones said:

How much blueberry did you use for your gallon? Did you crack the skins on the berries?

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I used 1 cup of frozen blueberries in primary and pure blueberry juice when i racked to secondary (I don't have an exact amount but I diluted the juice/tea solution to 1.032 (to match the SG of the mead) with some additional hibiscus tea I made and used that to top off and eliminate headspace).

Here's the full recipe:

Batch Size: 1 gal
OG: 1.110

Ingredients:
* 1 gallon water
* 3 lbs honey
* 2 oz hibiscus flowers (dried)
* Juice of 2 lemons
* Zest of 1 lemon
* 1 cup frozen blueberries
* Wyeast beer nutrient blend (¼ tsp intervals)
* yeast energizer (¼ tsp intervals)
* ¾ tsp pectic enzyme
* 2 grams Lalvin D47 Yeast

Steps:
* Heat 6 cups of water and add lemon zest and hibiscus flowers.
* - Remove from heat
* - Add lemon juice
* - Steep for 60 minutes
* Add honey to carboy (add hot water to honey container to get all of it out)
* Add 1 cup frozen blueberries to carboy
* Add hibiscus flower tea to carboy (put sanitized strainer over funnel to collect flowers)
* Top off with water to the 1 gallon mark (sparge the water over the strained hibiscus flowers to get every bit of flavor)
* Shake like crazy to incorporate everything
* Take OG
* Make sure solution is room temperature or lower (D47 likes temps in 59-68 degree range)
* Add ¼ tsp yeast nutrient and ¼ tsp yeast energizer to carboy
* Pitch the yeast

Secondary:
* Make tea mixture with ingredients above plus some blueberries
* - Strain mixture to remove blueberries and hibiscus flowers
* Measure SG of mead
* Mix blueberry juice and hibiscus tea to match the SG of mead
* Add new blueberry juice/tea mixture to mead in new carboy to top off and eliminate headspace

Thanks for posting your recipe. What color! I love the way the light dances thru the glass. Likely even more impressive in person. Cameras tend to lie a little.

This looks great.One thing I have learned about working with fruit or frozen fruit that it's has a large quantity of water in it. So it's going to lessen your OG when completed. I made a mead with 6 lbs of Blueberries as well in 5 gallons..added water and let go.. it's extremely thin now and kinda disappointing...
Just my 2 cent..