One gallon recipe questions

[Demaskee]

I just racked my 5 gallon mead into a secondary with Camden tabs and potassium sorbate to stop any further fermantation and am going to leave it there for a couple of days. My OG was around 1.12 and my FG was aroung 0.996.

This weekend I plan on racking the mead into 5 seperate 1 gallon jugs with various mixtures of fruit and spices. Do these recipes below sound like they would work? Are the amounts good or should I adjust. Also, I'd like the mead to be on the sweet side, but not syrup.

1) 1/4 cup wildflower honey, 3lb sliced strawberries

2) 1/4 cup wildflower honey, 1lb blackberries, 1lb blueberries, 1lb rasberries. Should I squeeze the berries and just add the juice, leave them whole, or a mixture of the two?

3) 1/4 cup wildflower honey, 3lb pears, ?? fresh ginger. Do you have any idea how much ginger to add to a 1 gal batch?

4) 1/4 cup wildflower honey

5) Just going to leave 1 gallon alone to age.

All of the fruit is being frozen before hand, then thawed prior to racking.

Thanks for any help with this!

 

[Urkelbot]

Do something crazy with #4. The 1/4 cup wildflower isn't going to be much different than #5.

 

[Complete_Amateur]

Try Ginger by itself.

1. I've heard you need to use more strawberries than other berries. Maybe look into that for this batch.

2. Lightly crush, then add the berries.

3. Ginger pear sounds like a good combo. Ginger is very strong, and pear is not such a strong flavor, so I might use it lightly. I would remove the skin, grate the ginger, and add about a Tbsp. I like ginger, and would like to hear how this one turns out.

4. Urkelbot is right on here, this may not be distinguishable from your traditional (I think this would just be a very lightly back-sweetened traditional). Maybe try straight ginger?

Are you going to use any spices other than ginger?

 

[Demaskee]

Thanks for the info. The other spices I have on hand are 2 large vanilla beans and whole clove. I didn't really see anything that might work with these except possibly strawberry vanilla.

 

[HopSong]

When adding fruit such as berries.. do you need to sanitize them to kill off any wild yeasts, etc? I've only made a batch of cider that I added ginger to (good) but I flash dipped the slices in vodka for that purpose.. don't know if I needed to or not.

 

[Complete_Amateur]

When adding fruit such as berries.. do you need to sanitize them to kill off any wild yeasts, etc? I've only made a batch of cider that I added ginger to (good) but I flash dipped the slices in vodka for that purpose.. don't know if I needed to or not.

I think this is more of a concern when adding fresh fruit to primary. OP's recipe, with an OG of 1.12, and a FG of .996, should have around 16% alcohol at this point, which should be enough to discourage unwanted organisms from taking hold. It is possible that additional fermentation could take place, but with that high an alcohol content, it would not likely go very far.

If you want to be certain there are no wild yeasts, you can add stabilizers to the fruit (campden, sorbates, etc.). I don't really worry about it.

 

[loveofrose]

Try a batch with just vanilla. Vanilla will provide a full flavor that is really hard to beat!