adding fruit to mead

[inchrisin]

Ok, I've been adding fruit to the primary so that I can rack to secondary to halt the fermentation and to add clarity. I've recently read that fruit should be added in secondary and can be left on 10% ABV for extended periods of time. How do you do your meads?

Do you add fruit to the primary or secondary?

Do you stabilize your mead and then fruit it or let the fruit sugars ferment before halting your mead?

 

[biochemedic]

Bear in mind that I like rather dry mead, so I put fruit additions in secondary and let them go dry. Still, a late primary addition will accomplish the same thing if you have a primary chamber that you can add easily to.

I suppose I hadn't really thought of it before, but I guess you could stabilize before adding as a way of subtle backsweetening... Any one else ever do this?

 

[KCWortHog]

I've done both, and adding fruit to primary AND SECONDARY is far superior in both flavor & aroma. Basically, if you want something sweet and full of fruit flavor, use fruit in both primary & secondary and ferment to completion in both. Then, sorbate & backsweeten. You get the benefit of controlled fruit flavor & controlled sweetness. I believe you get a ton of flavor out of the fruit in primary and even more (plus aroma) in secondary. Why not do both?

 

[jblaschke]

I've done both, but find that adding fruit to the primary results in a diminished fruit profile. Adding to the secondary, after the vigorous initial fermentation, results in much bolder fruit profiles whether you ferment to dryness or not. At least, that's my experience. It just depends what you're going for, I suppose.