advice on a blueberry melomel

[mdindy]

So I am planning on making a 2 gallon batch of blueberry melomel and im looking for advice on when and how I plan on adding the blueberry puree.
I will be using 6lbs of clover honey with a 3 gallon carboy before transferring to 2 single gallon jugs for significant aging. I was planning on adding the puree (1lb) during secondary fermentation. my dilemma is I do not want to try and add half in each jug when I transfer, I was thinking of adding to the primary after fermentation (usually about 1 month) and hoping it will mix on its own before racking.
thoughts or suggestions welcome.

 

[bernardsmith]

This is really a complex question. I think you really want to add the fruit in the primary so that the yeast can get to the honey and fruit at the same time. The downside can be that if you use a very vigorous yeast you may lose some of the flavor and aromatics that the fruit have due to the violent fermentation - so you want to ferment at a low temperature and use a yeast known for its non aggressive way with sugar.
If you add the fruit after fermentation has ostensibly finished you will restart the process only now the pH will be very different from the pH that was in the must earlier. That may mean that the yeast will have more difficulty processing the sugars in the fruit. They will certainly have to work harder and perhaps exhibit some stress because the environment which they have worked hard to produce and maintain has been suddenly changed with the addition of fruit.
Bottom line: I generally add fruit to the primary and add flowers (flavoring without additional sugars) to the primary and the secondary.

 

[BGBC]

It depends what you're looking for in the eventual product.

Listen to the Basic Brewing episode from June 28, 2012 which was an experiment done on a raspberry melomel (primary vs secondary). It gave some good insight on the flavor differences between the additions.

Granted, blueberries have a much more muted flavor than raspberries to begin with, so I would personally put them in secondary if I wanted any fruit flavor to come out. Also, 0.5 lb per gallon is pretty light, particularly for blueberries, but again, it depends on what you want in the final product.

I made a blueberry/raspberry melomel recently where I added the fruit after primary fermentation had slowed down, but prior to racking (used a weighted grain bag in a bucket). I'm happy with the way it turned out and think it has a nice deep fruit character to it.

 

[Matrix4b]

I suggest you put the fruit in the secondary and add lemon juice. Lemon Juice will help emphasize the flavor of the blueberry. Trust me it works.

 

[edues]

About 7mo ago I started a blackberry melomel. I added everything at the same time. 3mo. Into it I gave it a taste and it truly was the best drink I ever had. Bottled it 2 weeks ago. Can't wait to try it after a yeat! At the same time I did a blueberry. Tried it like the blackberry. At that time it was clear but it just needs time. I didn't do anything fancy with either one. Wine making is 90% intuition 10% science. Oooh wait. 100% time!!

 

[OHVolsfan23]

We used frozen blueberries for our blueberry pancake melomel. Made it easy to add half to each stage