Black currant/Blueberry melomel

[Shine0n]

Ive been wanting to try black currant for some time now and finally got something going 3 days ago

1 gal vinters harvest black currant wine base
1 3lb 1oz can vintners harvest black currant puree
12 lbs wild Maine blueberry
28 lbs sweet clover honey
46.8g fermaid o
35g lalvin 71B yeast

Batch size is 9 gallon
OG 1.146

We started this Sunday afternoon and it's moving like a train now lol

We will be degassing twice daily until 1/3 sugar depletion

I loaded all nutrients upfront on this one based off of my last experiment and it ended up fine. I normally will do TOSNA 2.0

The smell of this stuff is simply amazing, I'd love to sweeten my tea with this stuff!

We will age in a once used whiskey barrel for 3 months and then filter.

 

[Seamonkey84]

I love black currant, it makes a wonderful product. I like to go kinda heavy with the commercially available juices like the Vinters cans, but a little goes a long way too if your just wanting some tartness and complexity.

 

[Shine0n]

Thats what I've read about this, alot of people use the whole gallon on a 3 gallon mead.

That's one of the reasons I also put in the 3lb can of puree. My other gallon should be here on weds next week so I can add that on the latter half of fermentation.

I love fruit bombs!!!

I did find frozen currants 5lb for 35$ after the fact so after all this covid19 mess is over and Im not worried about mortgages and stuff I'll order 20lbs or so for a bochet.

 

[Seamonkey84]

I’ve been using the frozen concentrate from CurrantC for my last two batches. The vinters Black currant base (which is 3qt not a full gal) is actually black currant juice watered down to almost half it’s natural strength, just to give you an idea how strong the stuff is. I’ve used as much as 4-5 qt of vinters equivalent in a 3gaL batch (I call it Black Deathberry https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/black-deathberry-melomel.669135/).
I haven’t used purée yet, but have thought about it for one of my next batches.

 

[Shine0n]

Just read the whole thread, nice!!!

Im planning on aging this in a barrell I just pulled a bochet from for added tannins and complexity.

By batchbuilder calculation I should finish around 1.035 with an abv of 15%.

Sounds good but I know better and this could be ending up at 17% and lower sweetness but I'll go with the flow and keep taking detailed notes to compare to.

At 1.146 this should finish with some good residual sweetness but we'll see.

If by chance this does start to get lower on sg I'll step feed it some buckwheat to finish it off.

 

[Seamonkey84]

How is the batch going? With that much blueberry (Mainer here ) you might finishing lower than you think, there’s a lots of juice in the berries that end up lowering the gravity as it gets worked on. Step feeding at the end is what I do too, as I want the yeast to work on the honey at least a little instead of stabilizing and sweetening.

 

[Shine0n]

The batch is going good, sg right as of yesterday was 1.045ish.
The balance is there with sweetness to the tartness of the berries and currant. We pulled the berries after 9 days and its starting to slow down quite a bit.

Im hoping it will get terminal soon and start clearing off some so it's not so bad in my barrell with sediment.

With all that's going on with covid19 my extra fridge is tied up atm so cold crashing is completely out of the question so I may add bentonite soon to help.

 

[Shine0n]

Its been at 1042 now for the past week so Im calling this good and done.

13.6% is fine with me and the flavors are well balanced.

 

[Seamonkey84]

Nice, let’s see a sample once it clears hehe

 

[Shine0n]

No doubt, I'll probably raise a toast with a pour as well lol

 

[Shine0n]

Racking going down!!!

6.5 gal carboy that holds 7 to the neck

Still 2+ needing to rack in one gallon jugs.

My barrel spoiled on me so Im using med toast American white oak in secondary for a few months.

I'll post final totals once finished

 

[Shine0n]

With such a dark must it's hard to see exactly the muck at the bottom started so I did the best I could. Even with a light shining it was soooo dark in there lol

Now there's a light at the end of this tunnel

 

[Shine0n]

Racked again tonight and still hazy as hell. I do believe it has a strong pectin haze due to the fruit puree.
I just added sparkaloid and will give a week or so to see if any clarity happens.

Question though, will it do any harm to add the dose of pectic enzyme along with the sparkaloid? Should I wait and see what the sparkaloid does first and rerack?

 

[Seamonkey84]

The enzyme doesn’t work as well when there’s alcohol involved. Doesn’t meant it won’t help, but jay take more time. No idea about the sparkaloid.

 

[Shine0n]

Yea I wasn't thinking when I used the puree lol

Im going to tripple the dose when I do it.

I do plan to wait a week to see what happens with the sparkaloid.

I probably should've went with some Bentonite first but is what it is.

Reservoir is going to dump barrels next week and I want it fresh as I can and not have to hold it so Im in a pickle atm.