Blackberry melomel

[Shine0n]

I'm a very experienced mead maker but I've always added water to whichever one I made, now I have enough blackberries to make a full 10 gallon batch and I don't want to add water. Just straight berries, honey and yeast.

Once the season is over I will defrost the berries and use the proper amout of pectic enzymes for 24 hrs before pitching yeast.

Now I know that berries are generally 85% h20 and there is simple math to do and I will do such on me own but I want some folks who have done pure berry melomels to chime in with some wisdom on this as this is a first for me.

I've made 100s of gallons over the last 25+ years and have a great understanding of processes and procedures other than pure fruit Mels,

I'm not concerned about volume % or recovery rates because I know I'm in for major loss and I'm good with it but I'm after quality, not how much I get or high abv.

I would like to achieve a semisweet Mel with a **** ton of flavor.

I'm still in the air over yeasties but will do me own for that.

I appreciate any help thats tossed me way on this.
thanx,
Shine0n

 

[MightyMosin]

Your starting pH will likely be low and you will probably benefit from Potassium Carbonate to help buffer that from crashing or quick changes. I think I used something like 1tsp for ~ 6 gallons of pressed fruit juice; that amount didn't move the pH on the meter but it should have prevented quick movements of pH that might have stressed the yeast.
While you will be picking your own yeast, I like that 71B will do some Malo-Ethanol conversion and soften the acid profile some and raise the pH while doing it.

Avoid using any warm/hot water to dissolve crystalized honey unless you let it cool to room temperature; that heat might thicken pectin in the juice and make your hydrometer reading incorrect.

For mine, I picked a SG of 1.020 to place the fermenter into the refrigerator to cold crash it and stall the yeast prior to racking and stabilizing. I thought this would be a good point for sweetness and I was oh so wrong.
The tartness and mouth pucker was through the roof and I need to back sweeten more from there to balance it out.

From the OG to that SG placed it at 16%. I could have just left it to go until the yeast were all done on their own, but I would have just had to add more honey to get it in balance.

 

[Shine0n]

Thanks man, yea 71B has been a standard in my household for many years especially for dark fruits.

My beer guys have me leaning towards an ale yeast since it has a low abv tolerance and I'm almost in agreement to keep her a low abv to retain as much fruit flavor but not set in stone but the thought of a session and carbed sounds pretty freaking good too.

The season is still in full swing on the berries and what I have is freezing atm so I'll have some time to figure things out in the next 2 or so weeks.

Just getting ducks in a row

 

[MightyMosin]

An Ale yeast like SafAle S-04 will get you a pretty clean ferment but it still might take you all the way to 14% even though it is rated at 9-11%. With that in mind, you may try cold crashing it when its at about your desired ABV to stop the yeast and get them to drop to the bottom for racking and stabilizing.

 

[G_robertus]

I've done exactly this last year. It took me an enormous amount of berries to get enough juice. I think I went through three or four kilos to make a little less than 4.5-5L after adding honey. I used some pulp as well. I don't have that many notes I think, but I might've used some water but just a tiny amount. Yeast was generic red wine yeast and I didn't change or measure pH. However I did backsweeten A LOT (more than planned) to get into drinkable territory. It's like a bramble dessert wine because the yeast stopped fermenting earlier than expected (and I might've added it too late with too little yeast left to ferment as much as I'd wanted). I might have to open a bottle soon as it's been nearly a year. I added some cherry wood as well, but the sweetness and fruit mostly overpowered that.

I'm not sure I'll do one again this year, but I liked the idea. It's really all about balancing the acidity though. Next time I'll step feed sooner, get to higher ABV and make it a bit less sweet. I'm not sure whether I'd add wood yet.

 

[T Murph]

Good luck using that much blackberries. Back in January 2020 I made a five gallon batch of a Blackberry Melomel that took 2 years to become drinkable. Blackberries are inheritently tart on their own. But with this batch I used Gallberry Honey which also has a harsh bite to it. Very little water was used, only enough to help loosen up the honey. After 6 months I drew samples only to discover it really wasn't drinkable yet. My wife described it as NFT, not flipping tasty. At 6 month intervals the melomel was tasted and at the two year mark it had mellowed to the point of being drinkable. And I use that term loosely. It was still very tart and dry. I let I sit for another year before sampling it again. It was slightly better, more mellowed and flavores blended yet still too tart to enjoy. The honey flavor was over shadowed by the tartness of the blackberries and the tartness from the gallberry honey. At that point I stabilized the yeast and back sweetened it with Orange Blossom honey. That resulted in a very tasty melomel. I used D47 to ferment this batch as I intended it to be a Sparkling Melomel. I attribute the yeast to increasing the dryness as D47 is often used with champagne making. Don't use this in anyway as a guide. I just put it out there so the OP realizes that blackberries are very tart and require close attention to the desired sweetness and when to halt fermentation and when to backsweeten if necessary.