First mead, melomel or wine.

[twinturboz]

Good day everyone,
First of all, I'm not skilled in homebrewing or distilling at all. I've made a couple homebrew beers and wines, usually from kits or recipies.
So I'll start, I got my hands on a fruit mash (some apple, berries, peaches etc) he had in a plastic drum. I've added some fruit to It so to be honest it's a mix of who the heck knows. I mix it up on the odd day just to keep it moving around. So I've got lets say around 15-20lbs of fermented fruit in a barrel, I'm not sure what to do with this next, its been sitting for quite some time. Since I'm not looking for a super high quality homebrew, just something to drink that I can say I made myself...
Any help would be greatly appreciated, just looking for tips of how to go about taking this "mash" to the next level, whether it be a wine or mead/melomel.
Thanks in advance guys.

 

[JJack887]

So, just to be clear, you're straight up fermenting fruit juice?

 

[twinturboz]

Yes, pure fruit, cut and mashed, mix it up usually every day or so. So trying to figure out the best way to get the best result, use the fruit in a mash or should I try extracting the juice either strain it or siphon tube? Also wondering is it essentially a guessing game to figure out my sugar content for what I have? Thanks again guys!

 

[viking1984]

It sounds more like you are doing lacto fermentation than mead making. I'm not sure how you would go about making a mead with pre fermented fruit mash. Have you done any research about making mead? If you are wanting to make a fruit mead, the fruit is typically added to a water and honey mixture with bread yeast or wine yeast, or even a beer yeast. I have never done what you're doing, and I am not sure if it will even produce alcohol or even something drinkable. And with the plastic drum...if its not food grade then it might not be safe to be fermenting anything in it thats meant for consumption. All I can suggest is try looking up "lacto fermentation" and "mead making". There are a lot of good recipes and information on this site. Good luck in your project.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi twinturboz - and welcome.
Technically, to make a mead requires that no less than half the sugars being fermented must come from honey. If there is no honey in your must - (not a mash - this ain't grain) then you are not making a mead.
Did you inoculate the must (the fruit juice) with a yeast or are you hoping to make use of wild yeasts that may be on the fruit? Either way yeast will attack the sugars in the fruit but you may want to help the yeast by extracting as much juice from the fruit as you can. Is this drum filled with whole fruit or pulped fruit? You might want to find some way to crush or press or extract the juice. Keeping the solids in the drum for a few weeks with the expelled juice - that's called macerating the fruit - will help provide far more complex flavors.
You don't say that you measured the specific gravity of the juice. Most fruit will have a starting gravity of about 1.045 or perhaps a little more - so you are making a wine that will not be more alcoholic than about 6 % ABV (alcohol by volume) - That is like a strong beer (stronger than a session beer) or a cider. Most wines are made to have an alcohol content of about 12 - 13 % ABV.
If the fruit has "fermented" - as you say in your post, then I would transfer the wine from the drum to a carboy - a container with a narrow neck that you can seal with a rubber bung and an airlock. And you want to be able to fill that container to the tippy top - right up inside the narrow neck leaving no more than about 1/2 inch or so between the top of the wine and the bottom of the bung. That will prevent the wine becoming vinegar.
Good luck

 

[twinturboz]

Hi twinturboz - and welcome.
Technically, to make a mead requires that no less than half the sugars being fermented must come from honey. If there is no honey in your must - (not a mash - this ain't grain) then you are not making a mead.
Did you inoculate the must (the fruit juice) with a yeast or are you hoping to make use of wild yeasts that may be on the fruit? Either way yeast will attack the sugars in the fruit but you may want to help the yeast by extracting as much juice from the fruit as you can. Is this drum filled with whole fruit or pulped fruit? You might want to find some way to crush or press or extract the juice. Keeping the solids in the drum for a few weeks with the expelled juice - that's called macerating the fruit - will help provide far more complex flavors.
You don't say that you measured the specific gravity of the juice. Most fruit will have a starting gravity of about 1.045 or perhaps a little more - so you are making a wine that will not be more alcoholic than about 6 % ABV (alcohol by volume) - That is like a strong beer (stronger than a session beer) or a cider. Most wines are made to have an alcohol content of about 12 - 13 % ABV.
If the fruit has "fermented" - as you say in your post, then I would transfer the wine from the drum to a carboy - a container with a narrow neck that you can seal with a rubber bung and an airlock. And you want to be able to fill that container to the tippy top - right up inside the narrow neck leaving no more than about 1/2 inch or so between the top of the wine and the bottom of the bung. That will prevent the wine becoming vinegar.
Good luck

Thanks to everyone for the help, honestly, I didn't know what to do with this and didn't want to waste a bunch of fruit, there is definitely something fermenting must just be fermenting from wild yeast in the fruit? I've got several carboys so maybe I will siphon out what juice (or would I call it a wine?) Unfortunately I have a small amount of juice probably less then a gallon, I would have a hard time getting the hydrometer in and out of the carboy only slightly full. Is it worth it for me to siphon a small amount out and measure the gravity of that? I'm thinking you will be right with the low alcohol level, but if I fill that carboy right up with water, I will essentially end up with something like a non alcoholic fruit juice?

 

[bernardsmith]

Two quick thoughts - 1. If you are sanitizing your equipment properly then there is no loss of any wine that you sample for an hydrometer reading. The hydrometer should be soaked in K-meta, the cylinder you fill to sample and the wine thief you use to take the sample should all be sanitized - you can then freely pour the sample back into the carboy.
2. You don't need to take a reading from the carboy but from a cylinder that usually comes with the hydrometer. It's like a measuring cylinder - though often plastic not glass, and has no lines etched or cut into it. It's probably close to 1 inch in diameter and about 15 inches tall. Your hydrometer should easily sit and float in it.

 

[twinturboz]

I've got tons of equipment all of it was purchased second hand, most of it I just clean and sanitize as I need. I will sample the SG tonight and post. That way I can figure out what to do with this mixture as I'm thinking now depending on what happens it could potentially become garbage or a vinegar, or hopefully I can get away with adding some sugar and yeast and potentially creating a mixed fruit wine. Thanks again so far with the help!

 

[bernardsmith]

If you ensure that after the juice (called "must" in wine making) has fermented that it is not exposed to air then you won't produce vinegar. If you have enough sugar in the must to measure a gravity of about 1.090 then there is potentially enough alcohol for the wine not to spoil. If the acidity of the wine is close to between 3.2 and 3.5 then that acidity will prevent any bacterial infection of the wine, and if after the wine has fermented you add K-meta (campden tablets is one version of this chemical and you add 1 tablet crushed in water for every gallon) then you will have added enough free sulfur dioxide to prevent the wine from oxidizing (under normal bottling conditions).. In other words, wine does not "potentially become garbage" out of the blue - poor practice creates the garbage. Your actions are important. The power is within you to make a very drinkable wine.

 

[twinturboz]

Ok, so I sanitized a container (this is a previous container i've used for my primary containers for my beer wort and have had successful product), all my tools, etc, transferred the must into the container, have would say about 1/3 pail of must, it smells very very strongly like alcohol so i'm sure it has started some sort of natural fermentation. I added a campden tablet to slow any fermentation at this point. I'm going to wing this one, since I feel like i've already screwed this whole thing up.

 

[twinturboz]

Alright, so after transfer and added about 2 gallons of water (also another campden tablet), mixed it up, no yeast or sugars added yet, just over half the bucket full, so i'd say around 13L of liquid (is it still a must?). Measured the SG at 1.117 which I think is probably high, but I still have some room to add water and or sugars before going into the carboy, plus since its still fairly thick, by the time I siphon it into a carboy I will only be left with approx 2/3 of what I have in the pail.

 

[AkTom]

Dude, I'd almost say you are crazy ;-). You are making wine. If your SG is really 1.117 you don't need to add any sugar. You need to do some reading in the wine section. Or even go to the sister site, home winemaking.com. There is some great info there. Keep your carboys full and see what happens. I did a pear wine. 5 gallons in a carboy. And 3 1 gallon jugs. The 3 gallon jugs turned out only okay. I now have 5 gallons of delicious pear vinegar. A little info before I started would have been very beneficial.
Cheers , and I do hope it turns out good. It may need to age a while. The God news there is you'll have time to read up on wine making. Don't forget to read up on mead also. That can be oh so tasty.

 

[twinturboz]

Haha, honestly I figured it was high, I didn't think id need to add sugar but i've never done an actual fruit wine before. Also had homebrews that had very high SG (for beers at least) to start and manage to settle and become great drinkable beers after fermenting and aging. So you just never know!! Alright then next question, yeasts.. I picked up a pouch of ec-1118 will that be an alright yeast for a standard wine? I have a left over lager and ale yeasts I think some S-05 or something but i'm not sure that they have the ability to ferment at the higher ABV states.

 

[bernardsmith]

EC-1118 is a yeast that brewers tend to go for when they make wine. It's a champagne yeast and is like using a bulldozer to remove a dandelion from your yard in the opinion of many wine-makers. In short it will do the job but any subtlety in the flavor from your fruit will likely be lost.
There are many, many far more subtler yeasts that enhance fruit flavors, that have affinities for some of the acids you find in fruit, that inhibit and reduce flavors and textures that are not always preferred in a wine. Your LHBS probably has a fridge filled with packages of these different yeasts. For honey and apples I prefer 71B for some other fruits D-47 . Those are just two examples.
But all that said, if your must smells of alcohol then by your own account wild yeasts have already started to do their job. There is nothing inherently bad about using wild yeasts. Fruit is naturally covered in them - True some wild yeasts will produce delicious wines and some will produce wines to unpleasant to enjoy, but for tens of thousands of years the only yeasts that anyone could use were wild yeasts...And if they have in fact taken off I am not sure that adding Campden tablets will do very much. K-meta (the active ingredient of those tablets can inhibit the action of yeasts that have not begun their work but once a colony is actively engaged in gorging on sugar there is not very much you can do to get them to stop.

 

[twinturboz]

Awesome bernardsmith, you are wonderful thank you so much for the help, so at this point if I rack it to a carboy, would any additional yeast, nutrient, tannin etc be recommended? Since I did add the Campden, I'm afraid of potentially stopping or yielding the wild yeast production.

Edit: Went to my local supply shop (its a wine shop that does a lot of in house wine stuff and kits) the lady hadn't even heard of any of the suggested yeasts and could only recommend the previously mentioned yeast. I will just hope that the wild yeast is sufficient and if not will likely have to use that ec1118.

 

[bernardsmith]

EC-1118 is known as a "killer yeast". It does not play well with other yeasts. In other words, if you add that yeast to a batch of wine where there are other yeasts the EC-1118 will modify the environment so that it will dominate and the other yeasts will be killed off. That said, IF you want to add a yeast to a batch of wine that has started to ferment (or indeed, has stalled in mid ferment) the best way to go is to make a starter with the yeast you want to add (say a cup of water with some sugar or apple juice with no preservatives) and allow the yeast to rehydrate and "proof". Once you can see that the yeast is active you add 1 cup of wine from your batch and then wait until you can see that the 2 cups are now active. That may take an hour or more. Then you add 2 cups from your batch to this starter. And you keep on doubling the volume of the starter from your batch of wine until all the wine is now with the starter and all the wine is actively fermenting on top of the replacement yeast.
The reason for using this approach is that your wine is a soup of alcohol and you are asking the new yeast to jump into that soup and begin to transport sugars through their cell walls. The yeast will not have built up any tolerance for the alcohol so you slowly , slowly increase the concentration of alcohol and so acclimatize the new yeast to the alcohol levels in the wine.
But ... whether you need to add the EC-1118 to your wine will depend on the vigor of the wild yeasts you have and/or the flavors they are producing. To check the first condition you need to measure the changes in specific gravity. Are the wild yeasts still busy comping down on the sugars? If they are the gravity of the wine will be falling closer and closer to 1.000 (or even lower). To check the second condition you need to taste the wine . Of course it will still be "green" (harsh) - but you can tell if the flavors are pleasant or if they are almost "undrinkable" because perhaps sour (not the same as bitter) ..

 

[twinturboz]

Well it sat for 2 days, nothing seemed to be happening in the same conditions (open air non added yeasts etc and my SG now measured very low (close to 1.00-1.05) so I reintroduced (unfortunately the "killer yeast") essentially cup by cup finally till I refilled the 23L carboy, topped off with water and added an airlock. Within a few hours I can see the difference in this yeast reaction.

 

[bernardsmith]

But a gravity of close to 1.000 means that just about all the sugar has already been fermented. So when you say that nothing has been happening everything has been happening but you have not been looking in the right place.
You have just invited the EC -1118 to a party but almost all the food and drink has been eaten earlier by the wild yeast... The added yeast will finish the job and leave you with a bone dry wine - perhaps with a gravity around .996.

 

[twinturboz]

Oh dear, so what do I do now? I don't want to end up with dry wine, can it be sweetened after the fact or is it better to start with a higher SG? Honestly, the science behind this is fascinating, in detail its a lot harder then just adding some yeast and sugar to fruit and letting it sit.

 

[bernardsmith]

Patience is the secret ingredient in every drinkable wine... so you need to be patient. But first taste the wine you are making. Like any good cook and any good dish you as the wine maker need to be tasting your wine frequently and regularly. I don't mean a 4 oz glass but you should be tasting the wine to make sure that it is not going to taste like drek if you intend to allow it to age...
How does it taste? Does it taste like it might be something to be proud of in a few months? If so... you want to allow the wine to age.... And ....
Every two months for the next, 6 - 8 months (I did say you need to be patient) you want to rack this wine from the container it is in into a similar sanitized container. What your are doing among other things is removing the wine from the yeast so that as you repeatedly rack and as the yeast slowly settles lower and lower in the carboy so the wine you transfer has fewer and fewer living yeast cells.
When the wine has been racked two or three times and most of the yeast has been removed you can then add in tandem K-meta and k-sorbate. These two chemicals when added together act to inhibit the few cells present from fermenting sugars and act as a contraceptive for the yeast preventing the remaining cells from reproducing. That means that within a short time (the next day for sure) you can add sugar to "backsweeten" your wine and that sugar will not be touched by the yeast. BUT if you simply add K-meta and k-sorbate to a large population of active yeast all bets are off and any sugar that you then add will be gorged upon by the yeast and the yeast's yeast and the yeast's yeast's yeast... until it is all been converted into CO2 and alcohol.