Flavoring with natural fruit question

[shadz78]

So I'm coming up on the end of fermentation for my next batch and I'm going to be flavoring with some hand picked sour apples. What I am going to do is the following (I'm looking for feedback):
1. After stopping fermentation, racking to a gallon bucket (gallon batch size)
2. Freeze/thaw apples a few times before use
3. Using food grade mesh, drop in bucket and allow to flavor naturally
4. Test after 1 week for flavor profile

My questions are the following:
1. Is my process sound?
2. Since I normally back sweeten my mead, should I do this before or after flavoring?
3. Any tips/tricks or advice that I might be missing?

TIA!

 

[Dan O]

So I'm coming up on the end of fermentation for my next batch and I'm going to be flavoring with some hand picked sour apples. What I am going to do is the following (I'm looking for feedback):
1. After stopping fermentation, racking to a gallon bucket (gallon batch size)
2. Freeze/thaw apples a few times before use
3. Using food grade mesh, drop in bucket and allow to flavor naturally
4. Test after 1 week for flavor profile

My questions are the following:
1. Is my process sound?
2. Since I normally back sweeten my mead, should I do this before or after flavoring?
3. Any tips/tricks or advice that I might be missing?

TIA!

There is a couple of things.
1. Rack first, then stabilize. Trying to stabilize before you rack to a new vessel, you will be fighting a much bigger colony to prevent refermenting.
2. Freeze / thaw only needs one cycle. Once food is thawed, you're only inviting bacteria to join the party by repeating the process of freezing/thawing.
3. Make sure to wash the apples very good. Check not only for flavor, but, for tannic value from the peels, (if you plan on using the peels).
I hope this helps you.
Happy meading

 

[Raptor99]

A few thoughts:
1. Anytime you add fruit, you will make the mead cloudy again, so it will need time to clear
2. Apples have a lot of pectin, so I would add pectic enzyme
3. Do you want to use the apples to backsweeten? Or ferment the apples, then backsweeten? If the latter, then let the apples ferment, wait for it to clear, rack, stabilize, then backsweeten

It depends on what you mean by "stopping fermentation" in your post.

 

[MightyMosin]

As others have said:
Pectic enzyme to help with haziness.
Stabilize the mead before adding the apples unless you intend for yeast to start up on the sugar present in the apples.