I am new to mead making, have my first traditional in primary now. my question deals with adding fruit to a mead.. Now im reading Steve Piatz book, and seeing you can figure out the amount of water and fruit to add by finding out how much water certain fruit creates. I was curious if you could just mix up your honey is some water, add the fruit, then fill the water up to your gallon mark?
Fruit meads
- Thread starter TimKonn2
- Start date
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bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
Hi TimKonn2 - and welcome. I am not certain I fully grasp your question. There is certainly water in most fruit but the fruit itself has a mass and that mass will displace an equal amount of water (or the must, ie the water mixed with honey). That displacement will raise the level of the liquid but that height is not necessarily equal to the amount of water in the fruit. To give you an example: imagine adding 5 lbs of bananas to the must. Bottom line? You may be adding or using far less water than you think you are if you simply add fruit and fill with water up to the gallon mark.. Better might be to juice the fruit or at least macerate it and then measure the amount of juice expressed.
you pretty much answered the main question with displacement not raising the liquid to the equal amount of water in fruit. So if 10lbs of berrys give of a gallon of water, it would turn the 4 gallon batch (before adding berrys) to a 5 gallon batch (after removing berrys)?I am def starting with just fruit juice at first, but im curious how most people measure out their fruit to honey to water. Or if they are just add their fruit to a 5 gallon batch
