Fruit molding.

[Raiders]

Hello I made my first batch of mead and have a question about the fruit. The fruits I used is floating at water level. The fruit above water line has mold on it. Will it be safe to drink? Is this normal?? Did I do something wrong??? Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks raiders.

 

[Dr_Jeff]

mold is not good

btw -what fruit did you use?

 

[Raiders]

1 regular 1 pineapple 1 jalapeño 1 cinnamon the pineapple and the cinnamon has visible black mold. Next question. The bubbler on top has a cap. Should the cap be all the way down or just sitting loosely on the bubbler.

 

[JimRausch]

I can't answer as to whether this will be drinkable, although I'll bet eventually someone will chime in who knows. But mold prevention on fruit is one reason for daily punching the cap down- ie. submerging the fruit and making sure it stays below liquid level.

 

[Raiders]

Thanks for the info. I’m not going to chance it and throw it all out. Live and learn.

 

[jrgtr42]

yeah, some molds may be... if not safe, then not terribly bad, but black is definitely bad. |Sad to say, but dumping is the way to go, with bleaching, cleaning and sanitizing heavily after.

 

[Redeemer]

If it is white, you are probably safe but it will taste nasty. Any other color and you risk getting sick. When I add fruit to my mead, I am generally still needing to degass so the fruit cap gets stirred with a massive egg beater about 6 to 10 times a day. If you've treated your fruit with pectic enzyme before hand, there won't be a fruit cap left to punch down after 2 or 3 days if you're using any kind of berries. I would imagine pineapple breaks down pretty readily as well.