Is it too late?

[Badpapasmurf]

All feedback much appreciated for this lazy brewer. This was my first attempt at making mead. Might have over done it on my first time.

1Gallon of water
1lb. Of orange blossom honey
1 quart of fresh chopped Cumquats
I packet of Lalvin EC-1118 yeast

It's been almost 4 months since I tossed it all in a bucket. I have checked on it prior to today about 2 months ago, smelled wonderful. Tonight I checked on it, smelled like it did before, except tonight the fruit on top had some friends growing on it. Is it too late to remove the fruit and toss into a second bucket?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Taste it?

 

[loveofrose]

Just rack the mead under the kumquats into a new vessel. Usually, it is best to remove fruit after 2-4 weeks for future batches. I don’t see any mold, so you should be okay from a contaminant perspective. As for taste, I don’t know whether kumquat imparts any harsh tannins if left in too long. Taste and see.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Badpapasmurf - and welcome. When you add fruit you need to stir the cap daily to keep any fruit on the surface covered in liquid. Fruit exposed to the air for any length of time will become a haven for mold. You can be a lazy brewer but wine makers need to be a bit more pro-active. Just sayin'.

 

[biochemedic]

I would assume at this point you are at your FG, so when you carefully rack out from under the fruit, I would definitely hit the secondary with some K metabisulfite and K sorbate. That should hopefully prevent any additional action by unwanted bugs.