Looking for a recipe

[JohnFrum1978]

Gearing up for my third batch of mead. I'm still calling myself novice at this point. I can follow a recipe but am still learning the finer points.

My mother in law has a bunch of black raspberries in her freezer from last year. She probably has a good ten pounds that need to either be used or thrown away. The new crop will be coming soon. I thought a black raspberry melomel would be in order.

Primary concern will be taste but I'd like alcohol content to be a really close second. I tend to like my wines on the sweet side. I have no problem letting it age for a few years.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[klcramer]

How big of a batch are you thinking of making? 10 pounds would be good if you were doing a 1 gallon batch and wanted to split them half in the primary and half in the secondary.

 

[JohnFrum1978]

All my buckets and carboys are 5 gallons. I found recipes in different places calling for 15 or 16 pounds of honey with the 10 pounds of the berries taken out after a week or so in the primary.

I'm mostly looking for something tried and true. I've been burned before blindly following random internet homebrew recipes.

 

[oldmate]

Make 5 gallons, use these in primary then use some fresh ones in secondary when they come through. Boom.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

Try 3lbs honey /gallon & 2lbs fruit /gallon, water to 5 gallons & ferment in a bucket fermentor. If you want more fruit flavour later, rack onto more fruit in secondary or even tertiary. Don't forget your nutrients & pectic enzyme. Regards, GF.

 

[Matrix4b]

Ah, Black Raspberries can be difficult to dispose of. I recomend you send that 10 pounds to me for proper disposal. The whole batch sounds bad.

Ok, seriously. I have a red raspberry thyme batch in the carboy and ready to bottle. It smells wonderful.

Trust me put the berries in the secondary.

Here is what I suggest. They are currently frozen so that's good. Run them through the blender with some pectin enzyme. Put the mix in a couple of gallon containers or something and let sit for an hour for the enzyme to take effect, then run through the blender again if you can. Take the resulting mess and pour through a screen, using a spoon or rubber spatula to stir, this will get out the seeds and some of the pulp, not much. The resulting juice/pulp put into your carboy, or brew bucket is a better choice, then rack off from the secondary onto the pulp/juice. I used 12 pounds of red raspberries and got about 1 1/2 gal of juice but I was doing a 6 gal batch. You should have a rather potent batch, I would do the primary with 12 pounds of honey and at the end, at oaking time, stablize and put in about 3-5 pounds of honey to back sweeten it. Trust me, the 12 pounds of honey will all be eaten up. For some reason even when you go to the secondary, the resulting yeast is still very active and it loves raspberries. Just Loves it. So you will need the back sweetening or you will end up with a sweet tasting rocket fuel, that is if you put in 20 pounds of honey, AND it will go nuts in fermentation.

Be prepaired for a lot of pulp and residue at the bottom and you will need to top up with about 1/2 gal or so, this will not dilute the flavor though. I ending up racking mine about 3 times after the primary.

Since it is a black raspberries then you will most likely end up with a deep purple/red batch that may look a bit darker than blueberry mead. It will not be readable through it but almost. Oh, also after oaking, I recomend Lightly toasted oak for this, about 1 oz of chips or cubes and put the oak in the before the last racking for 2-4 weeks. This will make it smoother and more drinkable sooner.

Hope it turns out well.

Matrix

 

[Matrix4b]

Oh, I forgot to mention. You can save the seeds and they have enough pulp still clinging to them to put in a jar with 2 cups of rum or vodka and leave for a few months, shacking occasionally. Then run through your strainer. You end up with some good black raspberry extract that can be used for cooking or baking. Add 2 tablespoons into a batch of sugar cookies and you have some black raspberry flavored sugar cookies.