Morat/Melomel Experience anyone?

[Reishishi]

Greetings brewers!

Fairly new to the brewing scene, began the hobby this year with my significant other, Steve, who has had a few kit-beers' experience worth of brewing. We've read a few books (Ken Schramm's "The Compleat Meadmaker" is my bible!) but I'd love to branch out to a few communities and see what others have experienced!

Just racked our first traditional mead (5 gal. batch made with cranberry honey) to the secondary fermenter a few days ago after 3 weeks of bubbling in the primary, and things look (and smell!) good so far. I'm starting to get excited about starting another batch.

There are some fabulous mulberry trees along the driveway of my property, and I am excited about the prospect of brewing a Morat in the spring when the mulberries come back (and the other batch has had 6 months carboy aging time!). I'd love to know if anyone has experience working with mulberries and some tips for using fruit in meadmaking. Should the fruit be frozen? Best way to sanitize fruit? When should we add, at primary or secondary?

Any and all advice graciously accepted!

Shana of the future award-winning "McMeadery"

 

[Coprinus]

Mulberries can be extremely acidic. Make sure you harvest them when they are totally ripe - almost falling off the bush. They deliver a deep purple color to the batch, and a totally unique fruit flavor.

I always sanitize fruit by covering the berries in water that a campden tablet has been dissolved in overnight, but some people use heat to pasteurize.

Add it to the secondary, and consider transferring to a tertiary for clarification after about a month.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

You can add fruit to either primary, secondary, or both. You'll lose some fruit flavour if you add to primary, but you'll actually be fermenting the fruit & this will alter the flavour. Adding to secondary will give you more true fruit flavour & allow you to use less fruit to get that flavour. I often add fruit to both, I think this gives a bit more depth to the flavour; though it's easy to overpower the honey that way.

I've never actually used mulberries in a melomel, but I'm pretty sure you could treat them like blackberries & all would be fine. I'd freeze those berries solid for a few days, thaw them out & then refreeze them; this will help breakdown the cell walls & allow for better juice/flavour extraction. I always use pectic enzyme on fruit, it helps breakdown cell walls too, but also helps breakup pectins.

For fruit santitation, I'd hit those berries with campden either in primary, or prior to adding to secondary/tertiary. Schramm has a table in his book that makes a good "relative rule of thumb" for amounts of fruit & the general outcomes of each amount of fruit added. It's hardly all encompassing, but it's a good place to start. Hope this info is useful. Regards, GF.

 

[Reishishi]

Thanks for the advice! Made a second batch this weekend using the no-boil method and alfalfa honey, and it's bubbling nicely already. This is so we can compare a mead that's been heated vs. the no-boil method. Also bought a bottle of raspberry flavoring. Figured we'd start a little simply and add it to the secondary when it's ready. We're still planning on leaving the cranberry honey mead as a traditional mead to start off with.

We'll probably start working with fruit in the spring, when the mulberries come back. From reading around, it seems like vodka or campden are the two most popular methods for sanitizing, and then we'll freeze and add. Our local brew store has fruit purees that we might work with initially in other batches, since they can be added and then racked off fairly easily.

A mead journal is going to be VERY helpful, so we've started one, detailing honey type, water type (bottled vs. well), yeast used, method, and hydrometer readings. Eventually we'll start planning actual batches

 

[summersolstice]

I made a morat two summers ago and upon bottling at 6-8 months I didn't like it. I thought it was bland and uninspiring and, contrary to the previous post, I didn't find it acidic at all and felt it could have used a little acid blend. MY wife had a 375ml bottle this weekend and I tried it again. It's now come around quite nicely though I still feel a little acid wouldn't have hurt it.

Don't use vodka as a sanitizer - it won't work.

 

[Reishishi]

Thanks for the heads up about vodka; we'll stick to the campden tablets instead.

Obviously, aging is an important part of meadmaking. The morat you and your wife had has now been aging 2.5 years, if you made it two summers ago.
Would you say that morats/melomels are better younger (i.e. 1-3 years) or older? This is, of course, giving leeway to certain flavors aging better than others and personal preference.

Another question I had is that if we do find that the morat needs more of an acidic quality, what additives could help that, and when would be the best time to add them?

 

[summersolstice]

Speaking from personal experience I have to say that my morat, like nearly all meads, is much better with age. As for the recommendations on acid blend, I always check Jack Keller's website. Here's his recipe for mulberry wine. All you need to do is substitute an equal weight of honey where his recipe calls for sugar. Note that this recipe is based on a one-gallon batch so just multiply everything by the number of gallons you plan to make.

Jack Keller's Mulberry Wine