need help with a mixed berry mead.

[jonfrog]

I recently made a mixed berry mead, I started with juice and then recently added a couple pounds of mixed berries into my mead during secondary. My question is, how long should my mead sit on these berries.

I've seen some mixed information, some people say to leave it for about a week or 2, other say to leave it for months until the berries sink to the bottom and the mead has cleared naturally.

Any thoughts?

 

[kenoglass]

I let mine sit for a week or two and most of the berries I added sank.

 

[bernardsmith]

Never really tested this but my understanding is that most of the flavor and aromatics will be released within a couple of weeks. The berries , though also contain sugars so if you know how much sugar they contain (refractometers come in handy testing the sugar content of fruit) then you know how much to expect the increase in gravity (taking into account the additional water content of the fruit) then you might want to take into account the time needed for the yeast to chow through those sugars...

 

[BeerSmith]

Using TONSA-2 nutrients (GoFerm, Fermaid-O) you can get the primary fermentation done just over 2 weeks in most cases. If the fruit is in the primary, I'll usually leave it for two weeks which will get me well below 1/3 sugar and remove it a few days before racking.

For something like blackberries or raspberries which have tannic seeds I will try to remove them pretty quickly - usually within a week you will start to see them blanch (turn white in color) and will have extracted most of the flavor. Leaving them too long can get a tannic bitterness that takes a very long time to age out.

I don't see a huge advantage to leaving whole fruits in the must for extended periods given how quickly meads can be fermented out using modern methods. Berries tend to go tannic, and stone fruits tend to turn into mush that becomes very difficult to remove and can also lead to clarity issues.

Even in the secondary, I will usually leave the fruit only until I get a stable gravity reading for a few days and know that the secondary fermentation has basically finished - again this often happens within 2-3 weeks.

 

[CKuhns]

Fruit in secondary

Small seeds like blackberries, Strawberries etc. 7 - 10 days - Concern is the seeds will burst in teh alcohol and release tannins that do not taste at all well.

No seeds - Peaches, blueberries apples pears etc. Can go up to 30 days. But my experience has been that they pretty much give up everything they got in 10 - 14 days.

Wash and freeze the fruit for at least 24 hours, thaw and place in your mead. If using a BMB or bucket place in a sanitized mesh / nylon bag with a few marbles to sink them. If a "normal" carboy then just push the fruit through the mouth and swirl to keep wet every other day.