Newbie: Blackberry Melomel Recipe

[hmlove1218]

Hello all! I'm wanting to make my first batch of mead soon and I'd like to make it with blackberries. I found an old thread with a pretty easy sounding recipe, but I don't have everything it calls for. I'd also like to make 1 gallon instead of 5 since it'll be my first try.

5 gallon batch

First, freeze 8 pounds blackberries (fresh preferrable). More is okay too I would think.

12 lbs Clover honey
water to 5 gallons

I pasteurized at near-boil temps while skimming foam off the top, about 15 minutes.

9/7/08: Added 4.5 teaspoon yeast nutrient, pitched yeast (Lalvin K1-V1116). OG=1.098
week 1: 1.064, added 1 tsp nutrient
week 2: 1.026
week 3: 1.008. Racked to secondary onto 7 pounds of thawed & crushed blackberries, plus 1.5 tsp nutrient. Topped off to 5 gallons with water.
week 4: 0.998, racked off blackberries to secondary.
week 8: racked to tertiary for clearing.

Bottled on 12/6/2008. I added another pound of crushed blackberries at bottling (soaked in the bottling bucket for .5 hours in a bag).

For still: Add stabilizer, wait one week, add 1 cup honey, bottle.
For sparkling: Add 2/3 cup honey, bottle immediately (beer or champagne bottles).

The ingredients I have are:
?? pounds raw, local honey (enough to fill a 16 oz. Mason jar)
water
blackberries
Lalvin EC-1118 dry wine yeast

As you can see, I don't have the yeast used, or the nutrient. Can I still make this recipe? I'd like for it to be a sweet and sparkling mead (hence the yeast choice), can I do that with this recipe?

TIA!

 

[Yooper]

Hello all! I'm wanting to make my first batch of mead soon and I'd like to make it with blackberries. I found an old thread with a pretty easy sounding recipe, but I don't have everything it calls for. I'd also like to make 1 gallon instead of 5 since it'll be my first try.



The ingredients I have are:
?? pounds raw, local honey (enough to fill a 16 oz. Mason jar)
water
blackberries
Lalvin EC-1118 dry wine yeast

As you can see, I don't have the yeast used, or the nutrient. Can I still make this recipe? I'd like for it to be a sweet and sparkling mead (hence the yeast choice), can I do that with this recipe?

TIA!

You can use that yeast strain, no problem, but you definitely need yeast nutrient for mead. Honey has very little nutrient on its own, and for a healthy fermentation, it's really a necessity. You have to measure the honey by weight, and you want around 2-2.5 pounds.

In order for it to be sweet and sparkling, you'd have to do extraneous measures. The yeast will either poop out and leave it sweet (which is easy to do), or it can be stabilized and sweet (also easy), OR carbonated (which is easy). But sweet and carbonated is really an advanced technique require extra equipment like a kegging system, because the yeast won't leave it sweet and carbonate it. It's really either/or without kegging gear.

 

[hmlove1218]

Thanks! What would you suggest using for a nutrient? And how/when would be the best way to stabilize the yeast? I'd rather have it sweet than carbonated.

 

[Yooper]

Check out these link: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/sticky-mead-making-faqs-83030/

Two great links are are nutrients, and potassium sorbate. That should help answer your questions far better than I can.

 

[fuelish]

One could steep some milled/crushed honey malt and strain it before making the mead....it won't be real sweet, but it will impart a small amount of unfermentable residual sweetness...just a thought, I did this with my black'n'blueberry mead.....just a hint of sweetness, able to bottle carb (on the hydromel end of the scale)...turned out quite nice.