Pureed Fruit In Mead

[Brobi593]

His might be a dumb question but why wouldn't you purée the fruit before adding to mead? Or should you? Or does it matter? Like peaches/figs ect...

 

[MZRIS]

basically your creating more surface area to extract all the flavors you want from said fruit. imagine tossing in a whole apple, or apple sauce, which would you get more flavor from do you think?

 

[Brobi593]

I like the purée idea. But I'm new and my buddy that got me into this recommended against it. I was just curious what others did.

 

[MZRIS]

meh, it's up to you. be sanitary with everything and you should be fine!! best way to learn in this hobby is to try it out.

 

[TheB]

I did a 1/2 puree of pineapple and mango for a mead 4 months ago. The only problem I ran into is that the fruit added a great deal more fermentable sugars. My airlock was a "rolling boil" for 7 days straight. I filtered into secondary and it resembled orange juice. After 2 months in secondary, it finished a nice ruddy brown. It is a bit strong-19.54%- but everyone that has tried it has enjoyed the flavor.

 

[Halbrust]

"Faster" fermentation?
Pureed fruit will expose all the sugars to the yeast at one time. Chunked fruit will slowly release sugars as the yeast eats sugars.
I know this will affect flavor, I'm just not 100% sure how.

 

[MZRIS]

As long as you don't under pitch your yeast you shouldn't get any off flavors from vigorous fermentation.

 

[Brobi593]

Well I pureed fruit in a one gallon and a five gallon. I used half a package of yeast in the one and two packs in the five. Neither batch is fermenting rapidly. If anything they are fermenting abnormally slow. I used a pectic enzyme but being new, I'm not sure if this is the reason or not.

 

[Tank832]

I did a 1/2 puree of pineapple and mango for a mead 4 months ago. The only problem I ran into is that the fruit added a great deal more fermentable sugars. My airlock was a "rolling boil" for 7 days straight. I filtered into secondary and it resembled orange juice. After 2 months in secondary, it finished a nice ruddy brown. It is a bit strong-19.54%- but everyone that has tried it has enjoyed the flavor.

Was this Milford a mead? If so how much honey did you add?

 

[Dan O]

Was this Milford a mead? If so how much honey did you add?

Just so you know, TheB hasn't been seen since Feb 8, 2013. You will not likely get an answer from him/her. If you read the forums & find you still have a question, you may want to just ask. People here are generally willing to help when they can.
Happy meading

 

[D the Catastrophist]

The main downside I could see is that it would take longer to clear, as even if you bag it to catch the larger chunks, by doing a puree there are more tiny particulates that will need to settle out. So, if you want to bottle age, I would say not to use a puree, but if you plan to bulk age, why not? Meads already have an extended aging time so as long as you plan for having to rack off the lees(so make a little more than your target amount so you can top off with the extra), I see no problem.