Saskatoon Melomel

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louis

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Joined
Jun 10, 2015
Messages
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Location
Calgary
Hello,

I usually do beer, wines, and ports. Here is my first venture into Melomel.

Ingredients
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15.4 lbs (7 kg) of local farm honey
3lbs + 7lbs of farm fresh Saskatoons
Yeast Nutrients
Dry Yeast
Potassium Metabisulfite
Potassium Sorbate
Peptic Enzyme
Bentonite

Extra Equipment
------------------
Flask and Stir Plate
Heat belt
C02
graduated cylinder
wine thief
scale

Prep
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Freeze your berries! This helps with extraction from the berries as the water in the berries freezes and breaks the membranes.

Yeast Starter (well, sort of)
-----------------------------
Normally I would have used a liquid yeast and created a yeast starter. This time I was using a dry yeast. I added 1L of warm water, yeast nutrients, and dry yeast to my flask and aerated it for 15 mins on my stir plate.

Instructions
----------------------
1. Warm your honey, I did not boil my honey at all. I wanted to keep as much of the flower profile included in the honey as possible. Plus I read too much on the big debate regarding the need to boil honey and just went simple.

2. Clean and Sanitize everything

3. Add honey and warm water to reach target volumn to primary bucket and mix well. Vigorously stir the mixture to aerate the must and mix the honey.

4. Measure the OG. Oops I, forgot about it. I did track my gravity decline, and base on a linear progression I started somewhere around 1.084 OG - it was probably higher than that as it would have not been a linear relationship.

5. Add the glass marbles and 3lbs Saskatoons to your grain bag. The marbles will help sink the grain bag. I did not have enough marbles to counter the boyency of the bag. One of my spoons does fit in my primary bucket with the lid on so I am using that to hold the fruit below the surface.

6. After elevating I used a heat belt as my basement is cool in the winter.

7. I fermented in the primary for 18 days.

8. After 18 days I removed the berries and racked to a carboy. I left it here for another 7 days.

9. Prepared Potassium Metabisulfite and added it to the carboy. I mixed the potassium meta in my graduated cylinder with some melomel which I extracted using the wine thief. Waited 2 days.

10. Prepared Potassium Sorbate and added it to the carboy. Again, I mixed this in the graduated cylinder with some melomel. The wine thief came in handy here too. Waited 2 days. Now when I add the remaining berries, I'll also sweeten it some.

11. At this stage I added the remaining 7lbs of Saskatoons to two carboys, a 6gal and a 3.5 gal carboy. I put about 2.3lbs in the smaller carboy and 4.6lbs in the other. I didn't have enough mead to fill both carboys so I purged the shoulder space with CO2. At this point I transfer about 2/3rds of the melomel into one, and 1/3rd into the other. I also added peptic enzyme to the carboys. I waited 7 days.

12. Clearing. I hydrated the bentonite and racked both carboys to a single 6gal carboy. I purged to shoulder space with CO2

13. 3 to 5 days later it cleared very nicely.

14. Bulk aging. Again I purged a clean carboy with CO2, and now I'm bulk aging it. I accidentally bumped my table at the end a ended of transferring some of the lees in the process - it should settle. I plan on bulk aging it for a couple month or more prior to bottling (depends how quickly I need the extra carboy).
 
This first photo is a bit of the beginning of the brewing process. This shows the colour with the first 3lbs of berries added to the primary.
brewstartSm.jpg

Here we have the remaining 7lbs of berries added into the two carboys. At this point I stabilized the melomel so there should be no additional fermentation and the berries should back sweeten it.
berryCompareSm.jpg

I'm trying to show the colour of the final product. It is not as clear as it should be here because I disturbed it when I transferred it the other day. Prior to transferring it it was crystal clear - could see straight through it.
clearedCompareSm.jpg

:tank:
 
Looks nice. I can't get fresh Saskatoons here, only in preserves or jams. Like blueberry and elderberry crossed. Do you do anything else to the berries (crush, squeeze) or just freeze them and put them in frozen?
 
Looks nice. I can't get fresh Saskatoons here, only in preserves or jams. Like blueberry and elderberry crossed. Do you do anything else to the berries (crush, squeeze) or just freeze them and put them in frozen?

I just put them in frozen as freezing should be enough.

When they are in the primary I did squish them with the spoon - but that doesn't really do much. I have envisioned an oversized masher of sorts which I could press into the primary - wouldn't work for the carboy though. I thought about running them trough a blender as well, but that is just a little too much work (and messy) I think.
 
Bottles it today and had a bit left over - had to drink it, couldn't let it go to waste.

Taste pretty good!
 
Looks nice. I can't get fresh Saskatoons here, only in preserves or jams. Like blueberry and elderberry crossed.

Here (edmonton) if you cant get saskatoons ive always been told use equal parts blueberries and cranberries with a little bit of tea
 
If you are looking for Saskatoon Berry Farms locally here in Alberta, let me know as there are three within a short drive of my house (that I know of).

One is just south of Olds, AB
One is near Acme, AB
One is near Dogpound, AB


I have seven of my own Saskatoon Berry bushes in my backyard, so I visit those if I need just a little more.
 
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