Suggestions for a Big Melomel?

[BeerSmith]

I've got a few meads under my belt and learned a lot about working with real fruit and TONSA2/honey/fermentation. I have a pure raspberry and blueberry/currant/cherry going but was trying to decide what to try next. I like big meads with a lot of fruit flavor.

Here's some candidates I was thinking of:
- Blackberries
- Apricots or Peaches
- Plums
- A blend like Currant-Blackberry

Again I'm thinking high gravity, a lot of fruit, and high residual sugar when done. I love the stuff Ken Schramm, Michael Fairbrother and others make. I've noticed they often play with tart fruits to counter the residual honey sweetness - So which fruit should I try next?

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Peaches. Should give a little tartness to balance the sugar and be a departure from what you already have going.

 

[CKuhns]

I did a Cranberry Orange that turned out awesome. Cranberries very tart and the orange mellowed them out with a nice balance. 5 gallon Batch = 4 Pounds Cranberries and Oranges each.

Boiled the Cranberries in just enough water to cover them just until a few burst and added it all to the carboy.

 

[BeerSmith]

Cranberries do sound interesting - I know tart fruits work best to counterpoint the honey background. Peaches I've heard tend to fade quite a bit in fermentation - even the pro peach meads seem to be very faint on peach flavor.

 

[HB_in_Subic]

I made a berry melomel using 72oz of mixed fruit in primary (strawberry, cherry, raspberry and blueberry) that came out very nice.

 

[theblackwolf]

pear and blueberries, pear was my favorite, earthy fruit undertone.skol

 

[BeerSmith]

pear and blueberries, pear was my favorite, earthy fruit undertone.skol

Have you made a pear/raspberry? I ask because I understand it can be hard to preserve the pear flavor without backsweetening.

 

[theblackwolf]

idk ,sounds interesting, pear was the solitary fruit addition to the must, maybe a 1/4 pound (sandwich bag full) of pear, puree'd in my ninja blender then added, then i had to move to a larger carboy because it started to hella foam ( oh melomels..). then fermented for a long ass time, was tasty.

 

[gfxprotege]

i have one of these going right now, so far, so good! https://denardbrewing.com/blog/post/berry-bomm/

 

[BeerSmith]

i have one of these going right now, so far, so good! https://denardbrewing.com/blog/post/berry-bomm/

Very cool - I did something somewhat similar:
1.5 gal Blueberry Juice, 1.5 gal Black Currant Juice and 1.5 gal Tart Cherry juice plus about 17-18 lbs of honey. Its clearing quite nicely but has not reached the point where I've tried to sample it yet.

 

[Yeroc]

The Berry Death Bomm recipe calls for Summer Berry Honey. Wonder where that can be found.

 

[Bombo80]

BUMP

So what did you decide to use for your Melomel ??

I am starting a peach melomel. I will be adding the peach puree (3 pounds) that I made yesterday, and added pectic enzyme to help with breaking down the cell structures. I have just passed the 1/3 sugar break, closing in on the 1/2 way point. D47 yeast should die out before drying it out. SG was 1.122. Once it finishes, I will rack it onto 7 pounds of frozen / thawed peaches, in the secondary.