Why with mead is sanitation of fruit not important

[Izzie1701]

Why do you not have to heat or sanitize the fruit or honey in mead and wine but you do in beer? I am going to be making Saskatoon Berry mead and I am worried about sanitation of the fruit. I am going to make a traditional mead and then add the Saskatoons into the secondary. Should I crush the Saskatoons with a campden tablet or worry about that at all. Please keep in mind it will be a low alcohol mead. Around 6%. Thinking of making half still and half carbonated. Just really worried about sanitation as I am more a beer brewer then mead maker and it seems weird not to sanitize somehow.

 

[nickwoo]

I have to wonder how people 1000's of years ago made quality wines and beers. I haven't sanitized anything yet , I just wash my hands and dump everything in. Haven't had a problem yet. I know I am ignorant of how this practice may go if i continue it since i have only been brewing for about a year and a half.

 

[CA_Mouse]

If you are concerned that you are going to get an infected mead, I would crush the fruit after freezing and thawing it (helps break the cell walls) and splash a little vodka over it. The amount of vodka is not going to significantly increase the ABV of your mead, nor will it add any flavor.

 

[madscientist451]

Why do you not have to heat or sanitize the fruit or honey in mead and wine but you do in beer?

You don't have to sanitize the fruit for a fruit beer, you can just toss it in if you want to. But brewing is all about controlling the things you can.
You can control your ingredients, water, boil time, gravity, choice of yeast,
fermentation temperature, PH and probably several others I can't remember right now. So if you are going to control all those things, why not control the yeast and bacteria that is added with fruit?
If you are making a 11-12% ABV mead, the alcohol will pretty much kill off the natural yeast and whatever bacteria may be on your fruit.
You could split your batch of mead and sanitize some of the fruit and see if there is a detectable difference.

 

[gumbyk]

Honey won't carry many pathogens due to the lack of water - it's drier than bacteria, so will suck water from them, and has a pH of 3-4, so it's a pretty hostile environment. Oh, and it contains small amounts of hydrogen peroxide too. Once you've added water though, treat it as you would your wort.
As for fruit - it is possible to introduce unwanted nasties with them (possibly yeast/bacteria). What I have done in the past, for firm fruit is to wash them in a sulphite solution, rinse and then freeze/thaw them as noted above. Either that, or peel and freeze immediately. Not as effective, but easier if you need to peel thr fruit anyway.

 

[theDREWery]

Another thing to keep in mind, is that honey and fruit sugars are 100% fermentable by yeast, unlike wort. So if you ferment to dryness, there's nothing left for microbes to eat, so they can't survive. If you sweeten after fermentation, you're adding Kmeta/sorbate, so microbes can't survive. The only thing that could take over, in a dry wine or mead, would be acetobacteria, but that would require oxygen exposure.

 

[WVMJ]

Beer has a higher pH, its less acidic, lower alcohol, more prone to infections. No need to abandon your beer making skills, except dont heat everything and instead start using some potassium metabisulfites. Some people dont use them and have no problems but they are a good insurance against infection. As with beer brewing, there are a hundred ways to do everything in making mead and wines! WVMJ

 

[Dr_Floyd]

Who said it wasn't important to sanitize fruit for Mead Making? As has been said before why chance infection if you don't have to? Fresh fruit should be crushed with Campden Tablets (giving it time before pitching so you don't inhibit the growth of the desired yeast) to ensure that the yeast you inoculate the must with is the yeast that wins. You of course can ignore this and just take your chances but it just seems unnecessary considering that a batch of Mead can easily be over $100 for a 5 gallon batch even when not considering secondary costs.

 

[Yooper]

I always sanitize my fruit for wine and mead. Always.

It's easy, though. One crushed campden tablet per gallon in the must of a wine, or if adding fruit later, a little bath in the sulfite solution.

I spend too much time and money on the product to allow wild yeast and bacteria any chance of ruining the final product. It might be ok at 12% alcohol, but it's more likely that there will be an issue since 12% ABV isn't anywhere near sterile.

 

[Izzie1701]

I always sanitize my fruit for wine and mead. Always.



It's easy, though. One crushed campden tablet per gallon in the must of a wine, or if adding fruit later, a little bath in the sulfite solution.



I spend too much time and money on the product to allow wild yeast and bacteria any chance of ruining the final product. It might be ok at 12% alcohol, but it's more likely that there will be an issue since 12% ABV isn't anywhere near sterile.

Yooper,

Was hoping you would comment. Want concentration of campden do you use when your bathing your fruit? I have ready to crush 1 tablet in 8gallons of fruit but that's a little excessive for my batch size. My Stoons have been frozen already so will probably be somewhat mush so thinking maybe 1/4 tablet for 2 gallons and let sit 24 hours?

Thanks for the help

 

[Yooper]

Yooper,

Was hoping you would comment. Want concentration of campden do you use when your bathing your fruit? I have ready to crush 1 tablet in 8gallons of fruit but that's a little excessive for my batch size. My Stoons have been frozen already so will probably be somewhat mush so thinking maybe 1/4 tablet for 2 gallons and let sit 24 hours?

Thanks for the help

I use one crushed and dissolved campden tablet per gallon. If I'm using the powdered k-meta, I use 1/8 teaspoon per 3 gallons, dissolved in some water.

 

[fossilcat]

I'm feeling a little "thick" by asking this question but, here goes...

I'm not sure what you mean by "bathing" in K-Meta (I do know what K-Meta is - I've used it when I've added fruit in the primary 24 hrs before inoculation). I've got about 5 lbs of blackberries picked wild in the freezer. I want to add to the secondary and sanitize prior. I don't want to soak them in a gallon of K-Meta sol'n and then strain - I'll loose a lot good juice won't I?

I'd like to use a minimal amount of effective K-Meta in sol'n that won't significantly effect my volume....but I'm unsure how to do that. I'd like to do this to just the berries, before secondary addition.

Would it be all right to mash the berries and measure the K-Meta per volume of the slurry?
Or is my only choice to add K-Meta to the secondary?

 

[theDREWery]

Would it be all right to mash the berries and measure the K-Meta per volume of the slurry?

This is the way I would recommend, I use 0.35 g K-meta per gallon and pectic enzyme at the same time, cover, and let sit for 12-24 hours. This has been the way I've been handling fresh fruit for years with good success. The bagged, flash frozen stuff needs some extra steps, but that's mostly just thawing.

 

[fossilcat]

This is the way I would recommend, I use 0.35 g K-meta per gallon and pectic enzyme at the same time, cover, and let sit for 12-24 hours.

Thanks theDREWery. I was leaning this way, including the pectin enzyme addition. Your confirmation is very helpful. I've used vodka to bath whole fruits before and K-Meta for juice (I've pressed 4 bushels of apples for a cyser), but the frozen blackberries will be mushy, existing in an "in between" state not practical to either method of sanitation I've used before.

So to respond to the OP, I'll throw my hat in with most of the posters here and agree that it's as important to sanitize your fruit as it is to sanitaze your equipment. Anything that comes in contact with the must should be sanitized.

 

[Izzie1701]

I use one crushed and dissolved campden tablet per gallon. If I'm using the powdered k-meta, I use 1/8 teaspoon per 3 gallons, dissolved in some water.

Thanks yooper I appreciate the advice. I was really worried to not sanitize the berries as often there is a white mildew on them up here. Not to mention this year was really bad for tent worms so we picked the best of the best but those worms would have been all over them. In sure not great for sanitation.

 

[amber-ale]

But what about the bagged frozen fruit you can buy in the grocery store? has it already been sanitized (maybe irradiated?) before being sold in stores?

 

[Seamonkey84]

I don’t sanitize store bought frozen fruits, just fresh fruits. The frozen stuff was washed with heavily chlorinated water before flash freezing.