Will adding fruit to secondary restart fermentation?

[planker101]

I have my first batch of mead going and want to add fruit. I made 10 gallons and split it into 2 carboys for secondary. It was 1.006 when I transferred to secondary. It is 4 months old now (planning to do a gravity/taste test at 6 months and see if I am going to bottle then or stay in carboys for a year total.

My question is if I add fruit now will it restart fermentation and eat up all the sugar? I am only adding fruit to one carboy and would like it to be a little sweeter. If I add now will it ferment and take away the sweetness? If I add shortly before bottling will it create carbonated mead? I looked through the first 4 pages of recipies and didn't find anything definitive.

Thanks for any help/ advice.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Fruit contains fermentable sugars. If you add fruit, and there is still viable yeast, the sugar will ferment. If that fermentation takes place in a bottle, you will get carbonation.

If your yeast has stopped due to high alcohol, the fruit sugar won't ferment.

 

[planker101]

What if fermentation has stopped due to lack if available sugars? I'm using ec-1118 and only making an 11% mead, so not stopping fermentation that way. I'm aging in carboys around 70*F, willthe yeast just die after awhile? Like 6 months? a year? or will they stay viable? If they will stay viable, does anyone know approximate sugar content of pomegranates? I took some home grown pomegranates, got the seed things out, crushed them up and froze them (so I have a mixture of pulp/seed and juice). My main concern is not blowing up bottles, secondary concern is leaving some sweetness.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[madscientist451]

I have my first batch of mead going and want to add fruit. I made 10 gallons and split it into 2 carboys for secondary. It was 1.006 when I transferred to secondary. It is 4 months old now (planning to do a gravity/taste test at 6 months and see if I am going to bottle then or stay in carboys for a year total.


Thanks for any help/ advice.

How long since you transferred to secondary and took a gravity reading?
The 1118 yeast should ferment all the way to dryness. If you haven't used pomegranate before, I would suggest getting some 1 gallon glass jugs and doing some test batches before adding it to a 5 gallon batch. The fruit you add will likely re-start the fermentation and the flavor you get after the sugar is used up in the fruit is not the same as the un-fermented fruit flavor. I've made mead a few times and didn't like the way it tastes.
Aging is supposed to help but I give it a taste test now and then and it just seems unpleasant to me. My 2 cents: take a gravity reading and taste the mead, if it doesn't taste good, adding fruit probably isn't going to help.
Commercial mead makers make a base mead and add flavors after its done. I'd follow their example and use commercially available flavor concentrates.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

What if fermentation has stopped due to lack if available sugars? I'm using ec-1118 and only making an 11% mead, so not stopping fermentation that way. I'm aging in carboys around 70*F, willthe yeast just die after awhile? Like 6 months? a year? or will they stay viable? If they will stay viable, does anyone know approximate sugar content of pomegranates? I took some home grown pomegranates, got the seed things out, crushed them up and froze them (so I have a mixture of pulp/seed and juice). My main concern is not blowing up bottles, secondary concern is leaving some sweetness.

Thanks for any advice!

Lack of sugars just makes yeast go dormant, not dead.

I suppose after some period of time the yeast would die, but I wouldn't like to rely on it. If you want the yeast to stop, you could add potassium sorbate and metabisulfite to stop fermentation. I'm not a mead maker and haven't tried this, but there's plenty of info if you google it.

I don't know the sugar content of pomegranates, but most ripe fruit is somewhere around 12% sugar. You can squeeze some juice out and measure the sugar with a refractometer if you have one.

 

[HB_in_Subic]

To inhibit anymore Yeast reproduction, use 1 Campden tablet (Potassium Metabisulfite) and 1/2 teaspoon of Potassium Sorbate per gallon in your mead. I usually rack from the current carboy off of the lees into another carboy with the above ingredients already dissolved in 4oz of water inside. Then wait for the rest of the yeast to fall out of solution (several weeks). Rack this now "stabilized" batch into another carboy and THEN add your fruit for taste. You will most likely still have a small bit of lees on the bottom but you will have less chance of overcarbonation in your bottles.

Your yeast (EC1118) can tolerate at least 18% ABV. It is also very aggressive and frequently finishes below 1.0 (I have seen it go as low as 0.98) if the ABV is below 18.

Also, read thru the BOMM thread https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=429241 . Bray uses a lower ABV tolerant yeast (12%) that you could add excessive sugars to get the sweetness desired without having to stabilize the Mead (a semi-sweet or sweet mead @ 12%).

 

[CKuhns]

"My question is if I add fruit now will it restart fermentation and eat up all the sugar?"
I agree with Gnome - If viable yeast then yes ferment will re-start. As well if you have racked from the yest cake and your Mead is pretty clear it will take a while for the yeast to get to through the sugar in the fruit.

"I am only adding fruit to one carboy and would like it to be a little sweeter. If I add now will it ferment and take away the sweetness? "
The interesting thing with adding fruit to make a Melomel is that it will likely ferment back down to about where your Mead stopped. So if at 1.006 then you should get close to that again with the sugars from the fruit. I personally believe the fruit flavor kind of tricks you into it tasting sweeter than it is.

"If I add shortly before bottling will it create carbonated mead? I looked through the first 4 pages of recipies and didn't find anything definitive."
If you add fruit (or any sugars) shortly before bottling and the yeast is active it could create a carbonated Mead . Adding fruit in my opinion is not the preferred way to get your Mead carbonated. Sorry, if you want it carbonated I can't help. I have no experience with bottle carbonating Mead but do occasionally keg and force carb a portion of aged Mead for a "sparkling" Mead.

If you are looking for a "still" Mead then add the fruit, let it ferment to wherever it goes, clarify and or cold crash and rack until crystal clear you likely will not get carbonation after bottling. Many folks do add the chemicals to "inhibit" the yeast to ensure they do not "take off" again and then sweeten to taste. I personally do not do this. My experience is that if I wait a few months and am very careful with how I rack, i.e. if I can hold the Mead in tertiary or age for 4 -6 months rack a few times so I can read a newspaper through the carboy before bottling I rarely get any carbonation. (I did have one 5 gallon batch that did carbonate a bit. I was not very careful with it. To be safe I have always bottled in beer bottles with crown caps as there is always the potential without inhibiting the yeast.)

Hope this helps - Good luck and welcome back!

 

[Transamguy77]

I agree with what was already said, I have some 4yr old mead that finished .998 with that same yeast you used and it is very dry. I also added fruit but I added it after a week or so of fermentation so those sugars were consumed and fermentation started again.

I just did a cider that finished dry and I added some campdon tablets and back sweetened with more juice to bring up the sweetness. I watch a video where they used wine conditioner to bring up the sweetness level because it's not fermentable.

https://youtu.be/IwjAZI86bOo I found it. Watch this video very informative 15 mins. I followed this when making my mead.

 

[planker101]

Thank you all for the help. I think I have a pretty good idea of what my options are and what the potential outcomes will be.

Cheers,
Pat