30 replies to this topic

[ANUSTART]

I've gotten a request from my wife to make something similar to Redstone's nectar series blackberry melomel. It's an 8% ABV blackberry/honey concoction that is served cold and carbonated. I've never made a mead before, so I started in the FAQ section.After playing around with the spreadsheet, it looks like I need 9 lbs of honey in 3.5 gals water. The instructions state that 1.008 FG is slightly sweet, correct? So I'll have roughly 4.25 gals of must to rack to secondary and add the fruit to.As far as nutrients, I add 4.5g DAP & Fermaid-K at inoculation, 2.8g DAP & Fermaid-K at end of lag (I'm assuming this is "Add #1" row 14?) and 1.8g DAP & Fermaid-K at the half-sugar point (assuming "Add #2" row 15?).I guessed 10 lbs of blackberries, but that guess is based on nothing. Is 10 lbs of blackberries enough for a good blackberry flavor? Too much? The melomel faq says 4-5 lbs per gallon, except for blackberries, so I don't know where to start. I was thinking of adding another 2 lbs of honey when adding the fruit, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea.Do I have to do anything to prepare the blackberries? Squash em? Freeze them? Puree? How much volume will the fruit "waste" take up in the secondary fermenter?Lots of newb questions.I noticed that the volume of the initial honey is calculated in D3, but if you add honey with the fruit, the volume of the honey (E23) is not added into the new volume total at E34. Is this intentional?

[strangebrewer]

Keep in mind that only fermenting to 1.008 with wine yeast and an ABV of 8% will take some attention. Wine yeast love to attenuate and put you below 1.000. The only way I see it happening is with refrigeration. I'd aim for the ABV you want and count on it fermenting to 1.000 or even a little lower. Once primary is over chill it and rack onto cold fruit. The fruit may have some residual bugs on it too which might be able to handle 8% ABV so one more reason to do it all cold. At this step is where I'd check your gravity and and sweeten if you feel it needs it.edit: Guest beat me to the wine yeast issue.

[strangebrewer]

Redstone's website indicates this is a medium-sweet mead. Therefore, I would shoot for FG around 1.020-1.030. The tartness and tannins of blackberries might make the apparent sweetness less strong, so a FG of 1.030 might come across as 1.020.

+1.This was my experience with using raspberries.

[ANUSTART]

Damn, this is getting complicated.So I should try for 1.020-1.030 FG. Maybe I'll just backsweeten. How effective is chilling to 35dF, sweetening, and not using any sorbate (is sorbate what you'd use for mead?)? I was planning on kegging this and force carbing, so chilling and keeping it chilled won't be an issue.Would a beer yeast have an unusal flavor profile fermenting fruit and honey?

[DieselGopher]

Just throwing this out there for ya.....Maybe you could ferment just the honey using a decent beer yeast, then sorbate (sulfite?) and stabilize. This should get to 8-9% ABV easily enough. Then after killing of fermentation, rack onto the fruit and let the fruit sweeten things up a bit. I may be making this more difficult, so feel free to ignore my suggestion. Keep us posted for sure.

[ANUSTART]

If you are going to backsweeten at that low ABV, I would really suggest sorbate and sulphite to stabilize. Even at chilled temps, I think it would still ferment and change your profile (increased alcohol, off flavours, etc).Maybe you should try this:14 pounds honey (1.19 gallons)10 pounds blackberries (1.06 gallons juice)3.5 gallons waterEverything in primaryOG 1.090FG 1.030ABV% 7.9Total volume ~5 to 5.5 gallons after loss from racking.So, what yeast would be good for that OG-FG (66.6% attenuation)? WLP002 English Ale and WLP011 European Ale. Of the two, I would go with the English Ale. That's what I would do, anyways.Depends on the yeast. I think an ale yeast that is really clean would be perfect, but one that is fruity would be interesting to try. Certainly the honey and fruit will be dominant. I would certainly avoid beer yeast that is sulphury, bready, earthy, etc.

Will I lose any blackberry flavor or aroma by throwing it in primary? That way certainly seems the easiest.I probably have some sorbate left over from a few wine kits (I never sorbate those), what's the appropriate amount to use? I imagine if one packet is enough for 6 gals wine, it should be plenty for this... just a guess though.My wife is picking up the blackberries soon (sale ends wed), I still need to procure the fermaid, DAP, honey, and yeast.

[ANUSTART]

Are the blackberries on sale at Sunflower?

Yup. 99¢ per carton. I think its 6 or 8 oz each. Still not cheap to get 10 lbs, but cheaper than $4 or $5 per carton.

Hmm.. I just thought of something that strangebrewer sort of mentioned. There might be buggies on those blackberries that could take that honey to dry. You might want to consider sulphiting the berries before adding them, if you do that suggestion of mine.

I might do that. I have a lot of KMETA.

[ANUSTART]

I got 10 lbs of blackberries in the freezer waiting for me to get the other stuff.Now blueberries are on sale and she wants blueberry mead. DOH!

[strangebrewer]

I got 10 lbs of blackberries in the freezer waiting for me to get the other stuff.Now blueberries are on sale and she wants blueberry mead. DOH!

I got 7.5lbs of blackberries myself. If I can find the time I'll be making some mead this weekend!

[ANUSTART]

How bout this:8.25 lbs honey3.5 gal waterNutrients per the spreadsheetFerment dry to 0.995 (wild guess) with a good mead yeast (suggestions?)Transfer 4.2 gals of 9.2% abv mead to secondary on top of 10 lbs of sulphited blackberries. SG goes up to 1.000.I'm guessing this will restart fermentation with the fruit and it'll go dry again to 0.995.After racking off the seeds and pulp and stuff I'll have just under 5 gallons of dry blackberry mead. Backsweeten with 4 lbs of honey to end up with 1.022.Any thoughts on my assumptions?

[strangebrewer]

How bout this:8.25 lbs honey3.5 gal waterNutrients per the spreadsheetFerment dry to 0.995 (wild guess) with a good mead yeast (suggestions?)Transfer 4.2 gals of 9.2% abv mead to secondary on top of 10 lbs of sulphited blackberries. SG goes up to 1.000.I'm guessing this will restart fermentation with the fruit and it'll go dry again to 0.995.After racking off the seeds and pulp and stuff I'll have just under 5 gallons of dry blackberry mead. Backsweeten with 4 lbs of honey to end up with 1.022.Any thoughts on my assumptions?

At that low an ABV it will definitely restart fermentation when you add the berries. Even with the alcohol created from the berry addition fermentation might restart again when you add the 4lbs of honey to sweeten it. For a yeast I'd go with Lalvin 71B. It's my goto mead yeast particularly when high acid fruits are involved. It's good to 14% ABV but more importantly to me it can metabolize malic acid. Malic acid is a sharp flavor so reducing it is generally a good thing.I still think it'll be tricky to get the fermentation to stop at that low an ABV. I haven't entirely decided on how I am going to do it myself either.

[ANUSTART]

I got the yeast, fermaid, and dap today. I think I might get it started tomorrow.Is 3 weeks too long for it to be on the fruit in secondary?

[ANUSTART]

Do you guys get higher gravity out of the Colorado wildflower honey than the estimated 1.417 in the spreadsheet? With those assumptions I was supposed to get 1.069, but I ended up with 1.075. I used 8.16 lbs honey and 3.5 gals water.

[ANUSTART]

Mead is slow. I'm probably going to have to put it on the fruit before it's done fermenting in primary. I thought 2 weeks would be enough, but it's still in the 1.030-1.040 range after 11 days.

[ANUSTART]

You did the SNA? What's your fermenting temp? Did you check pH?

(had to look up SNA ) Yes. Last addition was a little late though, less than .010 late. Fermentation temp is 58-60 ambient temp.

[ANUSTART]

I'm transferring onto the fruit tonight. You guys mentioned adding KMETA to the fruit. How exactly do I do this? The blackberries are frozen solid right now. How much do I add? Dissolve in water first? Thaw the fruit first?

[ANUSTART]

I ran into a problem. The mead has been on the fruit for about 3 weeks at ~60dF. I opened it up today and it looks like most if not all of the fruit is intact. I'm not sure why the skins havent been broken. The blackberries were frozen solid for a few weeks before the mead was racked onto it.I'm thinking of taking the fruit out and mashing it up with a sanitized potato masher and putting it back in. Good idea? Bad idea?

[ANUSTART]

How does the mead taste? Fruity enough?

I guess it tastes pretty fruity. Mostly tart and somewhat alcoholic. I ended up mashing up the fruit and throwing it back in. It didnt seem to restart any fermentation, so I guess I'll stabilize and rack to a keg.Do I have to wait any amount of time after the sorbate & KMETA addition before backsweetening, or should it all be done at once?

[strangebrewer]

I finally got this batch going this past weekend. It's been bubbling away like crazy since Saturday. Better late than never

[ANUSTART]

I'll try to prevent my wife from drinking it all so we could do side by side tastings. I don't know how long I can keep her from it though... you guys better hurry up.