Mixed Berry Mead

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My first Mixed Berry Mead, inspired by and adapted from The Compleat Meadmaker.

Originally Posted: Aug. 3, 2020

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Quick Specs

• OG = 1.175 as 3 gallon starter
• OG = 1.105 diluted to 5 gallons
• ABV: ~13.8%
• Taste Profile: Light at first, develops well with age
• Time: 6 months to a Year
• Yield: I ended up with only 18 bottles of this one

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Intro

This berry melomel (fruit mead) was my attempt at the “Mambo in Your Mouth” Mixed Berry Mead recipe from The Compleat Meadmaker by Ken Schramm. It was also my first melomel that wasn’t a cyser. I had to make several substitutions based on the berries I was able to get ahold of, and when I brew this one in the future, I’ll also use my own more simplified method compared to Schramm’s. I’ll present both versions of the instruction here.

Schramm’s original recipe calls for fermenting a “base must” of 3 gallons of water with 12 lbs. of honey and nutrients. Once fermentation slows you simmer all the fruit to sterilize it, then add that and the rest of the water to the mead. In my experience making this mead, the primary fermentation was sluggish. I think the 4 lb. of per gallon of water ratio is a little high and puts undue stress on the yeast, so if you follow his method I would suggest step-feeding the honey over the course of the fermentation.

I’ve employed a simplified method in my melomels since this first attempt. I buy frozen fruit to simplify sourcing. Frozen fruit is a good choice for any brew; freezing sterilizes the fruit, but it also breaks up the cell walls. This allows more fruit essence to infuse into the brew, and it lets yeast get deeper into the fruit to eat up any fermentable sugars that could be hiding.

I still simmer the fruit in some of the water to draw out some more juices. If you choose not to simmer, you at least want to thaw frozen fruit for a while before adding it to any brew. After simmering, I would add 10 lbs. of warmed honey to the fruit and water mixture, then pour the mixture into a sanitized fermenter along with all the other non-honey ingredients.

Once fermentation has gone on for about a week and has slowed, I step-feed the rest of the honey. Anywhere between 2 – 5 lbs. is a good amount for this mead. Between mixing almost everything from the beginning and step-feeding extra honey later, I’ve found this method much easier to get an accurate specific gravity reading.

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Ingredients

Original Recipe

• 12 lbs. White Clover Honey
• 3 gal. water
• 2 tsp. yeast energizer
• 2 tsp. yeast nutrient
• 3 lbs. Strawberries
• 3.5 lbs. Wild Black Raspberries (Note: I’ve never heard of these, so I subbed blackberries)
• 1.5 lbs. Red Raspberries
• 2 lbs. Blueberries
• 2.5 lbs. Dark Sweet Cherries
• Your choice of yeast

Modified Recipe

• (Note: changes marked with “*”)
• *12 – 15 lbs. Clover Honey (10 lbs. at the beginning, 2 – 5 lbs. later through step-feeding)
• *5 gal. water
• *5 tsp. yeast nutrient
• 3 lbs. Strawberries
• *3.5 lbs. Blackberries (Note: These are plentiful in the Pacific Northwest to the point of being a major invasive species and a gardening nightmare. Tasty, though.)
• 1.5 lbs. Red Raspberries
• 2 lbs. Blueberries
• 2.5 lbs. Dark Sweet Cherries
• Lalvin EC-1118 (I couldn’t find in my notes what yeast I used, but I know it wasn’t D-47. It was either EC-1118 or some sort of Montrachet. Will probably use D-47 in the future though)
• Note: I used all frozen berries for this recipe, but you can use fresh. If using fresh, it is beneficial to freeze and then thaw or simmer the berries before adding them to the recipe (as explained above).

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Equipment

• Sanitizer
• Fermenter (preferable a wide-mouth fermenter, so that it will be easier to add all of the fruit)
• Airlock and stopper
• Large funnel
• Stock pot and mixing spoon, sanitized (for simmering berries)
• Sous vide circulator (optional, to warm the honey)

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Instructions

Original

Excerpt from The Compleat Meadmaker: (my commentary in double square brackets “[[]]”)

“Ferment the base must consisting of honey, energizer, nutrient, water, and, of course, the yeast for 2 to 4 weeks (until primary activity slows), then transfer to widemouthed fermenter, and add the fruits. I have used a variety of yeast strains with this mead, and have had good luck with Epernay, Montrachet, and Prise de Mousse. Use as large a starter as you can.

“Due to the variety of fruits, and to their different seasonal availability, I have used frozen fruit in this recipe. The (wild) black raspberries are the key. You can pick them in season and augment them with other hand-picked or store-bought frozen fruits. The trick is using a variety of deeply colored berries. I really enjoy the throaty complexity of black currants in Lindeman’s Cassis lambic beer. The next time I get a good harvest, I plan to add some to a new version of this recipe [[I need to try this too…]].

“If you are very particular about sanitation, you may choose to short the water and the honey slightly in the initial fermentation. Then heat all of the fruit, some water, and the remainder of the honey to about 155°F for 15 minutes [[Doing this will heat the honey and make the mead take longer to age. Safer to add 94°F honey to fermenter separately, per the no-heat method]] to kill off any wild yeasts or particularly virulent bacteria before adding this mixture to the secondary fermentation.

“Leave this mead on the fruit for at least a couple of weeks. You will want to rack this a couple of times before bottling [[For the clarity of the final product. You could also invest in a pump-based wine filtration system]]. It will be a deep, rich, purple color, with a huge nose and a solid dose of tannin when it is young, which will round out and become pleasant over the years.” – Ken Schramm, The Compleat Meadmaker (pg. 166-167)

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Modified Recipe

Note: As I’ve written in my “Basic Apple Cyser” mead recipe, I prefer the “No-Heat” method of meadmaking because it becomes drinkable much sooner and still ages gracefully. “No-heat” is a bit of a misnomer, as you can still heat honey a bit in order to make it come out of its container more easily. My favorite temperature to heat to is about 94°F, using a sous vide circulator.

1. Warm the honey containers if needed per the above note. This will help you get as much honey out of the containers as possible. I place this step first because it can take a while.
2. Sanitize all your equipment: Fermenter, airlock/bung, and pots and cooking implements that will touch your mead. I like to fill one whole side of my sink with Star-San and soak anything that will fit. This way I can also pour the sanitizer solution into fermenters or other containers using a measuring cup as needed.
3. Simmer all the mixed berries in a sanitized pot with just a little water. You don’t have to worry about sanitation here if the berries were frozen, but this helps draw out a lot of the juices and sugars.
4. Add the berries to the wide-mouth fermenter, then add one or two of your 5 gallons of water to cool them down. Add yeast and yeast nutrient if temperature is below 105°F and allow to rehydrate.
5. Pour in the remaining water and 10 lbs. of your pre-warmed honey and stir. I’ve found that stirring with a degassing wand is a good way to incorporate the honey for a more accurate specific gravity reading.
6. After about a week when fermentation starts to slow take another gravity reading and then add in your remaining 2 – 5 lbs. of honey. Stir to incorporate and take another gravity reading, or use an estimate based on the amount of honey (on average, 1 lb. of honey will raise 5 gallons of water by 0.007, or 7 gravity points).
7. I think I let my batch bulk-age in a fermenter (after racking off of the berries) for at least a year before filtering and bottling. This was mostly accidental. Even after bottling, it took time for the tannins to mellow out and the fruit character to reassert itself.

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Useful Link

When I was having trouble wrapping my head around Specific Gravity calculations after diluting 3 gallons of high-gravity mead to 5-gallons of medium-gravity mead, I stumbled on a very useful web calculator for this sort of thing:

Dilution and Boil-off Gravity Calculator

The calculators on the page are geared more towards brewing beer, but I’ve found that they’re a quick way to calculate specific gravity dilutions in many cases.

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