mead ideas?

[jolopez]

thanks for the warm welcome,
i have a mead that i am about to rack into the secondary fermenter, a, simple recipe 13lbs of mexican raw orange blossom honey fermenting with sweet mead yeast. i wanted to add some berries to the secondary but probably wont find too many fresh berries. has anyone used frozen berries? iv heard that canned blackberry pie filling would also work. just curious of anyone had any interesting ideas of what to do with mead. I brewed a mead a couple of years ago, but it was a little too plain for me, i didnt do anything special to it. ive tasted many different types of mead but have no clue how to infuse these wonderful flavors into the mead, all suggestions would be appreciated

[bwarbiany]

I'm not a mead guy (you've come to the right place -- I'm just not the right guy), but I've had good experience with the Oregon Fruit Purees when flavoring beer. Available from B3 (and a bunch of other places), they're sterile so you can add them to secondary without risk of infection.

Our local mead guru, Pete, will probably have a lot more to add...

[lexuschris]

I'm an amatuer on the mead front and played around with meads & metheglins, but never tried adding fruit during the fermentation stages. I've always added my spices & such at the end of the boil.

Perhaps Pete or Lars can chime in with some thoughts....
--LexusChris

[Oskaar]

I'll need to see your exact recipe and process for the mead as it has progressed to this point.

If adding to the secondary my fruit preferences are as follow:

1. Fresh
2. Frozen
3. Dried and then rehydrated ( very intense addition of fruit flavor)
4. Canned
5. Juice concentrate
6. Pure Juice

Stay away from pie fillings and "processed" fruit fillings in general as they have a number of chemicals added to them that can add off flavors. You'll also need to be aware that many of the juices out here contain preservatives (this doesn't really make a difference in secondary, but if you add the fruit to the primary like I do, it can cause your fermentation to stall and stop completely.

If you post up that recipe (please include the starting and current gravity, and current pH) I can give you some options on how to treat this recipe in the secondary.

Hope that helps,

Pete