I'm quite new to mead brewing, but have just racked a forest fruit melomel. there were cherries in there too, not sure what they'll do to the taste. I used about a pound and a half of frozen fruit in one gallon, it fermented in under 2 weeks and was almost clear at racking time a week later. I did lose a bit to the fruit but topped up with a bit of water. I was going to add more honey in secondary so as not to dilute, but changed my mind and stabilised it. I might try fruit in secondary next time but for this time I'll leave it as is and backsweeten.
Well, obviously it depends on whether you just made it up ad hoc, or where following a recipe of some sorts.
When fruit is used in primary, you'll find that the yeast will often (especially if a champagne yeast is used - often on guidance from HBS staff, who invariably know bog all about making meads) blow a lot of the aromatics straight out the airlock. You often also lose some of the more delicate flavours, plus primary fermentation can often reduce what seems like a good level of pigmentation, making the fruit look almost "bleached". Hence the fruit flavour is a fermented fruit flavour i.e. partly why fruit in primary batches never really taste like the original fruit much.
you shouldn't need to leave the fruit too long in secondary, a few weeks should be fine, I've never waited for the fruit to drop in a brew (but then I'm a newbie with newbie patience, ie, very little) and most of the colour had gone anyway. a siphon would move the contents more easily - passing through a cheesecloth surely mixes it all up and oxygenates it?
Not entirely correct, but as with anything like this with no real standards, it's down to personal choice of the maker. If you've used pectolase, not only does it help with pectins in any fruit that might be in the batch, but it also assists with colour and flavour extraction. The "waiting for the fruit to drop" method harks back to making JAO's inasfaras getting the maximum flavour, colour, etc out of the fruit. Just because something looks a certain colour, it doesn't mean it's got a lot of pigment in the fruit. Strawberry being a good example - always look nice and red, but when used in brewing, usually comes out a straw/amber sort of colour as the little pigment that there is oxidises quickly.
As for using muslin/cheesecloth/etc type materials to separate out any fruit, you'll find that most fruits go soft quite quickly and that when the batch is passed through cloth like that, the fibres/strands act like tiny wires and some of the softened pulp always gets through - plus the material will clog up quite quickly (try filtering a wine or mead that hasn't been cleared, and you'll see how quickly it clogs up).
Meads don't oxidise anywhere as quickly as wines do, so while it's good practice to keep it away from too much additional air/O2 source, it's not gonna oxidise in the blink of an eye. It's just one of those things to be aware of the possibility....
if you placed the fruit in a muslin bag and suspended it in secondary, it would be more easily removed and could be left to drip much of the alcoholic fruity goodness back into the mead (don't squeeze it though) and since it's not mixed with yeasty crap you could eat the fruit over ice cream or use it in cooking or baking so it's not wasted, even if your final volume is a bit less.
Completely impractical if the ferment is taking place in a demi-john/carboy. It's just as easy to use a funnel to get the fruit in and then just leave it alone to drop with time - which it will. There's a few caveats i.e. if you've used 71B, which doesn't like sur lie aging, it's probably easiest to have fermented without fruit, then rack the brew off the lees, stabilise to prevent re-fermentation and then add the fruit back to steep in the brew. If a yeast that doesn't have issues like that is used, then you can just rack off the lees straight onto the fruit.
Straining bags are best kept for convenience when fermenting in buckets. Even then, fruit/bag are often added when the batch has got down low, to say, 1.010, then if the yeast hasn't actually hit it's maximum tolerance it doesn't matter if some of the fruit sugars are metabolised. You'll usually be left with some of the fruit sugars and a more fruity flavour in the batch.
it's a shame that supplies over here are often limited, particularly mead yeasts and nutrients. In fact, even decent honey is off- puttingly expensive. Some good mead yeasts are apparently rebranded for the UK market, but can't remember which ones.
The UK market for supplies just reflects the size of the market in the first place. There is little call for more exotic yeasts etc, as people are either put off having a go or are just too damn lazy/complacent.
There are NO so called mead yeasts. In fact, the few yeasts sold as "mead yeast" are just marketing bollocks anyway. How the hell do the makers know what strains were used when mead was "big" (pre-norman), when fermentation wasn't fully understood until Pasteur ? and there's nothing in the tiny amount of historic documentation left to point the way. Yes, some of the "historic" recipes might give you a clue i.e. if they refer to anything from a baker, it'll be a bread yeast, or a beer yeast if a brewer is the source - but which types/strains ? Who knows ? Of the 4 (Wyeast and White Labs) only the Wyeast ones seems to be available here, and because they're liquid, they have a much shorter shelf life (being liquid types, they need to be kept chilled), plus the "sweet mead" one is low tolerance and finicky as hell to use - sticking or not starting at all, etc etc - and as they're about 7 times the price of a pack of dry yeast, they're very much an expensive luxury. It's far, far easier to mail order something that is easier to use and of a "known quantity"/ability. It's why I changed to using the Lallemand brand ones like the Lalvin range. Yes, there's only 5 that are easily available in home brew sized packs, but you only have to read through the published literature to get the measure of them and understand how best to use them.
It does seem an issue in Europe period, that they can't be bothered to publish information about yeasts, and only want to give the most basic of information about them.
A good example being, that if you read up on the late Brother Adams' meads, he originally preferred to use a "Maury" yeast. Now as far as I can find out, the closest to that would be Lalvin D21, which you can only find in home brew size packs if you mail order from the US (and even then it seems only from 2 places as they appear to be repackaging it from commercial sized packs). When he could no longer get the "Maury" strain, he moved to using a (the ?) Montpellier strain. Presumably it was packaged as Gervin Varietal "E" - but even that seems to have been discontinued since Muntons took control of the Gervin yeast production. Now if you want that, you'll have to get it the "easy" way.........it's Lalvin K1-V1116, which is an excellent yeast for meads, particularly traditional type ones.
If you want to get the exact same nutrients as you often see mentioned here, or over at
Gotmead, you have to mail order. I understand that they are available here, but only in commercial quantities. So you have to compromise......an easily obtained equivalent to FermaidK is Tronozymol and where a nutrient regime also lists DAP/Di-Ammonium Phosphate, Youngs yeast nutrient is a mix of di-ammonium phosphate and the related chemical, ammonium sulphate, both providing ammonia based sources of nitrogen for the yeast.
In a few cases, it's harder to work out what an equivalent might be. Like GoFerm, which is a rehydration nutrient - whether one of the products listed at
Brouwland in Belgium would be the same or similar I don't know (any HBS who has a Brupaks account can get the Brouwland stuff - unless you want to do a booze/baccy cruise).
As for honey ? Well we don't seem to have an infrastructure for varietals here. Yes if you contacted your local
BBKA branch you may find someone who could supply something close, but it'd still be limited as we don't tend to have huge areas of mono-culture here like they do in parts of main Europe or the US. I'm lucky as I have
Paynes about 10 miles up the road, and while they don't carry a huge range of different honey, they have enough to be getting on with and I don't need to pay shipping...... There may be other places in the UK like that, but I have yet to find one...... Still not as cheap as you might find, especially if you search for places in the US, but even then, to get some of the wonderful sounding honey available there, you'd be looking at about the £5 per pound weight and you'd have to get 5 gallons to make it feasible (unless money is no object).