Mead using fruit jam. Recipe advice requested.

[RobertK]

I recently picked up 5 1-pound (454 g) jars of plum jam with the intent of making a plum mead. According to the nutrition label, there about 23 servings and each serving has 10g of total sugars (they unhelpfully don't mention how much of that is fermentable). So I'm figuring ~230g of sugar per pound. Also, I picked up 8 lbs of fresh plums, which I pitted and froze and will rack onto at around the 1.020 sg.

I will be using pectinase for both the jam and the frozen fruit.

Assuming 3 full gallons of water, and based on what I believe are the correct numbers for sugar content of the jam and the honey I am going to use, I came up with following:

Primary
8 lbs. wildflower honey
5 lbs plum jam (according to several recipes I found online, ~3 lbs of fresh plums are used to get 1 lb of jam)

and per www.meadmakr.com/batch-buildr/ . . .
6 g Red Star Premier Rouge
12.5 g Go-Ferm per
18.3 g Fermaid O (TOSNA 2.0)

Secondary
8 lbs red plums, thawed and treated with pectinase

Conditioning
Back sweeten to 1.015 if dry
Balance as needed

My starting gravity should be about 1.136 and I am prepared to dilute the must to achieve that gravity if it gets too much above.

I am going to wait until conditioning to assess the tannins, as I don't know how much, if any, I'll get from the jam or the skins. I have some medium toast American oak chips that might add some nice vanillins, but want to evaluate the plum flavors to decide if oaking is the way to go.

Thoughts?

 

[ChuckD]

I’m a fan of powdered tannin in the primary. Its different than aging oak which is for flavoring. I don’t really taste it in the wine but it does seem to help with body and complexity.

I don’t know how plum jam is for pH but I would check that as well.

 

[RobertK]

I’m a fan of powdered tannin in the primary. Its different than aging oak which is for flavoring. I don’t really taste it in the wine but it does seem to help with body and complexity.

I don’t know how plum jam is for pH but I would check that as well.

I appreciate the feedback. I'll give that a bit more thought. Thanks.

 

[BigDaveK]

I haven't made mead yet but I have done both jelly and jam wines. Turned out great and it's a good way to make room on the canning shelves.
Good luck!

 

[Ty520]

the pectic enzyme should go in primary for maximum effect because it's going to have a LOT of pectin in it

also check to make sure your jam doesn't have any preservatives in it