melomel-making: best to add fruit with the yeast, or ....?

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wine newbee

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I made blueberry melomel a couple of years ago; added the berries to the must when I pitched the yeast. Turned out nicely.

With a class today, though, it was recommended I wait until I do my 1st racking and then add the fruit; the proponent of that said it may involve the sugars in the fruit biasing sweetness readings (or something like that) if added after doing the hydrometer stuff.

Anybody have experience in this or any ideas/recommendations/anecdotes? thx for some feedback .....

Mitch
 
Ask a question of 10 winemakers, you'll get at least 11 opinions. :p

I've read recipes where the wine is fermented dry and then more fruit is added. The ones I read were old ones, where things such as K-meta and sorbate were not mentioned, and my guess is the idea was to add sweetness by adding more fruit post-fermentation. This works with low alcohol tolerant yeast, and leads into a different discussion.

Me? I like to add all the sugar (including fruit) up front, get a SG reading, and go from there. Adding fruit post-fermentation is likely to kick off another ferment. I don't see any advantage in that, it's just more effort for no perceptible gain.

If you're looking for more fruit taste, one option is to backsweeten with blueberry juice.

Note -- I didn't include step feeding in my comments, as it's a completely different topic.
 

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