Blending-base instead of Recipe-base?

[zweitracht]

So here I am a year later with a decent-tasting and flavor-strong
chocolate metheglin. That said, there's only a gallon of it, so it isn't nearly
enough. I've been poking through my brew closet, thinking how nicely
this would blend with other things, if I'd only made enough.
strawberry mel,
mint metheglin,
vanilla metheglin,
buckwheat traditional,
orange mel.

Anyway, so it crossed my mind that maybe I'm doing this all wrong.
Maybe what I should be doing is making very large batches (or many
small batches) of strong single-flavor mels/metheglins/varietals and just blend.

This would seem to take all the guesswork out of an initial recipe: you
know what the finished product will taste like, because you don't
do the mixing until you have the finished production. Isn't bottling
time the second-most rewarding phase of homewbrew? It would
seem this way you could play the bottling game almost as often
as you liked. You bottle a gallon worth, pass it around to your friends,
get feedback, and by the next weekend you have a more customized
gallon ready for them.

I guess once you find a blend you like, you could reverse-engineer
the recipe if you really wanted to do a stand-alone batch.
Does anyone do this now? Is reverse-engineering the recipe and
making a repeat batch a realistic endeavor, assuming the same
yeast is used for all members of the blend?

-- Zweitracht

 

[WikdWaze]

I like this approach. I can't say for certain how accurate reverse engineering would be. There may be reactions going on during fermentation that won't happen at bottling. Definitely sounds like a good way to go, though.

 

[zweitracht]

It comes to mind that I'll need a way to keep variable amounts
of finished 'primary' flavors from oxidizing. Is kegging the
way to go with this, or is there a cheaper way? My closet is
already at capacity with carboys, so if it means new containers,
it means getting rid of containers.

Thanks!
Zweitracht

 

[ScottS]

The problem I see is that the amount of sugar from added fruit that ferments is determined by at what point in the fermentation process you add that fruit. If you add the fruit during active fermentation, you'll ferment some/all of the sugar out. If you exhaust your yeast and then add the fruit, all of the sugar from the fruit will be unfermented. If you blend two different melomels, it will be difficult to reproduce the same amount of fermentation on those fruits in a mixed batch.

One way to solve this it to exhaust the yeast and then add your fruit. But I don't really like my melomels that dry.

It still might be worth a try, if you've got the inclination.

 

[Jmattioli]

I wouldn't try the reverse engineering bit myself as there is too many variables. But, if you get a good blend, Stick with that. At least you will be able to duplicate it everytime if you keep good records.
Joe

 

[JamesP]

As I understand it, fermenting two fruits together gives a more integrated and hence different result to blending two separately-fermented melomels.

It is a safer way to experiment with finding the recipe mix for strong/weak flavoured fruits - safer in terms of avoiding many attempts before getting close to what you like.