This is a little ways off but i just started two batches of traditional mead and two batches of a hybrid joe's recipe. one of my joes has foamed up into the bubbler, no big deal just replaced it with a clean one. i have read about this happening with melomels. i plan on splitting up my batches of traditional mead into a bunch of one gallon carboys to experiment with different fruit recipes. so my question is after primary fermentation when i rack onto the fruit i know the fermentation will start back up a little but will it result in massive amounts of foam like with my joes recipe. just wondering because i have read that after fermentation is complete you want as little o2 at the carboy as possible, so i was hoping to eliminate space by topping each carboy with fruit. but i also don't want another foam explosion. can someone shed some light on this for me.
fruit bubble up questions
- Thread starter paddy711
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I wouldn't fill the container to the top with fruit. From experience, it leads to scrubbing the walls.
If fermentation restarts with the addition of fruit, more CO2 will be produced and should clean out the headspace (assuming it's not enormous).
If fermentation restarts with the addition of fruit, more CO2 will be produced and should clean out the headspace (assuming it's not enormous).
I agree with akueck, if fermentation restarts their should be enough co2 produced that you wont have to worry about oxidation.
If you are really worried you can always go with a blow off tube set-up , I had to switch to one on my vanilla cherry batch after it started to foam up through the airlock.
If you are really worried you can always go with a blow off tube set-up , I had to switch to one on my vanilla cherry batch after it started to foam up through the airlock.
I had the same thing happen to me.. I racked onto the fruit on my 2nd racking, into a 3 gallon carboy. The bubbles in the secondary carboy had slowed down to 1 or 2 a minute. After the racking most of the fruit was on the bottom. See pic below
After the first night some of that fruit started to float to the top, pushing the fruit that was there up into the neck and the Air Lock. I drained a little of the fluid into a clean water bottle and switched out the air lock and cleaned up. After that, I sat the carboy in a large plastic bowl...lol.
It did the over flow thing a couple of more times but by the morning of the third day it had stabilized. I topped off the carboy with the must from the water bottle and it's been fermenting since.
BTW, the two 1 gallon carboys are what the mead looked like before the berries. It was white clover honey. I made 5 gallons and decided to make 3 gallons of Blackberry, Raspberry, Blueberry Mel.
I'll try to post a pic of the mel as it is now..it's a nice rich and dark color.
Mike
After the first night some of that fruit started to float to the top, pushing the fruit that was there up into the neck and the Air Lock. I drained a little of the fluid into a clean water bottle and switched out the air lock and cleaned up. After that, I sat the carboy in a large plastic bowl...lol.
It did the over flow thing a couple of more times but by the morning of the third day it had stabilized. I topped off the carboy with the must from the water bottle and it's been fermenting since.
BTW, the two 1 gallon carboys are what the mead looked like before the berries. It was white clover honey. I made 5 gallons and decided to make 3 gallons of Blackberry, Raspberry, Blueberry Mel.
I'll try to post a pic of the mel as it is now..it's a nice rich and dark color.
Mike
Yes. It could. I lost half my mangomel because of this (it's now been named Mango Magma), yet found there was too much headspace in the boysenberry as it didn't ferment them much. It's an unpredictable thing.
I will be adding fruit in secondary in a large container next time, with 50% air or something, so then I can rack again into a smaller bottle without needing to add beads to reduce headspace.
Just be sure to degas it as much as possible to blanket with CO2
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