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Mulberry Mead

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Barrel Char Wood Products
L

lynfranda

NewBee
Registered Member
Jan 25, 2014
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Ingredients

3/4 gallon water
1.5lbs Mulberries
1/2 lb raisins
1/4oz yeast (I used Vintner's Harvest Yeast SN9)
1.5lbs honey
1 gallon glass carboy
stopper

Directions
1. Crush fruit and cover in sugar and 6 cups of water and let sit overnight
2. Strain fruit and get as much juice from it as possible, simmer juice for 3 mins to sterilize.
3. Warm honey with remaining 6 cups of water for 20mins.
4. Combine the juice and honey and let cool
5. Add raisins and honey/juice to carboy
6. Add yeast
7. After two weeks transfer to a sanitized carboy straining out the raisins
8. After another week, rack to another clean carboy, being careful not to disturb the sediment.
9. Bottle in one or two months when it has stopped fermenting.

Well, I followed all the directions scrupulously. The "brew" stopped fermenting after a week. So I added some more honey, spring water and yeast to get it going again. It stopped after another week and I was getting a might desperate. I decided not to tamper with it further and just left it in a dark, warm place.

After another 2 weeks, I took a peek and there were all these tiny bubbles pushing to the top of the mead - like aeration - this went on for another month. I bottled it on 25th January 2014, but it is so sweet it almost makes you gag.
Any suggestions will be most welcome.
 
Bottling it might not have been such a good idea. Watch them closely, as you may have created 'bottle bombs', where very slow fermentation creates carbon dioxide gas which (if you're lucky) will push the corks out, or, if a screw top or other closure, might break the bottle. If so, consider emptying the bottles back into a fermenter.

You quite probably have a 'stuck' fermentation where the pH dropped below 3.0. If so, some cream of tartar (if you have it in the kitchen) or potassium carbonate (from your home brew store) will raise the pH to something that your yeast will tolerate and, because the description says it is good to restart fermentation, you might be okay.
http://vintnersharvest.com/products/vintners-harvest-wine-yeast-sn9

Also, you might want to add some DAP and nutrients to the must. Here's another mulberry thread for you to peruse....
http://www.gotmead.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11421

Let us know how it goes....
 
Last edited:
Thank you GntlKnigt1,

I don't think I have made "bottle" bombs. Will try the cream of tartar - how much would you recommend? - as I have a well stocked larder.

I live in Albany Western Australia, quite a long way from where you are.
The bottles have screw caps and I have only put them on at 1/2 a screw to allow any excess "gas" to escape.

Thank you for your input.
 
If you do have bottle bombs. Put the bottles in a cooler with ice. When cool uncork very, very slowly over a sink.
Also a way to test pH would be a good idea. That way you will know if and when to add the cream of tartar.
 
Ahh... Albany....near Spencer Lawley Park......

Well, it's hard to know how much to add, since you/we don't have a hydrometer reading of Specific Gravity - SG. But... if they start fermenting in the bottle, you are likely to get foam oozing out of the cap...Would be good to put it all back in a bucket and add perhaps a quarter teaspoon every 18 hours or so until fermentation begins again...as a best guess I can make. I cringe even to suggest that without more information.....
 
Dont put those bottle anywhere near your good rugs when they blow. We had a horse picking up mulberries a few years ago, some family friends came over for a visit after church, their little daughter in her pretty white spring dress. She want to pet our horses, one good sneeze from mulberry eating horse turned her pretty white dress kind of spotted purple :) I thought it was pretty original :) Can you guys get a hydrometer down there? Its summertime now right, I am worried my trees are going to freeze tonight! WVMJ
 
I nearly broke a rib laughing at that. It's never advisable to approach a horse from the rear for many reasons, hahahahahahaha.
 
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