tried an experiment

[dauthiatull]

i had some leftover honey so I mixed it with water to get a og of 1.12. cant remember how much honey but it was enough to make 2 gallons of must.

from that I made two 1 gallon batches.

first one was a barely drinkable failure so i will omit that

in the second I put 3 6oz containers of blackberries that were forzen/thawed and mashed. it took up quite a bit of the carboy. then toped it with the must and added 1tsp each on neutrient and energiser. the gravity of that mix was 1.100.

added 1tsp of flichmans bread yeast and put it away.
racked into another carboy after a month although some of the mash got into the secondary enough to make a half inch layer floating on top 1.014
2 weeks later it was clear and half of the mashed berries were on the bottom.
bottled it. final was 1.012

well it didnt taste like blackberries but it was very good. more like a merlo with a deep red color. not too dry, not too sweet. in fact it was the best tasting mead i have made so far. sometimes my tinkering pays off LOL

due to the price of the blackberries im going to try the same thing using frozen mixed berries, at least till blackberry season when im going to pick my own and freeze them.

Im also going to try juising the berries and only adding a thin layer of the pulp to maximize the final yeald.

any thoughts?

 

[Medsen Fey]

Congratulations on making some good mead!

And as for the batch that wasn't so good, perhaps time will allow it to improve and it might surprise you if you hang onto it.

If you are going to make more and are concerned about maximizing the volume my suggestion would be to make a larger batch in a bucket - say 1.5 gallons or more, then when you rack it you'll have enough to completely fill the gallon container. Another way to handle it is to make two batches in a gallon jug. You can leave enough headspace to allow the fermentation to get done, and when you rack you'll have enough to fill a gallon completely.

You can try juicing the berries, but if you don't include the all the berry pulp you may get less color and tannin extracted. That may be just fine depending on your tastes and what you are looking for, but it may be different from what you had the first time.

I wish you great success with the next batch!

Medsen

 

[akueck]

I'm curious to hear about the bad batch. Failures are often more instructive than successes.