Melomels: Brewing Big Fruit Mead

I enjoy a good mead as much as anyone and there are some great lower-alcohol meads being made commercially. For my money, though, you can’t beat a high-gravity mead made with a ton of fresh fruit or berries like those produced by Schramm’s Meadery. It is my favorite mead style, bar none.

This article will focus on a single style of mead — the high-gravity fruit mead, which meadmakers call a melomel. This style is made from just fruit and honey, combined with a high alcohol level of 14% or greater. The purest examples are made from whole fruit, honey, and water, but are carefully fermented to achieve the proper balance of residual sweetness, fruit flavor, and alcohol.

In some ways, melomels present the ultimate fermentation challenge. Not only are you working with challenging ingredients like whole fruit and honey, but you may be starting fermentations at gravities of 1.160 (35.7 Plato) or higher, which places unusual stresses on the yeast during an extended fermentation. Yeast health, proper yeast nutrition, and the application of modern meadmaking techniques are critical to creating a great melomel.

Big Meadmaking Principles

Some guiding principles drive the formulation of a big fruit mead. Without the right fruits providing the balance between the fruit, sweet honey, and high alcohol levels you will just end up with bad mead.

Balancing Tannins, Acidity, Sweetness, & Alcohol

The first principle of big meadmaking is to balance the tannins and acidity from the fruit against residual sweetness from the honey and alcohol from the fermentation. If any of these three are out of balance you will get a mead that is too sweet, too tannic, or too boozy.

Achieving this balance starts with choosing the right fruits. For a high-alcohol melomel, I prefer to work with fruits that are high in tannins or acidity such as tart cherries. Much like tannic grapes are critical to making a robust red wine, these tannic fruits provide the structure and fruit flavor for the melomel. Softer, subtle, less tannic fruits may work fine in lower-gravity meads but will fade badly in this style.

Meadmakers use residual sweetness from the honey to balance the tannic fruit flavors. Fruit sugars are all simple sugars that will ferment rapidly away. Honey also will ferment completely if left on its own, though it does so more slowly. To achieve residual sweetness in a finished mead, therefore, we use a lot of honey so we drive the alcohol level beyond the tolerance level for our yeast strain. We literally feed the yeast cells until they die from too much alcohol. The sweetness left after this alcohol tolerance level gives us residual sweetness. Alcohol also plays a role in the perception of sweetness, and a great mead balances alcohol, sweetness and tannins/acidity.

All of this is to say, you must pick a particular yeast strain, fruit type, and honey amount needed to achieve the perfect balance.

Targeting a Final Gravity

The residual sweetness in a finished mead depends on your final gravity. To get this balance, meadmakers talk about targeting a specific final gravity as well as original gravity. For big fruit mead at 15% alcohol, the starting gravity will be 110 points (0.110 SG) or more higher than the finishing gravity. So if we are targeting a 1.042 final gravity, the mead and fruit must start at 1.152 or higher.

The meadmaker’s challenge, then, is the fermentation equivalent of leaping off a tall diving board and landing in a small bucket of water. You manage your recipe and fermentation to hit your target gravity.

Adding to the challenge is the fact that the amount of residual sweetness needed will vary depending on the choice of fruit, the fruit’s acidity/tannin levels, and how much fruit is used. Something like a big tart cherry mead might only need to finish around 1.034 while a mead made with a lot of black currants might need a final gravity in excess of 1.048. So a big tannic fruit mead might have a finishing gravity higher than the starting gravity for many beers.

Adding Fruit in Primary vs. Secondary

While there is a great debate among beer brewers about when to add fruit, for these high-gravity meads I recommend adding all of the fruit and juice up front in the primary. There is a simple reason for this: Fruits have a much lower gravity than honey and are more fermentable, therefore they dilute the must. So if we add the fruit up front we are actually lowering the starting gravity required for the mead and we can account for this from
the beginning.

If we consider the alternative of adding the fruit in the secondary, we can see that it works against us in a high-gravity mead. Adding fruit after fermentation means we need to aim for a higher starting gravity prior to fermentation. Given that the yeast is already stressed at 1.140–1.160+ starting gravities, raising it further is not a great idea.

Working with Fruit

As I mentioned in the previous section on principles for a high-gravity mead, the first challenge is picking the right fruit or fruit combination. I recommend choosing tannic or acidic fruits for this particular style. I’ve had the best luck with fruits like black or red currants, raspberries, blackberries, tart cherries, loganberries, elderberries, and other dark tannic fruits. Blueberries and tannic grape varieties are also good if you can work with whole fruit as most of the tannins come from the skins of
the berries.

I don’t recommend using soft fruits like peaches, pears, plums, etc. as these simply don’t have the tannins or acidity to provide the structure needed for a big melomel. While an experienced meadmaker can bring these flavors out, they are much harder to balance in a high-gravity mead. They work better in lower-gravity meads.

You can get fruit in several forms including juice, fruit concentrates, fruit puree, canned fruit, and fresh whole fruit. In every case, fresh whole fruit will give you the best boost of flavor, but not all of us have access to the large quantities — often 18 lbs. (8.2 kg) or more — of whole fruit needed to make a 5-gallon (1-L) batch of mead.

Fruit Juice and Juice Concentrates

These are by far the easiest to obtain and use. You simply add fruit juice to your must up front and let it ferment out. Choose only top shelf pasteurized fruit juices with no preservatives as the preservatives can kill your yeast. I’ve had good success with Knudsen brand juices, which are available in 1-quart (1-L) jars from many grocery stores and online suppliers.

Fruit Puree

I don’t recommend most fruit purees. While fruit puree works well for adding an accent flavor to a beer, they are very difficult to separate from a mead. The problem is that you need a lot of fruit to make this style of mead, and using that much puree makes it hard to separate the puree sediment from mead, resulting in high losses. That said, if supplementing puree in the case when you don’t have quite enough fruit, this problem is minimized. If using puree, the key is racking many times.

Canned Fruit and Fruit Wine Base

These are mostly whole fruit pieces and juice that are canned. I did make a lovely loganberry mead from canned wine base by bagging the fruit in a grain bag and simply lifting it out after a little over a week in the fermenter. It isn’t quite the same flavor as fresh fruit, but it works. Bag your fruit in a mesh bag for easy separation.

Whole Fruit

Fresh, whole fruit provides the best flavor and quality, though it does require some preparation. I prefer to clean, dry, and freeze my fruit before use as it breaks down the cell walls and makes the fruit easier to ferment. I typically clean it with tap water, then dry it on cookie sheet trays before freezing and bagging it. When I make the mead I will thaw the fruit out by immersing the bags in warm water first, then I will put all of the fruit in a grain bag before adding it to the must. The grain bag lets me remove the fruit when needed — typically 1 to 2 weeks after fermentation starts — and also lets me lift the bag when I need to degas the must during fermentation.

When using any kind of fruit, I recommend using pectic enzyme. Pectic enzyme helps break down the pectin and complex sugars in fruit that can lead to an overly thick mead. Use 1⁄10 tsp. per pound (0.45 kg) of fruit or 1⁄2 tsp. per gallon (4 L) of juice.

Determining Fruit Brix Values

One significant challenge when working with fruit is determining the sugar content, which is traditionally measured in degrees Brix. For juices and many extracts this is pretty simple to do as you can just use a hydrometer or refractometer. This number becomes important when finalizing your original gravity.

For whole fruit, what I do is extract some of the juice from the fruit, usually just taking some of the juice that pools in the bottom of the bucket I use to prepare and bag my fruit. After knowing the Brix, you can then use that number to make final adjustments to the recipe to hit your original gravity target.

How Much Fruit to Use

It takes a lot of fruit and honey to make a mead in this style. My general rule of thumb is approximately 1.15 parts honey to 1 part fruit by weight. Honey obviously has a much higher starting gravity so in terms of overall sugar content, the honey provides approximately 80–90% of the fermentables. So I might use something like 17 lbs. (7.7 kg) of blackberries in a 5-gallon (19-L) blackberry mead along with nearly 20 lbs. (9.1 kg) of honey.

For fruit juice, you can actually do the same calculation by volume. I use roughly equal volumes of fruit juice and honey, so if I was adding 1.5-gallons of honey, I might include 1.5 gallons of fruit juice (or 1 liter to 1 liter). One gallon (4 L) of juice is approximately equal to 8 lbs. (3.6 kg) of fruit when both are at 12 °Brix.

Both of these vary somewhat. If I’m using a stone fruit like tart cherries, I would use more fruit or juice than with something as highly tannic/acidic as black currants. Similarly a low-Brix fruit juice or wine base would require a larger fruit addition — so I might push it up to 2 gallons (8 L) of fruit with only 1.5 gallons (6 L) of honey.

Honey Considerations

Honey selection and determining the right amount of honey for a given fruit is the next consideration when developing a melomel recipe.

Selecting a Honey Variety

There are well over 60 honey varieties readily available in the US and probably hundreds worldwide. The variety is determined by the blossoms the bees feed from. I can’t cover them all, but my rule of thumb is for a fruit mead it’s best to choose something sweet and relatively clean rather than a strongly flavored variety that may detract from the fruit flavor such as mesquite honey.

My personal go-to variety is orange blossom as it is pleasant, floral, and goes well with almost any fruit. I generally stay away from wildflower and clover honey as these can vary in flavor quite a bit. The honey itself is usually not the focus of this mead style so you want something clean and neutral.

How Much Honey to Use

I’ll say it again, the key to making a large fruit mead is the right balance between alcohol, tannins/acidity, and residual sweetness. This balance is driven primarily by the final gravity as it determines the residual sweetness and residual sweetness counteracts tannins/acidity.

In the next section I’ll cover yeast, but to target a given final gravity you need to know the alcohol tolerance of your yeast. For a variety of reasons, I use Lallemand 71B Narbonne, which has an alcohol tolerance of about 15.1%. This corresponds to a drop in specific gravity of 0.110 to 0.112 if I properly manage my fermentation. So I will start my fermentation 110 to 112 gravity points above my target final gravity.

The final gravity (FG) depends on the fruit’s acidity/tannin level. The chart at the bottom of this section includes some of the meads I’ve made and their target final gravities. Many of these were determined after extensive research and experimentation.

Keep in mind when looking at the chart that if I gave you a 1.042 FG sweet mead made just from honey it would be much too sweet and cloying for most people’s taste. It’s the fruit tannins and acidity that provide balance, and more tannic fruits like black currant require a lot more sweetness to offset them.

To get the original gravity (OG) of any of the meads in the chart we add the number of gravity points corresponding to the alcohol tolerance of the yeast used. So for the 71B Narbonne strain, we add 0.111 to these numbers to get the original gravity. So for tart cherry this works out to 1.036 + 0.111 = 1.147 as the original gravity. For black currant we get a very high 1.047+0.111=1.158 OG.

Once you have the target OG and FG you can use software to estimate the amount of fruit/honey needed based on their respective sugar content. Alternately, you can also add the fruit and some water first and then slowly raise the OG using honey (18 lbs. of honey is roughly 1 gallon, or 2 kg is roughly 1 liter if you find it easier to measure by volume).

Time to Ferment

Because we are working at very high starting gravities, yeast selection, nutrition, and yeast management are all important for creating these meads. If you don’t pay close attention to all you will end up with a stuck or very slow fermentation.

Yeast Selection

Since both honey and fruit will ferment dry if left to their own devices, the alcohol tolerance of the yeast is what gives us residual sweetness. Alcohol itself also plays a role in the finished balance. If you choose a yeast strain with too high or low of an alcohol tolerance it won’t be balanced. For me the ideal level seems to be around 14–15% ABV.

My go-to yeast strain for this style is Lallemand 71B, a dry yeast isolated and selected by the INRA (National Agricultural Research Institute) in Narbonne, France. This strain is also known for fermenting fruity rosé wines and semi-sweet whites because it produces long-lived aromas that result from the synthesis of relatively stable esters and higher alcohols. It not only has the roughly 15% alcohol tolerance level we are looking for, but it also has low nutrient requirements and an ability to metabolize some of the harsh malic acid found in many fruits into lactic acids. I’ve also found it to be remarkably consistent in fermenting high-gravity meads.

Proper Yeast Hydration and Aeration

Due to the insanely high starting gravities of this style, you can’t just sprinkle the yeast on top and ferment it out. Dry yeast cells will suffer from osmotic shock from the high sugar content as they are unable to regulate the cell wall properly before they are hydrated.

The manufacturer recommends hydrating your yeast in lukewarm (104 °F/40 °C) water mixed with GoFerm yeast nutrient. Mix the GoFerm and water first, then mix in the yeast and slowly add small amounts of must to the mixture until you are within 10 degrees °F (5 °C) of your must temperature.

You also want to aerate the must, ideally with pure oxygen, before pitching. I use a slightly longer aeration period as oxygen will not be as soluble in the high-gravity must as with lower-gravity beverages. I will often aerate again at 12 hours, as the growth phase is usually much longer due to the high gravity.

Yeast Nutrients

I recommend using the TOSNA-2 (Tailored Organic Staggered Nutrient Addition) mead nutrient schedule. TOSNA-2 uses four additions of Fermaid O yeast nutrient at 24, 48, and 72 hours, and 7 days (or 1⁄3 remaining sugar break). A typical 5-gallon (19-L) batch would use four additions of about 5 to 8 grams of Fermaid O for each addition. A mead with a high percentage of fruit would use only slightly less based on fruit content. I covered this in greater detail in the story “Modern Meadmaking” in the October 2017 issue of BYO and you can find more information on TOSNA-2 at MeadMadeRight.com.

Degassing Your Must and Removing Fruit

During active fermentation you need to degas your must to get rid of excess CO₂, which can build up as carbonic acid and inhibit fermentation. I prefer doing the primary fermentation in a bucket for this reason as it gives me easy access and space to degas.

A wine whip or wine degasser attached to a power drill works well for this process. If applicable, I lift the bag of fruit from the must when doing this. Stir gently at first as it is easy to release so much gas that the foam spills over the top of your bucket. Continue degassing twice a day down to the 1⁄3 sugar break, which is the point at which 1⁄3 of your 110 expected gravity points remain.

You also want to push the fruit down twice a day (called punching down the fruit cap) as you don’t want the floating fruit to dry out or spoil. Remove the fruit bag after about 7–14 days, or rack the mead away from the fruit to a second fermenter. Leaving the fruit in too long can result in flavor and haze issues.

Measuring Gravity and Managing pH During Fermentation

At the high gravities we are working at, refractometers simply don’t work well. Use an old-fashioned glass hydrometer instead, which you can sanitize and leave in the bucket during fermentation if you like.

Managing pH levels is also a problem with many fruits, particularly those high in acidity. When you start fermenting, the pH will drop rapidly and if you have a lot of acidic fruit it can drop well below 3.0, which can inhibit or even stop fermentation.

To counter this, use a pH meter, particularly during early fermentation, to measure the pH. If the pH drops below about 3.4, add potassium bicarbonate to raise the pH back to an acceptable level. For a 5-gallon (19-L) batch, add about 1 tsp. at a time and wait a few hours to take another measurement as it can take some time for the pH to stabilize after the addition.

Using the TOSNA-2 nutrient schedule, pH management, and degassing, it is possible to complete the bulk of fermentation in as little as two weeks. Some high gravity or highly acidic fruits can take a week or two longer. The mead at this point will have a distinctive “rocket fuel” flavor to it but this will fade during aging.

Transfer the mead after it gets within 5 gravity points of its final gravity to separate the mead from the fruit and yeast sediment. Once you get down to your final gravity you can consider adding finings such as Super-Kleer to aid in clearing.

Rack the mead once or twice more during aging until it is completely clear. I use glass carboys for aging to reduce the chance of oxygen spoiling the mead. I also add a small bit of CO₂ gas to the top of the fermenter to provide a blanket preventing oxidation.

Add potassium sulfite, which acts as an antioxidant and preservative, once the mead has reached its final gravity and has been transferred. A good starting point is 1⁄4 tsp. in a 5-gallon (19-L) batch, though you may need one more small addition before bottling.

Backsweetening and Adjusting Gravity

I don’t backsweeten or cut my meads unless I’ve made a mistake. I’m not a fan of the flavor that unfermented honey adds. However, if you do come in low on your final gravity or the mead is too tart, you can backsweeten with fresh honey or a sweeter mead, using the Pearson’s square to calculate the amount needed. Before you do that you need to add sulfites and sorbates to inhibit further fermentation. Add the potassium sulfites first, and then some potassium sorbate at the rate recommended by the manufacturer on the package.

Give it another day or so before adding fresh honey to backsweeten the mead. You can either calculate the amount of honey needed to raise the final gravity a few points or perform bench trials by pulling a measured sample of your mead and add measured amounts until you determine the right proportions.

If your mead is too sweet and cloying you can try to thin it using clear, flavorless liquor such as vodka. Vodka has a lower gravity than water and thinning it with liquor won’t risk restarting fermentation. Obviously you can only lower it a few points before you run the risk of upsetting the alcohol balance, but this can help if your mead is too sweet.

Aging

These big fruit meads get better with age in most cases, and can be enjoyed for years if properly stored. I prefer to keg my meads initially and then bottle some as gifts or to pack away for long-term storage.

The 350 mL “dessert wine” bottles are the perfect size for these big fruit meads as you rarely need a full wine bottle in one sitting. They make unique gifts as well, since few people have experienced this style themselves and it has enough complexity and sweetness to appeal to many.

Melomel Recipes

Blackberry Mead

(5 gallons/19 L)
OG = 1.154 FG = 1.045
ABV = 15.1%

Ingredients
16.7 lbs. (7.6 kg) blackberries
20 lbs. (9.1 kg) orange blossom honey
0.5 oz. (14 g) GoFerm
1.25 tsp. pectic enzyme
1 tsp. potassium bicarbonate
3 packages Lalvin 71B-1122 yeast
16 g Fermaid O
65 mL Super Kleer KC finings
0.28 tsp. potassium metabisulfite

Step by step
Slowly stir honey with 2 gallons (8 L) of warm water, making sure it all dissolves to create the must. Put fruit in a grain bag and mash it slightly, collecting juice as well. Add the whole fruit grain bag and residual juice to the must.

Prepare 150 mL of warm water with GoFerm addition in it and then slowly mix in yeast. Slowly add must to the yeast-GoFerm mixture until you get its temperature within 10 °F (5 °C) of the must. Aerate the must with oxygen and an aeration stone or wand if available. Pitch the yeast-GoFerm mixture into your must and add the pectic enzyme.

When working with whole fruit it can take several hours to get an accurate gravity reading, so after some time has passed, check the gravity. If needed, add a bit more water or honey to get to your target starting gravity and volume. You can optionally aerate a second time at 12 hours using oxygen.

During active fermentation you need to degas the must twice a day using a wine whip or similar device. At each of these occurrences, make sure to also punch the cap down by immersing/rotating the fruit bag so the top of it does not dry out. Add 4 grams of Fermaid O nutrient at 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, and the 7-day point. If you have a pH meter, monitor the pH daily and add a tsp. of potassium bicarbonate (more if needed) if the pH drops below 3.5.

Remove the fruit bag between 7–14 days or when you notice that it is beginning to blanch (turn white). After 2–3 weeks most of the fermentation will be over. At this point, transfer to a secondary to separate the mead from the sediment. Check the gravity with a hydrometer periodically. Which final gravity has been reached, transfer the mead again, and add the Super-Kleer. With fermentation complete, add 0.25–0.5 tsp. of potassium metabisulfite as an antioxidant.

Age for two months. Transfer the mead one final time once it is completely clear. At the 3-month point, the mead is usually quite pleasant to taste, and you can consider bottling or kegging.

Tart Cherry Mead

(5 gallons/19 L)
OG = 1.146 FG = 1.034
ABV = 15.5%

Ingredients
2 gallons (8 L) tart cherry juice
18.1 lbs. (8.2 kg) orange blossom honey
4 g GoFerm
2 tsp. pectic enzyme
3 packages Lalvin 71B-1122 yeast
16 g Fermaid O
1.1 tsp. potassium bicarbonate
68.3 mL Super Kleer KC finings
0.28 tsp. potassium metabisulfite

Step by step
Slowly stir honey with 2 gallons (8 L) of warm water, making sure it all dissolves to create the must. Stir in fruit juice. Prepare 150 mL of warm water with GoFerm addition in it and then slowly mix in yeast. Slowly add must to the yeast-GoFerm mixture until you get its temperature within

10 °F (5 °C) of the must. Aerate the must with oxygen and an aeration stone or wand if available. Pitch the yeast-GoFerm mixture into your must and add the pectic enzyme. When working with whole fruit it can take several hours to get an accurate gravity reading, so after some time has passed, check the gravity. If needed, add a bit more water or honey to get to your target starting gravity and volume. You can optionally aerate a second time at 12 hours using oxygen.

During active fermentation you need to degas the must twice a day using a wine whip or similar device. Add 4 grams of Fermaid O nutrient at 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, and the 7-day point. If you have a pH meter, monitor the pH daily and add a tsp. of potassium bicarbonate (more if needed) if the pH drops below 3.5.

After 2–3 weeks most of the fermentation will be over. At this point, transfer to a secondary to separate the mead from the sediment. Check the gravity with a hydrometer periodically. Which final gravity has been reached, transfer the mead again, and add the Super-Kleer. With fermentation complete, add 0.25–0.5 tsp. of potassium metabisulfite as an antioxidant.