Straightforward · 19.0 litres · Melomel
Blackberry melomel
Mead with fruit. The blackberries bring the acid, tannin and colour that honey lacks, which is why a melomel is drinkable a year before a traditional mead is.
Starting sugar
19.0 Brix
3.90 kg of fermentable sugar
Original gravity
1.079
from the ingredients, not asserted
Finishing gravity
0.995
dry
Alcohol
11.0%
Brix alone predicts 10.5 to 11.4%
Residual sugar
0 g/L
approximate, from gravity
Ready after
6 months
best around 4 years
Made to Melomel, and every computed figure lands inside the published range for it.
ABV inTA inpH inRS inWhat decides this wine
Adding the fruit second. Fermenting on fruit from the start scrubs the aroma out with the carbon dioxide; racking onto it once the vigorous phase is over keeps almost all of it.
What goes in
| Ingredient | Weight | Sugar | Volume | Share of sugar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Honey | 4.50 kg | 3.60 kg | 3.15 L | 92% |
| Blackberries Into the SECONDARY, not the primary. Most of the aroma is carried out with the CO2 of a vigorous fermentation. | 3.00 kg | 0.30 kg | 1.65 L | 8% |
| Pectic enzyme | 8 g | - | - | 0% |
| Yeast nutrient Staged, exactly as in the traditional mead. The fruit adds a little nitrogen but nothing like enough. | 30 g | - | - | 0% |
| Water, to volume | - | - | 14.20 L | - |
The ingredients contribute 4.8 litres and the water makes up the rest to 19 litres. Those figures are checked against each other when the site is built, because a recipe whose volumes do not add up produces a wine weaker or stronger than every number above.
Acid and sulphite
Acidity of the must
6.0 g/L
at pH 3.40
No malolactic
6.0 g/L
the acidity you measure is the acidity you keep
No acid adjustment
none
to reach 6.0 g/L. Bench trial before treating the batch
Sulphite at bottling
1.2 g
potassium metabisulphite, for 36 mg/L free SO2 at pH 3.45
The batch
- Must volume
- 19 L
- Ferment at
- 16-19 C
- Molecular SO2 target
- 0.8 mg/L
- Malolactic
- No
- Yeast
- D47 for meadto 15%, medium N
The sulphite figure is worked out against the pH of the finished wine, not of the must. Malolactic and deacidification both raise pH, and dosing a finished red to its must pH under-protects it by roughly a third. Recompute for your own reading.
Method
- 01Dissolve the honey in cool water, aerate, and pitch with the first nutrient dose.
- 02Ferment at 16 to 19C with staged nutrient over the first third.
- 03Freeze the blackberries and thaw them: it breaks the cells and doubles what you extract.
- 04When the primary ferment slows, rack onto the fruit in a sanitised vessel with pectic enzyme.
- 05Leave two weeks, then rack off the fruit and press it lightly.
- 06Sulphite, top up and bulk age six months before bottling.
The two instruments this recipe needs
Every number on this page came from a hydrometer reading and a pH reading. Without those two you are following a recipe rather than making a wine, and the sulphite figure in particular is meaningless without a pH you have actually measured.
Measuring
Hydrometer and trial jar
SOLIGT Triple Scale Hydrometer and Glass Test Jar for Wine, Beer, Mead & Cider - ABV, Brix and Gravity Test Kit
$18.98
Tracks the ferment from must to dry. The gap between your starting and finishing gravity is the only reliable way to know the alcohol you actually made.
Measuring
pH meter
Apera Instruments AI1113 pH Calibration Buffer Solution Kit (7.00, 4.00), 8 oz. Each
$18.00
The most important instrument on this page. pH decides how much of your sulphite is actually protecting the wine, and dosing without knowing it is guesswork.