Raspberry Mead Recipe - My Fermented Foods (2024)

FAQs

How many raspberries for a gallon of mead? ›

You'll need 3 pounds of honey and roughly 6 ounces of raspberries per gallon.

Let your mead continue fermenting for the next 25 days. Be sure to keep the carboy between 65°-73°F. While your mead is ready to bottle after 30 days of fermentation, the longer you age it in the carboy the more the flavors will continue to develop.

Unlike fermented veggies, you don't stick your berries into a super salty brine. I ferment my berries in a similar way to how I ferment my cranberries, I ferment them in honey. The honey makes them a little sweeter, but, more importantly, the honey naturally preserves the fruit.

Generally speaking, it's best to rack your mead as soon as the primary fermentation has completed, or to wait no longer than a month to avoid any sort of spoilage.

Place a lid on the jar, screwing it down just lightly. Leave the jar out of direct sunlight, at room temperature for 24-48 hours. The berries will become more tart as the fermentation continues, but the faint taste of honey shines through. Store in the refrigerator, if you do not eat them right away.

Crush the fruit with a blender. Pour the fruit puree into the fermentation jar. Rack the mead from the carboy to the fermentation jar, taking care to leave as much lees as possible at the bottom of the carboy. Place the lid on the jar and refrigerate for 1 to 2 weeks.

Stirring twice a day is generally sufficient (if you have a fast fermentation, you might want to stir three or four times a day).

If you want to really fully ferment a high-alcohol mead and bottle it, those usually benefit from time in the bottle. If you're using less honey to make more of a beer-like mead, those can be fully fermented and drinkable in under a month. Other types can take a few months.

Traditional meads usually require six months to 2 years for the flavors to mellow and smooth and any off flavors to diminish. Melomels or fruit meads can take six months to 5 years for the flavors to fully integrate and the tannins and acids to mellow. Metheglin or spiced meads are quicker, six months to a year.

If a piece of fruit was not poisonous as fruit, it will not be poisonous after fermentation. Fermentation does covert the sugar in fruit to alcohol (ethanol). That alcohol is intoxicating if you drink too much of it.

What to do with fermented raspberries? ›

This fermented purée makes a great refreshing drink with a big splash of sparkling wine or soda water or both. It's also great to dress up a fruit salad or to finish a sauce for game meats.

Purple grape, white grape, and peach juice fermented to potential alcohol the fastest. Fermentation was complete in 6 days. Apple, pear and pomegranate juices also had high sugar content and fermented to potential alcohol in 9 days.

Certified Mead Mentor

While the latter might be disturbing, you'll quickly get used to the smells that your mead will give off. Most of them smell like yeast (similar to bread dough) or honey. Not so bad.

A good starting point with most fruits is about 3 pounds of fruit per gallon of mead, though I have been known to use 5 or even 6 pounds of fruit. Fruit blends can produce some great-tasting meads.

About 30 pounds of berries are required for every 5-gallon batch of wine. Berries are very fruity and acidic, so water and sugar are added to the berry pulp prior to fermentation to reduce the acidity to about 0.8% and increase the sweetness.

A new planting in sandy loam soil requires 18 gallons per day per 100 feet of row. A mature planting in the same soil type requires 27 gallons per day per 100 feet of row. Increase the water rate for sandier soil, and decrease it for heavier soil.

Growing Raspberries in Pots

Half-barrels or five-gallon pots are ideal sizes that allow enough room for new canes to grow in future years. Start with three to six canes, depending on the container size.