Do you find yourself in excess of fruits and juices that are lingering around your fridge or freezer?

Summertime gives us a bounty in fresh fruit sales, and sometimes I find myself purchasing more than I can eat. Don’t think you’ll get around to finishing that container of blueberries? How about those browning bananas? Throw it in the freezer until you’re ready to make a mead or fruit wine with it.

It’s time to clean out the kitchen!

If you have juice that’s free of preservatives (and not citrus based), then you’ll need less whole fruit. If you’ve only got whole fruit to work with, then collect about 3-4 lbs of it for a nice full-bodied, full-flavored wine.

Here are some ways to add these fruits to your mead or wine:
Bananas: Boil fruit and skins for about 15-20 minutes and add to primary OR add the fruit to secondary. You want very bruised bananas, like you would collect for banana bread.
Blueberries, Raspberries, or Blackberries: Can be added to either primary or post-fermentation. Best if frozen first, thawed, then mashed for maximum flavor extraction.
Citrus: Zest can be added to primary, but all of the fruit is best used post-fermentation.
Grapes: Frozen and thawed, then mashed for maximum flavor extraction, then fermented in primary.
Strawberries: Cut up, frozen, thawed then mashed and added to secondary. Best if able to juice the strawberries due to the seeds adding a plastic off flavor if left for too long in the mead or wine.
Peaches: Cut and freeze, then add fruits and skins to primary and save the seeds for secondary. Peach seeds are great at adding more peach flavor, which can be very delicate with only the fruit and skins, to your mead or wine.

For 1 gallon
Primary:
1/2 pack Lalvin KV1116
1 Freezer Banana
1/2 cup frozen (& thawed) Blackberries & 1/2 cup frozen (& thawed) Blueberries
1 pint fresh Blueberries
Combined all whole fruit and added 1/4 tsp Pectic Enzyme for over an hour.
3.25 cups Concord Juice
2< cups Blackberry Juice
Added 1.3 g Ft Rouge (You may add a standard wine blend at this point or post fermentation), 1.09 g Opti-White, 1 g Booster Blanc & 2.5 g GoFerm.
1 lb 8.4 oz Bubba’s Wildflower Honey (Whatever honey you want to use)
G: 1.132
Use TOSNA schedule with FermaidO

Secondary:
Racked & Stabilized
G: 1.004
Add around 6 oz more honey to G: 1.020

Came out to 17% ABV
Clear & Bottle