Adding fruit after racking

[jay2020]

This person is making mead:


After two weeks he is racking and adding fruit. (Blueberries, cherries ran through a food processor.)

I am not making mead. I am making a persimmon wine roughly following this recipe.

I've just racked off the primary fermentor bucket into glass carboys.

It's occurring to me I might not like the taste of persimmons by themselves all that much.

Can I add fruit like this, after racking but without stabilizing, or does that only work with mead?

Or is my only option to backsweeten with sugar some months from now and hope for the best?

 

[user 36973]

You can definitely add fruit, with a big asterisk. Adding fruit after fermentation (regardless if it's a mead or wine) will add sugar, nutrients, protein and pectin to the wine. All of this must be managed to prevent unwanted actions. Sorbate to handle the sugar causing refermentation. Fining agents to deal with the protein. And pectic enzymes to manage the pectin if necessary. Above all, sulfites are needed to protect the wine. Note that the added nitrogen containing nutrients can't be easily managed. These serve as a potential source of food for spoilage organisms, hence the need for more sulfites.

The benefit of adding fruit is that you get a strong fruit flavor that has not been changed from the yeast during fermentation.

 

[jay2020]

@jgmillr1
so at what point might I add this fruit?

Should I wait until my wine ferments fully dry (like to SG .990)

Or can I add it before that? (like racking again while my airlocks are still bubbling?)

If refermentation occurs, does this just mean regularly replacing flooded airlocks, or is it much worse than that?

The benefit of adding fruit is that you get a strong fruit flavor that has not been changed from the yeast during fermentation.

This is what I think I am looking for.

 

[G259]

I think that you need to MAKE SURE that you add sorbate before you do anything. I would wait for fermentation to complete first, and after sorbate, you can add fruit. I would add pectic enzyme at this point as well.

 

[G259]

. . . you could add the fruit first, but the sugars would cause a re-ferment, and your ABV calculations would be upset. I think what you are looking for is more 'body', so after stabilization would be the way to go.

 

[G259]

BTW, pre-fermentation calculations, adding more fruit, would achieve the same results. Adjustments are what we do, so roll with it!

 

[user 36973]

so at what point might I add this fruit?

I think @G259 addressed your question completely. If you're not in a hurry, you should let the wine finish fermenting and let the yeast settle out of it before adding the fruit. A couple rackings over a month or two should work.

The goal is to remove as much viable yeast as possible before adding in fermentable sugars. Sorbate only interferes with yeast propagation and will not prevent viable yeast from working on residual sugar.