I have a few Sam's club cheap kits (Merlot, supposedly!) and was thinking of
adding elderberries to one of them to try and improve results-Plan on adding
35g to the 23 litres.

I know the berroes are normally added to the primary, which woud be 10 days at
most, but would there be any value adding them to the secondary instead? That
way I could have them in the kit for 6 weeks or so, instead of 10 days. (I
can't see me trying to use them in both--after 10 days in a primary they just
become part of the lees at the bottom, and I don't want to transfer all that
over to the secondary)

Any thoughts?

On 4/11/04 5:32 PM, in article ,
"Insprucegrove" > wrote:

> I have a few Sam's club cheap kits (Merlot, supposedly!) and was thinking of
> adding elderberries to one of them to try and improve results-Plan on adding
> 35g to the 23 litres.
>
> I know the berroes are normally added to the primary, which woud be 10 days at
> most, but would there be any value adding them to the secondary instead? That
> way I could have them in the kit for 6 weeks or so, instead of 10 days. (I
> can't see me trying to use them in both--after 10 days in a primary they just
> become part of the lees at the bottom, and I don't want to transfer all that
> over to the secondary)
>
> Any thoughts?
>
>

Hmm, considering many mead-makers often add fruit to the secondary with good
results, I think it should be fine. It certainly can't hurt.

One of the main reasons for removing the fruit from the wine after 3 days to
a week is so the deteriorating fruit skins and seeds will not add off
flavors. What you might do is put them in a mesh bag and suspend them in
the carboy. I do not know that I would want fruit must in contact with the
wine for 6 weeks.

Ray

"Insprucegrove" > wrote in message
...
> I have a few Sam's club cheap kits (Merlot, supposedly!) and was thinking
of
> adding elderberries to one of them to try and improve results-Plan on
adding
> 35g to the 23 litres.
>
> I know the berroes are normally added to the primary, which woud be 10
days at
> most, but would there be any value adding them to the secondary instead?
That
> way I could have them in the kit for 6 weeks or so, instead of 10 days.
(I
> can't see me trying to use them in both--after 10 days in a primary they
just
> become part of the lees at the bottom, and I don't want to transfer all
that
> over to the secondary)
>
> Any thoughts?
>
>

I use a 6.8 gallon glass carboy with an anti-foaming agent. When I use
elderberries, I usually let the primary go for about 2 weeks or so for a bit
of extended contact time, and I usually add about 3/4 to 1 full cup of
elderberries (50g?). I wonder if the yeasts help break down the berries and
extract their colour and flavour. I just assumed that but I'm not
absolutely sure. I'm also a bit worried about excessive contact of skins or
seeds tainting the flavour in some kind of negative way, but again that's
just my intuition but I don't know for sure. I made some red wine vinegar
and soaked a lot of elderberries in it for a long time, and not as much
elderberry flavour was extracted as I was hoping -- but comparing vinegar to
wine is hardly going to be a fair comparison.

Another risk may be that there might be some unwanted spoilage in the
berries, and adding them to the secondary may introduce this spoilage.
However, adding them at the primary, the CO2 and yeast can help kill off the
nasties so you don't have a problem there. Then again, as someone else said
in this thread, meadmakers often add fruit later too -- but sometimes it's
more of a sweet mead with higher alcohol percentages so this may protect the
wine better too, or they are careful to pasteurize the fruit beforehand,
etc.. which all is a lot more work.

With the way I do it, it seems to come out nicer for me than just adding
berries in the first 7 days or so, and is pretty painless in terms of work
required. If you're looking for more flavour but using only a 7-10 day
primary, personally I'd just add double the amount of berries to the primary
rather than try to mess about with the secondary.

LG

4nospam (Insprucegrove) wrote:

>I have a few Sam's club cheap kits (Merlot, supposedly!) and was thinking of
>adding elderberries to one of them to try and improve results-Plan on adding
>35g to the 23 litres.
>
>I know the berroes are normally added to the primary, which woud be 10 days at
>most, but would there be any value adding them to the secondary instead? That
>way I could have them in the kit for 6 weeks or so, instead of 10 days. (I
>can't see me trying to use them in both--after 10 days in a primary they just
>become part of the lees at the bottom, and I don't want to transfer all that
>over to the secondary)
>
>Any thoughts?