Ken Schramm joins me this week to discuss which fruits work best in meads.
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Topics in This Week’s Episode (51:42)
- This week I welcome back Ken Schramm from Schramm’s Meadery. Ken literally “wrote the book” on mead making called The Compleat Meadmaker (Amazon affiliate link). Ken was also a founding member of the Mazer cup and has won numerous national awards including a lifetime achievement award from the American Homebrewers Association. His meadery arguably makes some of the highest rated meads in the world from fresh fruit, spices and honey.
- We start with a short discussion of Ken’s progress with the farm where he’s growing varieties of fruits specifically for making meads to find out which varieties work best.
- We talk about the type of mead that Ken makes – which is basically very high gravity fruit meads (Melomels) with a big flavor impact.
- Ken introduces his “Noble” fruits which he believes are the top fruits to use in meads including fruits like tart cherries, raspberries, currants and blackberries.
- We discuss how the acidity and tannins provide the flavor and structure needed for a large gravity mead with a substantial amount of residual sweetness.
- Ken explains why some acidic fruits like cranberries actually don’t work that well in a fruit mead.
- He also tells us why many stone fruits and lighter fruits like peaches, blueberries and strawberries don’t hold up well to fermentation.
- We talk about low acid fruits like pears and apples and how they can work with certain mead styles.
- Ken talks about the importance of family businesses and how many of the problems he is trying to solve actually could span multiple generations.
- He finishes with a description of why mead making is a team sport and requires a lot of people working together.
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