How to sanitise cherries?

I intend to make a melomel based on a Polish trójniak with (sour) cherries. As we're in season, I will probably buy fresh fruit at my local grocery store or market. What I wonder about is how to best sanitise the cherries without stripping them of their flavour.

I was thinking about giving them a quick Starsan bath and/or spraying them with 70% ethanol before chopping and freezing. Is this a good idea? I am aware that freezing alone will kill off some, but not all of the bacteria and wild yeast that can be found on fresh fruit.

In case it's relevant, trójniak is one part honey and two parts water (by volume), resulting in an OG ~35°P (1.154). My mead yeast strain has 21% alcohol tolerance.

Topic sanitation fruit mead homebrew

Category Mac

1
answered at

No point in using StarSan to sterilise fruit of any description. It will not be very effective as it can only affect the surface and contains phosphoric acid and a surfactant (basically a "detergent" wetting agent). If one had to wash the fruit then metabisulphite (Campden tablets) would be a good alternative.

I would use a microwave on the cherries in a clip top plastic food container. It is only necessary to pasteurise the cherries which can be done at temperatures around 70C for about a minute or so. If you have a sous vide then the cherries can be sealed in a bag and held at 70C for (say) 5 minutes. YMMV.

To capture all the volatile flavours and olefactants one could heat the cherries in (some of) the water to be used. One could chop and de-stone the cherries and then add in one go to some water at (say) 80C. Keep a lid or other cover on the vessel and let it cool (or add more cold water) until at a suitable temperature to add the yeast. A sous vide could do the same thing in much the same way.

Alternatively wait until the alcohol level of the brew is high enough that it will naturally inhibit bacteria. Adding cherries then ("in seconday") would be a viable alternative.

Freezing fruit is not an effective method of sterilising it - although it tends to be fatal to any bugs inside.

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