Comment on Beginner Questions
owenfromcanada@lemmy.ca 6 days ago Thanks for the input! I actually froze the fruit before adding it (both to kill as much bacteria as possible as well as breaking down the cell walls for better infusion). I don’t know that it counts as “sanitizing” to freeze it, but I read somewhere that it helps. I’m using Lalvin D47 currently, seems easy enough to get going aggressively.
Freezing does not help much with life that has any chance of surviving the yeast onslaught; the only thing it probably does - it slows cell development down to about same amount of time it takes dry yeast to wake up, thus with a starter you get more of head start for the good guys, and that’s all that you really need. Freezing also often results in better sugar availability, as some plants (well I suppose berries mostly) trigger sugar conversion on overwintering naturally. D47 is good for fruits, I maintain its descendant in a pure culture and it’s one of my favorites for mead.