Plum wine is so good I made 25 litres.

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EoinMag

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So I made a plum wine there a little while back, it's still only 10 weeks or so old, but it's really really good already.
Basically there's not a lot of it left so I decided to do another one today.
The recipe was made up on the fly from fresh plums.

I juiced about ten kg of plums and kept back the pulp, I brought this up to 25 litres with campden treated water in the fermenting bucket then added 5kg of sugar and the pulp and then pitched yeast on top.

I'll primary it for about a week or so and then I'll rack it off into a better bottle style bottle and ferment it a while.

The recipe is very rough as you can see, the last time I boiled, but I don't want to add pectic enzyme this time so I've done it with the juicer instead.
I'll report back when I have had a try.
 
Congrats on stepping it up in size, I just saw your other update so I am going back to check out your tea recipe.
 
Llama I'll have a stab at the recipe later when I get home, although this is more of a rose made from plums than a japanese style sweet plum wine.
 
I went up to check on the primary just a few minutes ago, what a mess, it's exploded all over the floor. It looks like just cracking the lid a bit wasn't enough for the wine with all the floating solids as it would be for a beer. It's spilled about a kilo of fruit must, luckily I have the bin stood in a black plastic bin bag so it's only spilled a bit on the wooden floor. I was trying to overfill it to make up for the loss I'd have due to the amount of fruit solids I added. I've learned a lesson at least.
 
I wish I knew enough about plums to help here. I would love to find a nice sweet Japanese style plum wine recipe for the wife, but if it comes out more dry, I wouldn't mind adding a recipe for myself to the ol' toolbox.

Cheers, Slainte, and Kanpai! :mug:
 
The plums were yellow fleshed, but the skin gets mixed up with the whole lot when it oxidises it all goes a kinda red colour. I think the pink/rosé colour comes primarily from the skin rather than the flesh.

I still have to post the recipe, it's just a case of dragging it out of my lazy brain again.
 
Ok so recipe time.
The first plum wine I made, the recipe of which I modified by adding a lot more fruit for the large batch and less sugar is as follows.
If the large batch turns out good then I'll reproduce it.
I started with Jack Kellers directions and modified for what I had available.
# 6 lbs plums (ish)
# 1-1/2 lbs fine granulated sugar
# Water to one gallon
# Juice of one lemon instead of acid blend.
# Pectic enzyme I added per instructions later on in the process well into secondary.
# 3/4 tsp yeast nutrient
# A cup of strong black tea as I didn't have wine tannin.
# KVI 1116 yeast as that's the wine yeast I had on hand.

I used a boil extraction which produced a very pink milky wine until I added the pectic enzyme which then cleared the wine very well and turned it a beautiful pink colour.
I left the fruit must in the primary in a bucket and siphoned from under it to go to secondary when I put the airlock on.
That's more or less it for the one I've tasted, if the other turns out then I'll report back on that with a kinda hit and miss recipe which is what I did on the day cos I had a ton of plums and just decided to juice them all.
 
I moved the large wine to the secondary fermenter yesterday, added some more yeast nutrient, some wine tannin and some campden. It's bubbling along nicely again.
 
Thanks for posting the recipe and the updates.

I've got a ton of questions though.

Since it appears to me that this is a current project, rather than a past batch that you are telling us about, are these plums imported to a market local to you?

I can't believe that plums are ripe in Ireland this time of year! Surely these came from below the equator.

And, did you possibly take a specific gravity (SG) reading of the fresh squeezed juice, as well as one after adding the sugar?

I would love to know those numbers if at all possible.

Thanks,

Pogo
 
I get the plums from a street market, probably Dutch imports, not sure of provenance.
I'm talking of two batches, one that I've done and one that is a work in progress.
I've not been too good with numbers to be honest, I didn't even take an OG on the large batch nor did I take an FG on the original batch. As I get more experienced I'll bother with the hydrometer more, sorry about that.
 
Since the last postings, the first batch of plum wine is all gone, and the second, large batch, is still in the secondary, I will rack and take it off the lees shortly.
I took a sample the other night to test and this stuff is coming on fantastically.
It tastes a lot better than the first batch but there is a lot more plum juice proportionally in it and the colour is a beautiful err plum colour.

I'll possibly take another sample this weekend and show some photos.
The flavour is much more like the Japanese style plum wines and I can guarantee that plum wine will become a regular for me if they are all this good.

The main problem is, and this must change, I am not taking notes when I am making these things, and I should be for replications sake.
 
I have a large ozark plum tree and much of the fruit goes to waste so I am V interested in this. Maybe I should try a plum/cider mix next year.
 
Personally I'd not bother with the apples, unless those ozark plums don't taste good to eat.
Your call but pure plum is tasty according to my experiments thusfar.
 
With 1-1/2 pounds of sugar and an unspecified quantity of water your wine is hardly pure plum! I am just a bit averse to adding water and sugar, I prefer to use juice. perhaps if I did a plum/pear mix it would be closer to your wine, pear juice is pretty neutral.
Ozark plums are pretty nice, they are an american variety and very reliable bearers.
 
With 1-1/2 pounds of sugar and an unspecified quantity of water your wine is hardly pure plum! I am just a bit averse to adding water and sugar, I prefer to use juice. perhaps if I did a plum/pear mix it would be closer to your wine, pear juice is pretty neutral.
Ozark plums are pretty nice, they are an american variety and very reliable bearers.

Without adding sugar, your ABV will be too low to preserve the wine. Sugar is added to boost the alcohol. Even apple juice, if fermented out by itself, will only give you approximately 7% ABV. If you want a table wine of 12.5-13% ABV, that's almost impossible with just fruit and no sugar (except for wine grapes).

It's very common in country wines to use sugar (and some water, to bring up the volume) in many fruit wines.
 
Yeah, I know it is standard for country wines to use sugar and water, I didn't mean to criticise the practice. Everyone has their own way of doing things, because I live on a farm and have access to lots of fruit juice, this is what I prefer. I do think a well made cider at 7% will keep pretty well, at least as long as it takes me to drink it.
My interest in this thread is because I wasn't sure if fermented pear juice would taste good so it is interesting to hear positive comments on the result.
 
With 1-1/2 pounds of sugar and an unspecified quantity of water your wine is hardly pure plum! I am just a bit averse to adding water and sugar, I prefer to use juice. perhaps if I did a plum/pear mix it would be closer to your wine, pear juice is pretty neutral.
Ozark plums are pretty nice, they are an american variety and very reliable bearers.


Yeah what I meant by pure plum was flavour related. I understand why you'd like to stick to pure juices, but you won't produce wine without the addition of sugars and water will bring the volume up.
I might try a plum wine at some point with pure juice, it'd certainly be interesting but a lot of work to get 25 litres of juice, as it was with that lot I had about ten litres and it took quite a while to juice them all, and broke a juicer too as I missed a stone or two on the way.
 
My father in law makes at least one batch of plum a year (6 gallon) - usually uses 1/2 bushel (~28 lbs) of fruit and 12 lbs of sugar if I recall correctly. 4 months to the bottle and 7 months to the glass. He's been making wine 40 years and still doesn't make 2 batches the exact same way - this will end up a bit dry sometimes - others a bit sweet - but my oh my! Popped a 2003 the other night and it was wonderful! Not sure how we kept a bottle that long - this family usually can't do that. Must have fallen between the cracks somewhere...
 
He's been making wine 40 years and still doesn't make 2 batches the exact same way - this will end up a bit dry sometimes - others a bit sweet
Thats one of the great things about home brewing, you never get the same wine twice. How does he get the juice from the plums? or does he just ferment the whole fruit pulped. Maybe i should try this recipe, the plums are always earlier than the pears and apples anyway. I usually have about 50-100 lbs go to waste.
 
I've used this thing for juicing,
Philips-HR1861.jpg


well this one is the replacement for the previous model which broke which didn't have the metal hopper tube which is what broke previously.
I'd say if your doing a hundred pound or more you should consider investing in a cider press, I have one of these too, but I only use it for large amounts of fruit.
cider_press.jpg
 
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