Texas black persimmon

I have a work buddy tell me about these black berry looking things fall off a small shrub like tree at his new house. I ask to bring me a few of them and I would identify them for them. After checking my books I have concluded they are Texas black persimmons. Now being a person with a hobby of making wine and meads has anyone made a wine or mead with them. I know these persimmons are very high in acid. So if anyone has a recipe or for a wine or mead with these fruits. If you wouldn't mind sharing it would be greatly appreciated.

Read down the list for my posts on Texas persimmons. I'm going out to the ranch this weekend and p,an to bring really ripe ones back to see what I can do. Will post the recipe once I've got it underway, but basically you do it (as I understand) similar to an elderberry or other berry wine (they are sweet when ripe but for heavens sake don't put an unripe one in the must!!!)

More next week, but there's some good info there already.

I was thinking since there about size of a muscadine grape. My thought was to treat it like making muscadine wine.

Cool. We are definitely in uncharted waters here. The only recipe I found specifically for these is on the Edible Austin website. You might enjoy looking through that.

Hey, could someone post a photo of what these look like, perhaps with a tree photo? Thx.

There ya go.

Sweet I'll check the site out. I might do just a few small batches to figure out what's the best recipe.

Whew. Back from the ranch and have 3 lb of Texas persimmon must cooling in its primary, and preparing to add the nutrient, pectic enzyme and, for a change (for me) a Campden tablet. That fruit came with enough spiders and other buggies..and some of it landed on the ground during picking...this time I want to ensure that only the yeast I put I tomorrow gets a foothold. I have another 1 3/4 lb put up in the freezer for my next trip out in two weeks.

Thank you for photos! Had never heard of these.

springmom said:

Whew. Back from the ranch and have 3 lb of Texas persimmon must cooling in its primary, and preparing to add the nutrient, pectic enzyme and, for a change (for me) a Campden tablet. That fruit came with enough spiders and other buggies..and some of it landed on the ground during picking...this time I want to ensure that only the yeast I put I tomorrow gets a foothold. I have another 1 3/4 lb put up in the freezer for my next trip out in two weeks.

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I've never seen a persimmon that I know of, but I see those trees in Texas all the time. I assume I've never seen a persimmon since we only live in TX January, February, and March, and the fruit is ripe in the fall. Very interesting to think about!

Just planted an Akita's Gift Persimmon Sunday. It's an American/Asian cross bred in the Ukraine. Apparently there's an area in there that has very similar weather to the Portland area. The fruit is much larger and bright orange, but similar to the Texas Persimmon - very astringent before it is ripe. Also, the fruit tends to stay on the tree long after the leaves fall. Does the Texas tree do the same thing?

I'll have to check back on this thread.

(The nursery had some persimmon ice cream, which instantly sold my wife on buying one.)

No. Texas persimmons ripen from about July through October. There are still green fruit on our trees at this point but they will not ripen further unless we have another prolonged warm spell.

The attached photos were taken yesterday morning. One shows the view from inside the tree depicted in the other. It's a truly old persimmon (you can tell because it's huge, they only grow a couple of feet a year) and had fruit that were much larger than other trees around the ranch (because it's near a wet weather pond that has had quite a lot of water in it this year.) You'd have to live to a couple hundred years old to have a sapling grow to this size.

Amazing! The Nikita only hits 12' or so.

Yooper said:

I've never seen a persimmon that I know of, but I see those trees in Texas all the time. I assume I've never seen a persimmon since we only live in TX January, February, and March, and the fruit is ripe in the fall. Very interesting to think about!

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Oh yeah? Where do you live when you're here? Love to meet sometime.

springmom said:

Oh yeah? Where do you live when you're here? Love to meet sometime.

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We live in Rockport, on the coast north of Corpus Christi. I only met one other homebrewer in the area, but I did "talk" to someone who lives in Ingleside which isn't far from me, so I'm hoping to get a chance to meet some other brewers and winemakers.

Cool! We live in Spring, just north of Houston, though our ranch is out in Llano. Maybe we could get. Southeast Texas HBT meet going!

However, back to the thread topic....

When I took the SG last night prior to adding the yeast, I was shocked to find it about 1.020!!! The recipe I used called for only 2 lb of sugar which at the time I thought to be awfully low. And it was. I added a half pound of honey, which brought it up to 1.060. It was late so I let it be but I'm thinking another half-pound of honey or sugar to get it up closer to 1.1. I used Pasteur red yeast, any feedback on the SG would be welcome!

I've been drying some of the fruit to collect the seeds I'm going to try to grow a few of the trees. My co-worker said he'll dig me up one of his trees to plant at my house. They are growing wild all over his property. He gave me a some more that him and his wife picked. They make a great jelly just to let everyone know.

Heh. Take him up on the offer of the transplant. It can take a long time for one to grow. If you do get one, don't coddle it these are tough Texas desert-dwellers that wouldn't know what to make of organic fish emulsion and such.

I checked my must today and good heavens did I have Kreusen! Or I assume that's what it was...looked like prune sludge. Yum. I rechecked the SG, having convinced myself I must have read it wrong...nope, 1.060. I added a half pound of sugar in one cup of water and it reminded the yeast what it was supposed to be doing, apparently :-D. So now it's bubbling away, right next to the cucumber-jalapeño mead and the Welches white grape-peach special (white grape, peach, pear and apple). Sounds like one of those little desktop fountains out in my dining room!!!

Five days later, and the PA is 3%, the Kreutzen has fallen, and the bubbles have slowed quite dramatically. It's now racked and in the closet. Still very, very cloudy, but I'll see how it looks a month from now. Smells nice, but I swear it looks like a gallon jug of Coca-Cola!

...or not.....

I checked the carboys this afternoon, a few hours after I'd racked the Texas persimmon, and it was fizzing up through the airlock! So it's back in a bucket and apparently the remaining yeast has a new lease on life as its quite fizzy and active.

What I get for jumping the gun.

Yep! I took the bag out of my blackberry cider and the fermentation took off again. Looks like Purple Cow. If you remember the '50s that is, if you don't it was half grape juice and half milk.

Heh. Yeah, though I think mom would sooner have shot herself than ever let me have purple cow! We were a Hershey's syrup and milk family

Today it was down to 1.000, so back into a sterilized carboy it went. Better stay there too, if it knows what's good for it! :rockin:

Update: the wine had dropped a fairly impressive lot of lees and crud, so it got racked tonight. FG of .990. I expect I will stabilize and back sweeten but not until I see where it's going.

It really tastes very good, if you ignore the overlay of rocket fuel which will go away on its own with time. I wasn't sure what to expect, honestly...I've eaten the persimmons (ripe) but, well, grape wine doesn't taste like grapes, really, and this doesn't exactly taste like a persimmon. More like Texas persimmons for grownups :-D

Once it clears I am SO looking forward to trying it again. Nom!!! Too bad there won't be another batch until late next summer!

One thing to anyone thinking of doing this next season: ignore altogether anyone who tells you to wait until frost for the persimmons. These things ripen continuously from roughly August to October and if you wait all you will have are a few raisins that the deer couldn't reach. Harvest throughout the season and freeze until you have enough for a batch.

I have just made a mead with some Texas Persimmons (I'm in SATX) and a basic dry mead with 3 pounds of honey per gallon of water and about 1/2 pound of fruit pulp with champagne yeast was so sweet when it finished, it tastes more like grenadine than wine.

Less honey! Less sugar! These little, black smudges are sugar bombs!