On plums and cloudiness

I have about 2 gallons of plum wine (from Jack Keller's recipe, made with garden plums) which has been fermenting since Friday, meaning primary fermentation is all but done, though I haven't gotten the glassware I need for secondary vessels quite yet.

All well so far. However, there's this whole issue of clearing. I don't feel like racking my wine back and worth (losing much in the process, surely) for half a year, I would like to bottle it and forget it ASAP.

So I figure I need to add some finings. I'm new to all this (in case you somehow couldn't tell) but I've ordered Bentonite, Gelatin and liquid glass (the latter two to be used together). I've also got Pectolase.

I figure, after racking once, I add pectolase, wait a few days and rack again. If needed, I add Bentonite, and rack after a little while. If THAT doesn't work either, I add the Gelatin + liquid glass combo and hope for the best.

Thoughts, help, suggestions? Thank you.

It will clear. It's only been what? 4 days or so? If you don't wait for it to clear, and bottle it when fermentation is done, it'll still clear. It'll just clear in the bottle, leaving all the crap and stuff in your bottle. You won't have less sediment if you use finings that if you use time. I don't see the appeal of putting chemicals and shellfish parts in your wine to hurry it, since the end result (and the timing) will be approximately the same.

You won't have to rack plum wine more than about two times total. My last plum wine had brown flesh, so the fermenter actually looked like it contained sewage water. After about 3 weeks, though, it cleared and I racked it and it's a beautiful pale pink color. I bottled it when it was about 6 months old.

Ah, so your point is that the only upside to waiting for it to clear before bottling, is that you won't have the sediment in the bottle? That makes a lot of sense, and I think I can live with having the sediment there.

Right now I've got it in one of those buckets - I've got some glass jugs of appropriate on the way that'll be good for secondary. I figure I'll rack it to those, wait for fermentation to stop (probably with stabilization to be sure), and then bottle it.

Tubba said:

Ah, so your point is that the only upside to waiting for it to clear before bottling, is that you won't have the sediment in the bottle? That makes a lot of sense, and I think I can live with having the sediment there.

Right now I've got it in one of those buckets - I've got some glass jugs of appropriate on the way that'll be good for secondary. I figure I'll rack it to those, wait for fermentation to stop (probably with stabilization to be sure), and then bottle it.

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I thought the same thing on my first batch and I hated the sediment so much. If you wait 3 weeks in secondary and the mix gelatin with 8 oz hot water (below boiling) and dump it in and give a good shake and usually within a week it will be clear. I love gelatin but I've never used isinglass.

krisabsinthe said:

I thought the same thing on my first batch and I hated the sediment so much. If you wait 3 weeks in secondary and the mix gelatin with 8 oz hot water (below boiling) and dump it in and give a good shake and usually within a week it will be clear. I love gelatin but I've never used isinglass.

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That sounds like a good and reasonable alternative.


(for the record, I was going thinking of using liquid glass, which is sodium silicate, not isinglass which is collagen [a protein, makes up much of your skin, muscles, sinews etc] and in practice the same thing as gelatin)

I took a hydrometer measurement again today. Original gravity was a bit higher than I expected (dues to size constraints I couldn't measure it while adding the sugar, I went halfway between Jack Keller's 2 recipes), it was 1.110. Current gravity is 1.040, meaning a percentage around 10%. If I let it ferment "all the way" it'll end up around 15%, which I understand will take a lot of time to taste good.

However, the airlock has been silent since yesterday, and I haven't stirred since then. If I just rack it to a secondary vessel and then leave it be, do you think it'll be fine?

Fermenting seemed to have stopped - I stirred, and no activity. I added stabilizer to make sure, and then moved the batch to a perfect-size small damejeanne. I put an ad hoc-seal on it, from a wine cork with two shrink foil caps around it, and then 3 layers of tin foil, each layer secured with multiple rubber bands. I think that should be airtight, but I'll be getting bunges that fit tomorrow.