Plum wine

I have just been given a ****load of plums and I would like to make some plum wine. I have found many different recipes by searching on Google™, but some recipes are much more complicated that others. I've never made this before, so do I REALLY need to add things such as grape tannin, citric acid, yeast nutrients etc or can I make a good product using simply water, sugar, plums and yeast? If I use enough plums then do I really need to add sugar?

The nutrient will help you manage a healthy fermentation. The tannin and acid help balance the wine. You can make wine without these items but, at best, it won't be nearly as good and at worst may not even be worth drinking. You can also make wine without sugar but the final product will likely be about as strong as a standard beer and it won't have much shelf life. You need a hydrometer to give you an indication where to start your wine and to see when it's finished.

I have a old book called, Easy To Make Wine, by Gennery-Taylor.
With Additional Recipes for Cocktails, Cider,Beer Fruit Syrups and Herb Teas. This is a older book but these are simple home brew recipes which have stood the test of years, and the ingredients can be easily found in garden's and field's. No expensive equipment is required. All you need is a large saucepan or preserving pan, an earthenware or china bowl, and some bottles with corks. Most of the recipes are what my grandmother used 35yrs ago, when I was a teen and I was the helper, she is gone now so I don't have a teacher any more but I have some of the recipes to try but wine making has evolved and if you learn to use the basic science used now you can make the same wine but it will age better and taste better. We made a really good Welch's grape juice concentrate wine back then so I emailed welch's and they mailed me the new and improved recipe. I started two gal of welch's wine and 6 gal Merlot they tasted the same before I put the yeast in but the Merlot cost me 75$ to start from a Kit and I could have bought the oak chips that come with the Merlot for pennies on the dollar for what I have in the grape concentrate cost me. If want the recipe I will send it to you when I get back in town from work. It is my bed time I have to leave for work.

I made a plum mead back in september, so maybe it could help you get a better grasp of what to do with your wine?

I had 20# of plums, a mixture of red yellow and blue plums.that I split between primary and secondary: 9#in primary, 11# secondary. I peeled the majority of them, keeping some of the skins from the red plums for some tannin and color extraction.

I balanced my O.G. to 1.100, which came out to 20# of honey into 6 gallons of water. I started with such a high volume because I figured I would lose a lot to the pulpy goop that once were the plums. I wound up with about a 7 gallon yield.

Used 71-B after researching different plum wine/mead recipes and that seemed the preferred yeast, as plums have a high amount of malic acid. Using staggered nutrient additions, the yeast took the mead dry, and I am just about ready to backsweeten and age it for a few more months. It cleared after about a month out of secondary.

Check out "The Joy of Home Winemaking" by Terry Garey and/or Jack Keller's website. Both have recipes for all kinds of fruit wines including plum.

We have made wine out of four or five varieties of plums. Some are better than others. The addition of tannin, yeast nutrient and sugar will help you greatly, as will checking the acid. We would put the plums in a plastic food-grade barrel and smash them with a drywall mud paddle. Ferment and "press".

Don't forget, the squirrels love the plum pits.