Absurd persimmon project

[Llysse]

Wow--too cool! We have persimmon trees, the native variety, and they taste simply amazing. But yes, you can't eat them until they look as if they've gone bad; then they're like candy. The pectinase--I hope you used enough. In fact, I've thought about trying pectinase in our jam to actually try to reduce the amount of pectin in the raw fruit so we don't have to add water to make sure the jam doesn't get too thick... normally you want to ADD pectin to jams.

Ye gods, I love persimmons. I hope to hear this goes well so maybe we can follow your example (on a much smaller scale--we only have four trees) with our own persimmons next year.

 

[aardvark]

This morning before leaving for work I took a look at the barrels and what I saw is captured below. If you compare the picture below from this morning to the last ones I posted, you will see that what was 2 or so inches of head space below the threads is now 1/2 and inch.

After stirring and getting a lot of CO2 out the level dropped, but I'm a little worried that all that pulp will trap the CO2 and that if I leave it for too long (say while I'm at work), that it will bubble over. Oh well.

 

[twohands]

This morning before leaving for work I took a look at the barrels and what I saw is captured below. If you compare the picture below from this morning to the last ones I posted, you will see that what was 2 or so inches of head space below the threads is now 1/2 and inch.

After stirring and getting a lot of CO2 out the level dropped, but I'm a little worried that all that pulp will trap the CO2 and that if I leave it for too long (say while I'm at work), that it will bubble over. Oh well.

Um, maybe transfer 5 gallons from each FGB into carboys? or Ale pails? It would give you the necessary headroom in the FGBs.

 

[Baja_Brewer]

Wow...just wow, can't wait to see what becomes of it!

 

[fredthecat]

lol thats pretty amazing, and i know i saw a recipe for persimmon wine in my CJJ Berry book! good luck!!!

 

[Scut_Monkey]

Am I the only one that dosen't know what a persimmon is and is too lazy to google it?

 

[WIP]

If you stare at that last picture long enough, it gives the illusion it is moving and bubbling.





Ok, so I am home sick today and on medications...

 

[aardvark]

oh my, this is what I woke up to this morning:

 

[twohands]

So i guess the ferment is going nicely :rockin:

What are you going to do?

 

[Teromous]

That is awesome. I'd like to see what that'd do to a traditional air lock. I bet it'd rattle like a tank!

 

[conpewter]

Cool project! I think it will turn out nice, though perhaps rather dry because of the wine yeast. How do you plan to secondary (if it was ~125 gallons of pulp...)

 

[Randar]

Oh man, I started a thread on persimmon mead and it seems nobody has tried it either. I am currently fermenting a medium show mead with D47 to act as the base and I will probably make 2 different batches when I make fruit additions later.

I scooped the pulp out of one box of ripe Hachiya persimmons (about 8 lbs of pulp) and froze it to break down the cells and control the wild yeast.

BTW, persimmons are very high in tannins which is why I chose to remove the skins as to avoid an overpowering tannin profile. No idea how mine will turn out either, so good luck to us all!

 

[outdoorsmadness]

If you stare at that last picture long enough, it gives the illusion it is moving and bubbling.

and you can smell it too

 

[aardvark]

I'm sure the vigorous fermentation is partly as a result of the 1oz of yeast nutrient that we added to each barrel last night.

That picture was taken this morning around 7am. At that point I skimmed everything off the top, which was a lot of pulp and skins. When I went home for lunch, it was pretty much the same situation. I skimmed off some more and then pulled enough out of each barrel to fill a 5 gallon bucket.

 

[aardvark]

I forgot to mention, but the night before last, before fermentation really took off, I followed gratus fermentatio's (thanks gf) suggestion and pushed a strainer down into the push and collected what pooled in it. It was still pretty thick, but I froze it, defrosted it and skimmed off the thickest of it. It was still too thick to take a hydro reading though.

So today, on my lunch break I took it by the LHBS and asked if they might be able to take a reading using a refractometer. The interchange went something like this:

me: "I was wondering if it would be possible for you to take a reading from this with the refractometer."
LHBS Guy: "hmmmm..." as he looks at the very orange liquid in the jar. "Can't get an accurate reading. It's too viscous."
me: "oh, that's too bad."
guy: "yeah, it's too viscous." As he pulls the lid off and smells it. "What is it?"
me: "Persimmons."
guy: "ah, persimmons don't have much sugar." Looking at the jar. "I don't think you could get an accurate hydrometer reading either. Too viscous."
me: "From what little research I could do I thought they were about 15%"
guy: "yeah, not that much sugar. How did you process the persimmons?"
me: "ummmm...we took the persimmons and mashed them up."
guy: "yeah...lot of pulp that way, that's why its so viscous. Probably not going to get an accurate reading."
me: nods head
guy: "how much of this do you have?"
me: "100 gallons"
guy: "Let me go see if I can get a reading."

And he did...15% on the nose.

 

[WIP]

Awesome. .

 

[dwells]

Brilliant!
My feeble one gallon batch now needs therapy for its feelings of inadequacy.

 

[twohands]

I forgot to mention, but the night before last, before fermentation really took off, I followed gratus fermentatio's (thanks gf) suggestion and pushed a strainer down into the push and collected what pooled in it. It was still pretty thick, but I froze it, defrosted it and skimmed off the thickest of it. It was still too thick to take a hydro reading though.

So today, on my lunch break I took it by the LHBS and asked if they might be able to take a reading using a refractometer. The interchange went something like this:

me: "I was wondering if it would be possible for you to take a reading from this with the refractometer."
LHBS Guy: "hmmmm..." as he looks at the very orange liquid in the jar. "Can't get an accurate reading. It's too viscous."
me: "oh, that's too bad."
guy: "yeah, it's too viscous." As he pulls the lid off and smells it. "What is it?"
me: "Persimmons."
guy: "ah, persimmons don't have much sugar." Looking at the jar. "I don't think you could get an accurate hydrometer reading either. Too viscous."
me: "From what little research I could do I thought they were about 15%"
guy: "yeah, not that much sugar. How did you process the persimmons?"
me: "ummmm...we took the persimmons and mashed them up."
guy: "yeah...lot of pulp that way, that's why its so viscous. Probably not going to get an accurate reading."
me: nods head
guy: "how much of this do you have?"
me: "100 gallons"
guy: "Let me go see if I can get a reading."

And he did...15% on the nose.

The last 2 lines have so much win i don't know what to say...

 

[DaveAllen]

Looking for the daily photo...

 

[outdoorsmadness]

thats going to be a lot of bottles and corks, are you prepaiired for that?:rockin:

 

[Teromous]

After you said 100 gallons he was probably thinking:
"Sweet, dibs on some of that goodness." :rockin:

 

[aardvark]

Looking for the daily photo...

Sorry to disappoint. Yesterday was a pretty uneventful day. We added 1oz of yeast nutrient, but that's about it.

As for racking and bottling, we are totally unprepared. Racking probably involves another barrel and a lot of skimming of pulp. We may rent a press and run the pulp through it to get all the juice that we can.

 

[Paddle_Head]

If you have a very viscous material and want to take a refrac reading (especially if there are alot of skins/pulp floating in it). But a dollup in a kimwipe (I'd guess any simple not frangranced tissue could work too), and take a reading on the drops of liquid you can get to squeeze through. It's how you check the solids on tomato paste.

 

[jcobbs]

Sorry to disappoint. Yesterday was a pretty uneventful day. We added 1oz of yeast nutrient, but that's about it.

As for racking and bottling, we are totally unprepared. Racking probably involves another barrel and a lot of skimming of pulp. We may rent a press and run the pulp through it to get all the juice that we can.

Be glad it's wine and not beer. You have a few months to prepare for bottling (as opposed to weeks).

 

[SSteph2747]

Hey any update on this project?

 

[aardvark]

Actually, yes. Today I added 10 lbs of sugar to one of the barrels. We decided to add sugar to one and leave the other as is. Fermentation has slowed noticeably, and I think it would have been better to add it earlier, but we do what we can. I plan on adding more sugar, but I wanted to stagger it some.

Here is a picture of me adding the sugar:

 

[brewdogskip]

Any updates on this glory project?

 

[Teromous]

Yes, more pictures! If this project went south I think a little piece of me would die inside.

 

[meading_of_minds]

I can't wait to see how this turns out. It sounds good!

 

[aardvark]

Well, not much to update. I did add a total of 20 lbs of sugar to one of the buckets. Fermentation has slowed down to the point that I can't tell if it is still fermenting or if there is just trapped CO2.

The next step is to strain out the pulp and press as much liquid out as we can. If needed, we will repeat that until there is no more pulp floating on the top. Im sure there will be some fun pictures out of that.

Then we rack. We will have to see how much liquid is left after we remove the pulp before we decide what racking will involve.

Since I have no new pictures, here are 2 movie clips to give you an idea what this is all like.

This one was taken as it was still pretty actively fermenting. No stirring or anything:
http://s977.photobucket.com/albums/ae259/aardvark23/?action=view&current=MVI_0130.flv