Fruit infusion brews?

[kungfu]

hI all experienced brewers! I'm new and I have a question...

I'm planning on trying a brew based on a kind of plum tea we have here in Taiwan (which is where I'm based).

It uses big dried plums, a kind of sour flower and some bark type stuff, and it has a kind of tart, smoky taste. I reckon it will taste amazing when fermented and it will be cheap to produce.

My plan is to boil up around 5 gallons of the stuff with a healthy amount of brown sugar and some Lallvin champagne yeast, then ferment it out and see how it goes.

Are there any potential problems with this idea? I've only made one batch of hard cider so far (which turned out pretty nice considering I used bread yeast), but the cost here is prohibitive as apple juice is so expensive it works out about the same as buying beer in the shops!

Any advice before I start would be warmly welcomed.
Aaron

 

[hopsalot]

go for it, you say your last cider was good, so follow the same process.

 

[kungfu]

Thanks, I'm gona try it.

I'm just wondering, how much sugar I should add per gallon of liquid to get a brew with an ABV of about 5 or 6% ? (the base infusion will have zero sugar)

Also, I've never seen anyone talk about using fructose syrup to sweeten. Is there any reason for this?

Thanks again for your support

 

[kungfu]

Just thought I'd post an update for anyone who's interested.
All seems to be going well. I have my primary up and running at around 18 liters of liquid. It's bubbling nicely (about 16 big burps a minute) and seems to be pretty violent as the inside of the primary container is spattered with debris in the space at the top, and the trub is about an inch thick.
I'd post a picture but I'm not sure how.

 

[david_42]

Fructose is 100% fermentable, so you have to kill the yeast to use it as a sweetener.

I made a plum cider using wild plums and apple juice when I lived in California.