Plum Wine Opinion Needed

[jonereb]

I plan to make my first gallon of plum wine as soon as my crop ripens--I have two plum trees. I've seen recipes suggesting anywhere from 4 to 6 pounds of fruit. What say ye? I read that more fruit makes for a tarter taste.

 

[Masbustelo]

I would say to make it with just fruit, no water. I think you will find that the tartness, or pH/T.A depends on the variety and degree of ripeness. I made some plum mead last year and had to add acid.

 

[jonereb]

"Very ripe" being the operative in using fruit only. Any idea how many pounds of very ripe fruit is required to produce a gallon of juice?

 

[WVMJ]

Plums have a lot of pulp and a big seed, so like 12 pounds for a gallon depending, make sure to use pectinase. What kind of plums? They can have so much acid that 100% juice is tough to do if you wont want to sweeten it up to much, but they are well worth the effort. Our crop got frozen out this year. WVMJ

 

[jonereb]

I'm not sure what plum varieties I have...two different trees. One is a Japanese plum. The other is reddish/purple when ripe. Made excellent jelly a few years ago.

Pectinase? I have pectic enzyme, which I use when making muscadine wine.

 

[jonereb]

Typically, I would dissolve sugar in water and pour over the must to start fermentation. If I'm using only plum juice, how should I handle adding sugar?

 

[Masbustelo]

After the pectinase has worked for 24 hours put a sieve or strainer in the must and take the liquid and test your gravity. Put the sugar or honey in half of your estimated amounts so as to not overdose, if your estimate was off. Mix and test again. I would say to maybe use double the pectinase also. After three days of fermentation add bentonite.

 

[Masbustelo]

Also,I would say that perhaps after the first day of ferment as it begins to take off, check the T.A and adjust up or down for that. After the ferment, if necessary and desirable adjust the pH.

 

[Mismost]

Two of the three plum wines I have done put off a TON of lees...with a gallon batch, you may only get a couple of bottles. BUT...these plums were given to me frozen and ground up skins and all...just gallons of frozen plum mush. This year will be my first fresh fruit plum batch.

With the third one I put all the fruit into a big paint strainer bag and did the stir every day and squeeze the bag routine...many have been just as much lees as the first two, but the bag contained it...netted much more wine. Did I tell you it makes a ton of lees? So when you think it is finally clear, rack it and let it sit a few more months...unless you like stuff swirling around in the bottom of your bottles (my first batch).

All 3 were very tart...too tart. I simply use a simple syrup...little squirt in the glass and sweeten it up.

 

[jonereb]

"Too tart"...which is why some say to use only 4 to 6 pounds of plums and add distilled water with dissolved sugar to start the fermentation process...with pectic enzyme, of course. I plan to use Lalvin Cotes Des Blancs Yeast. I've never tasted plum wine, so I'm truly starting from scratch. I'd like to avoid "too tart", yet I don't want watered down wine.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

My dad made a gallon of plum wine last year that was amazing until he let it get oxidised.


I will give him a call when he get home and asked him how many pounds he used. I sent a text to my mom asking her to ask him, but it could be a while before she sees it.

 

[Masbustelo]

Another thought is that fruit with high malic acid like plums are good candidates firstly for Maurivin B and secondly 71B. Both yeasts will drop the final acid levels.

 

[jonereb]

Thanks for consulting your dad. I'll await his recommendations. 71B-1122 Norbonne is the second yeast on my list to use with Plum wine. You think I should move it to #1? Decreasing acid is obviously a good consideration.

 

[jonereb]

Another issue: when I rack plum wine, what should I use to top off? I don't have access to a commercial plum wine.

 

[Masbustelo]

I'd use the Maurivin B.

 

[jonereb]

Maurivin B "will consume up to 56% malic acid during primary fermentation". 71-B1122 consumes 40%. I think I'll try Maurivin B. Still need to know how top off after racking if I don't have a commercial plum wine. Any ideas?

 

[Masbustelo]

You can buy some plum sake and use that to top off. But really you don't even know how much you'll be making yet. Lets say, after pressing you end up with four gallons. I would suggest for your secondary container a 3 gallon carboy. The rest goes into a one gallon jug. Then as you rack, use that which is in the one gallon container, then downsize the extra. But keep it with an airlock and topped off also.

 

[eigua]

I know Umeshu is made with soju (distilled rice liquor), but if the flavor of these plum wines you all are making is anything like Umeshu, that would make me very happy and I would have to make some too.

 

[user 211287]

There is a Korean version of green plum wine also. Its takes quite a bit of time to make. The process is similar. Pack the green plums in sugar. http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/maesil-cheong

Ive been considering making the Maesil-cheong extract and then fermenting it instead of adding soju to just the plums. Then mix that with one of my homemade dry rice wines after fermentation has ended.

 

[eigua]

There is a Korean version of green plum wine also. Its takes quite a bit of time to make. The process is similar. Pack the green plums in sugar. http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/maesil-cheong

Ive been considering making the Maesil-cheong extract and then fermenting it instead of adding soju to just the plums. Then mix that with one of my homemade dry rice wines after fermentation has ended.

Wow... looks delicious too!

I think the homemade rice wine would work very well with that instead of soju. Interesting that this recipe just says to use soju without specifying the strength where the Umeshu recipes all say to use "white liquor" or soju of 35% ABV. Some say 25% ABV is okay if you can't find 35%. Most soju I've bought is 15% - 20%. So if this recipe calls for normal strength soju, your rice wine should work perfectly.

It makes me wonder how similar concoctions made with any type of unripe fruit might be -- say green apricot, unripe prune plum, unripe cherry, apple, cranberry, peach, even lemon, etc. So many possibilities...

I need to go to Japantown and see if they have these green plums available sometime soon.

 

[user 211287]

They do sell both green plum and green apricot at the better Asian markets. Occasionally green apricots are labeled as green plum. Both are a bit pricey here but i don't need much. I would be adding some of the extract and the plums to the dry fermented rice wine. Hopefully to create a 2nd fermentation and let it ferment to almost as dry.

You can buy the Korean or Japanese plum extract too but man is it expensive.

 

[eigua]

They do sell both green plum and green apricot at the better Asian markets. Occasionally green apricots are labeled as green plum. Both are a bit pricey here but i don't need much. I would be adding some of the extract and the plums to the dry fermented rice wine. Hopefully to create a 2nd fermentation and let it ferment to almost as dry.

You can buy the Korean or Japanese plum extract too but man is it expensive.

I went to Japantown the other day and they had the display all laid out for making umeshu, however the fruit they had labeled "Ume" was clearly just unripe normal apricots. They were fuzzy like apricots which and didn't have even a hint of red on any of them as I see in all pictures of Ume. At $6.50/lb plus having to wait all that time, I'd be very disappointed if it didn't taste a thing like umeshu.

 

[user 211287]

I have the same problem trying to get real Korean yuzu or yuja for making Korean tea. It looks a bit like a lemon but its not a lemon. The premade "marmalades" are usually just made with lemons and they are crazy expensive too. You make it in basically the same way as the plum extract but its much thicker/chunkier and i add honey to my Yujacha.

On a side note its harvest day for my koji based rice wine.. I have nearly 2 quarts of cold fermented, nearly 2 quarts of cold fermented with ginger and about 500ml of room temp fermented. Both the cold fermented are lighter in color. They smell fantastic too.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

Hi - sorry to take so long getting back to you. My dad is pretty sure that he used 3 pounds of plums, but it could have been 3.5. He didn't keep notes back then, but is sure that it was in that range. If it were me, I'd lean toward 3.5, keeping in mind that you might have to top off with a little water when you rack it over.


In any case, it tasted bloody good, until it got oxidized.

 

[Brewing_CSU_Ram_Fan]

I am sure that you have seen this recipe since you probably Googled plum wine recipe.

https://morewinemaking.com/content/plum-wine-recipe

I used this recipe and it made great plum wine. I went closer to the 6 lbs side. The only difference is that I used a merlot yeast that dried the wine out. It was extremely tasty and everyone loved it. Also very strong. Sadly our plum trees died last year after a 70 degree shift into a big freeze occurred in one day.

 

[jonereb]

The morewinemaking recipe is very close to the recipe I plan to use, though I'll cut back on the sugar a bit.

 

[eigua]

I have the same problem trying to get real Korean yuzu or yuja for making Korean tea. It looks a bit like a lemon but its not a lemon. The premade "marmalades" are usually just made with lemons and they are crazy expensive too. You make it in basically the same way as the plum extract but its much thicker/chunkier and i add honey to my Yujacha.

That sounds very tasty! I've never seen yuzu sold fresh or frozen here (San Francisco), but I did hear some farmers markets have them at certain times of the year (Sept - Jan I think). I wonder if that might be the case in your area. I haven't checked the Korean stores yet though because the biggest one is quite far away.

I know they sell pickled yuzu and ume in the Japanese stores, but I expect these would be too off in flavor to use, especially since the ingredients usually list salt. I've seen the jars of tea "jelly" but I've never tried it before.

On a side note its harvest day for my koji based rice wine.. I have nearly 2 quarts of cold fermented, nearly 2 quarts of cold fermented with ginger and about 500ml of room temp fermented. Both the cold fermented are lighter in color. They smell fantastic too.

Interesting! I haven't heard of cold fermenting rice wine before. I'm curious to know your comparisons between the cold fermented and room temperature fermented versions.

I'm just finishing up my first batches of rice wine (various different rices, rice flour, amounts of water, and pureed or not). It's been a lot of fun. Since I had the best results with the traditional method using whole sweet rice, I started a 7 cup dry batch of that today but I'm reusing the rice solids from the last smaller batch for a starter + some additional dry proper starter. Curious to see if that will work well.

All this talk about umeshu has suddenly got me into making extract "wines" with vodka in the same manner as you would make umeshu. (Vodka is a bit cheaper than 35% ABV shochu.) So far I have dried apricot, coconut, and toasted coconut versions going. I may do cherry and raspberry. I'd love to find some small unripe plums and try a plum extract wine with those since I can't find ume, but all the stores around here (including Chinatown) only seem to have the typical large purple or red plums. I guess what I'd be looking for is prune plums. I've considered the dried or pickled plums sold in East Asian grocery stores, but again, they usually have a lot of salt.

Sorry for the thread drift!