plums

[iceo]

ok i have never made a real wine just wows
i was given by next door 2.2kg of yellow/blushed plums not sure what to do with them. as thats a lot of plums just to eat on there own.
firstly what are the plums


i know not to boil them as you get a haze in the finished wine.

 

[oldbloke]

3lb is enough for a gallon of wine, use the rest for crumble or to flavour rum or just eat them.
For the wine, wash (maybe with some Campden i the wash water), stone, and preferably leave in freezer overnight. Hack 'em up and google up as many plum wine recipes as poss and average them. Been a while since I made plum so can't recall what I did. Will look it up later when I'm not cooking...

 

[iceo]

3lb is enough for a gallon of wine, use the rest for crumble or to flavour rum or just eat them.
For the wine, wash (maybe with some Campden i the wash water), stone, and preferably leave in freezer overnight. Hack 'em up and google up as many plum wine recipes as poss and average them. Been a while since I made plum so can't recall what I did. Will look it up later when I'm not cooking...

thank you iv got one recipe but its for 5 different plums and 5 gallon so not much good to me.

do i need WGJ?

you cooking any thing nice?

 

[oldbloke]

Well you don't /need/ to use 5 different plums, you'll get _a_ plum wine out of it.
And just divide quantities by 5 (except yeast)

Just standard sossies&chips, but I was right in the middle of it

2011-09-23 4lbs plums halved and stoned; 75g raisins; crushed Campden tablet; 5g root ginger, thinly sliced; 2 cloves; 1/4tsp citric; 1/4tsp tartaric; 1/2lb sugar
(b) version has a finely sliced 5/8" piece of vanilla pod
Around 1/2 gallon boiling water; covered and left for 5hrs; 1/2 gallon cold water; 2.5g pectolase; covered and leave ~3 days
Strained, brought to boil (just), poured over 2lb sugar; Gervin GV5 yeast(half pack per gallon) + 1tsp nutrient per gallon
Picthed at just under 30 - rehydrated at 35, so less shock, in theory
2011-11-22 Racked with sulphite.
I note I didn't actually bottle it for several more months, and it needed finings!
Nice though...

 

[hypnoticmonkey]

They look like Victoria plums to me. A little yellower than I'd usually have said for Vic's, but then again so are the punnet I just bought from the co-op...

 

[hypnoticmonkey]

Slightly different, and slightly simpler, recipe from Moley from another thread a few years ago. I only post this because I used this recipe myself and it turned out really well.

You will need 2 lidded buckets, a kitchen (flour) sieve and a straining bag or some muslin.

4 lbs plums to the gallon
2.5 - 3 lbs sugar to the gallon
Campden tablets
Pectolase
Yeast & Nutrient

Chop the plums in half, remove the stones and throw the plums into the first bucket.
Add 6 pints of cold water for every 4 lbs of plums.
Add 1 crushed campden tablet for every 4 lbs of plums.
Add 1 tsp Pectolase for every 4 lbs of plums.
Stir well then put the lid on.

After 24-36 hours add yeast and nutrient or GP yeast compound.

Wash your hand and forearm well with an anti-bacterial cleanser (also using a nail brush), stick your hand into the bucket and squish the fruit between your fingers.

Stir twice daily for 4 more days.

Put your sugar into the second bucket and then strain the must onto it through the flour sieve. Squeeze as much of the juice through as you can. Stir until most of the sugar is dissolved. Put the lid on. Leave in a warm place for a week, stirring daily.

Strain through a nylon bag or a couple of thicknesses of muslin into demijohns or a large, closed fermenter, fit airlocks and leave to ferment out.

As required, come back and ask for further instructions

What's not clear from that is if it's 4lb with stones in or after destoning. As it was a few years ago that I made this and my notekeeping back then was fairly poor (read: non existant) I'm afraid I can't shed any light on that either.

Maybe the man himself might?

 

[iceo]

thanks guys

iv gone for
half and stone 2.2kg (taken a few good hand fulls out for a plum crumble) so about 1.5kg
in a lidded bucket
1.5 tsp of Pectolase
2 litres water (boiled)
2 hands full of Sultanas (soaked in the boiled water and then blitzed)
10 dried apricots sulfur free (same as the sultanas) had them in the cupboard

will take a reading of the must in a day or so then make up my mind how much sugar to add.

i dont have a bag a a straining bag or some muslin but have used some J cloth thats i had washed and sterilised in the past. so that might work?

does this sound like its going to work

 

[godfrey]

nice to see you upgraded from juices :hat:

it is more work, but I find the preparation quite therapeutic :thumb:

 

[iceo]

nice to see you upgraded from juices :hat:

it is more work, but I find the preparation quite therapeutic :thumb:

well as the fruit was free its only going to cost me a few quid and a little time. its worth a try

 

[Crastney]

I've made plum wine in the past - the first time I weighed the fruit before destoning (6lb), this year I destoned the fruit, and weighed it before it went into the bucket (6lb).

There must be a significant difference - but I'll never know, as I added 5kg of sugar to the first one, and this one I've followed the recipe properly and added a lot less.

 

[iceo]

iv just mashed the must by hand(very clean hand) to help with the break down. it doesnt look very much like wine at the mo but i hope it works out.

had a taste of it, a bit on the sharp side with very little flavour

 

[hypnoticmonkey]

iv just mashed the must by hand(very clean hand) to help with the break down. it doesnt look very much like wine at the mo but i hope it works out.

had a taste of it, a bit on the sharp side with very little flavour

Tell me, when you make a WOW does it look like wine after a few days? :P

I'm assuming you haven't added sugar yet?

 

[KevinH]

Boiling plums makes for a haze? I didn't know that.

No way to clear it, even over time?

 

[iceo]

iv just mashed the must by hand(very clean hand) to help with the break down. it doesnt look very much like wine at the mo but i hope it works out.

had a taste of it, a bit on the sharp side with very little flavour

Tell me, when you make a WOW does it look like wine after a few days? :P

I'm assuming you haven't added sugar yet?

Thats very true. Good point. No sugar yet . Trying to brake down as much. Pectin before I start brewing

Boiling plums makes for a haze? I didn't know that.

No way to clear it, even over time?

I read it on here somewhere , I takes a long time/if ever to clear. I'm not in to crystal wines but don't want it to look like dish water

 

[hypnoticmonkey]

It *can* give a haze. Might not, but it's always a risk you take. It did the 1 time I did it and therefore I won't do it again.

 

[Moley]

What's not clear from that is if it's 4lb with stones in or after destoning. As it was a few years ago that I made this and my notekeeping back then was fairly poor (read: non existant) I'm afraid I can't shed any light on that either.

Maybe the man himself might?

Sorry, I've only just noticed this.

That would be 4lbs as picked inc. stones.

If you're using a cold water method then it doesn't really matter if you leave the stones in. If you are freezing them for later use then the stones should be removed because freezing may crack some and cracked stones can taint a wine.

 

[godfrey]

I guess you would loose about 20 %
of the weight de-stoning, depending on variety
and your efficiency, and also bad bits

people have made fruit wines for millennia
with varying amounts of fruits,
so a little bit more or less, will be ok :thumb:

personally I would go with de-stoned weight
a little on the more side :-)

but as the recipe calls for 4lb
and wine in general use 3lb of fruit
there is 25% accounted for stoneage

 

[iceo]

thats why i didnt weigh them after i had stoned them . but looking at my fv i added 2L of water and iv got about 3.5L in the fv so i will topup with to 4 when i add the sugar .

planning to add water , sugar and yeast to the fv then ferment for a few days then rack into a dj to finish
or should i put in a dj before start fermenting.

 

[Crastney]

in my opinion, it is always better to do fruit wine initial ferment in the FV, and then rack off the pulp into the DJ. This is purely on a practical level of getting the fruit into, and pulp out of, the DJ - and cleaning it afterwards.

* FV being fermenting vessel, either lidded bucket, pressure barrel, or barrel with large screw top bunged lid - whichever I have spare (I use these interchangeably)

 

[godfrey]

in my opinion, it is always better to do fruit wine initial ferment in the FV, and then rack off the pulp into the DJ. This is purely on a practical level of getting the fruit into, and pulp out of, the DJ - and cleaning it afterwards.

I usually use a bucket with lid for the first week to 10 days
then strain off to an FV for another 2 weeks
then rack into DJ's to age in bulk
rack again after a few months