recipe adjustment - prune wine

terminal500 · Jan 23, 2013

Hi I have a recipe for prune wine in an old book, what adjustments would you do? Recipe as follows:

Wash prunes, put in bowl with enough water to cover and allow for swelling. Leave for 12 hours, tip in to saucepan and add water to make up to a gallon. Cut raisin in to
small pieces, add to prunes, bring to boil and simmer for half an hour. Mash prunes while cooking with woodern spoon, after half an hour strain off liquid in to bowl, add 3lb demerara sugar, stir to disolve. When liquid is lukewarm stir in 1/2oz of yeast, cover bowl, leave for five days, stir daily, bottle, cork loosely fill up if wine oozes over, you may find it needs a little sugar or sugar candy added after a month or so, if it tastes sweet leave alone and cork down tight when you're sure it has finished.

Ingredients:
1 1/2lb prunes
3lb demerara sugar
1/2lb raisins
1/2oz yeast
1 gallon of water

So I'm wondering if a campden tablet would be a good idea in the soak and if I should add pectalose and nutrient, also should I add any citric acid, some fruit recipes seem to add it but I'm not sure why. Also should I change the sugar to brewing sugar or is demerara a good choice? Any ideas and opinions gratefully received.

Regards
Tom.

Moley · Jan 24, 2013

Ingredients sound reasonable, but that's a lot of sugar. However, if you make it up to a gallon before boiling and then add 3lbs sugar according to those instructions you're going to end up with 9.5 pints.

I would knock the sugar down to 2.5 lbs / 1100g and aim for a 5 litre brew.

Sugar choice is entirely up to you, demerara or white, but personally I would never use brewing sugar.

CT isn't really necessary if you're going to be boiling it, pectolase can't hurt but add that after the boil and cool, a bit of citric wouldn't go amiss but maybe only half a teaspoonful.

Time scale is a recipe for disaster, ferment under airlock for as long as it takes, plus a week, then rack and add finings or leave to clear naturally before you even think of bottling it.

terminal500 · Jan 24, 2013

Would lemon juice be a substitute for citric acid, this book uses that a lot, what is the reason for adding citric acid to wines?. Is there a good yeast you'd recommend for this, I was just going to use a youngs general red wine but I'm not too sure. Thank you for the help by the way and sorry for all the questions.. Regards Tom.

GeorgeSalt · Jan 24, 2013

The juice of one lemon is roughly the same as one teaspoon of citric acid, I'll switch between the two depending what's too hand.

oldbloke · Jan 24, 2013

GeorgeSalt said:
The juice of one lemon is roughly the same as one teaspoon of citric acid, I'll switch between the two depending what's too hand.

Oddly enough, I was about to ask for that equivalence this very night! Ta!

oldbloke · Jan 24, 2013

terminal500 said:
what is the reason for adding citric acid to wines?.

Wine needs a certain level of acidity to taste right and to keep well, ideally pH3.2. Some fruit doesn't have enough, so we add it.
Citric is in some ways the easiest, as you can use lemons (or oranges or limes) instead of powdered acid, it aids brilliance and has a pleasant flavour, but you can also use malic, and of course tartaric is the predominant acid in grapes. If (when) you want to get fancy, you can get (or make) an acid mix - 1 part citric, 2 malic, 3 tartaric