Need advice on wild plum wine

[Stressbaby]

I need some help with my wild plum wine.

I have 24# of wild plums. My plan was freeze > thaw > mash and ferment on the pulp/skins > press.

I have these thawed, mashed, with the kmeta and pectic. The problem is that this must is too thick. It was like puree or baby food. I did manage to get a pH reading of 2.72. I added 1 gallon of water to get pH to 2.90 and to just be able to stir it. These plums don't have a lot of sugar but I have no idea how much to add because 1) I can't get a gravity reading and 2) I don't know what my final volume will be anyway.

I was thinking of adding enough water to get me to a 3 gallon batch. That would allow an OG reading, allow me to make sugar additions based on a 3 gal final volume, and that would still be 8# of fruit per gallon. With this much pulp I will have to split into two primaries because once it starts to ferment I'm afraid it is gonna blow.

Thoughts? Suggestions? No emergency, because this will sit on the pectic for another 12-24 hours.

 

[loumik]

I need some help with my wild plum wine.

I have 24# of wild plums. My plan was freeze > thaw > mash and ferment on the pulp/skins > press.

I have these thawed, mashed, with the kmeta and pectic. The problem is that this must is too thick. It was like puree or baby food. I did manage to get a pH reading of 2.72. I added 1 gallon of water to get pH to 2.90 and to just be able to stir it. These plums don't have a lot of sugar but I have no idea how much to add because 1) I can't get a gravity reading and 2) I don't know what my final volume will be anyway.

I was thinking of adding enough water to get me to a 3 gallon batch. That would allow an OG reading, allow me to make sugar additions based on a 3 gal final volume, and that would still be 8# of fruit per gallon. With this much pulp I will have to split into two primaries because once it starts to ferment I'm afraid it is gonna blow.

Thoughts? Suggestions? No emergency, because this will sit on the pectic for another 12-24 hours.

Stressbaby,

Have you considered using fruit juice instead of water? Last year I used apple juice with my plums and it turned out very good. It still has a plum flavor and didn't require as much sugar to be added as water would have needed. Well, just a thought. I'm sure it will turn out good either way.

Larry

 

[iVivid]

I used 20kg for 23 litres. Froze them first. Turned out amazing!!!

 

[Arne]

I have had a time waiting for my wild plum to clear. Havn't done it yet, but going to have to fine it. I would make sure there is a good dose of pectic enzime in it and would use bentonite with the ferment if doing it again. I know I used the pectic, but didn't add the bentonite. Good luck with it, can't remember how much fruit I used, but would bet it was at least 7 or 8 lbs. per gal. I will look later and let you know. Arne.

 

[Stressbaby]

Thanks for the advice everyone.
What I've done is add 20 pints water + some concentrate. This is along the lines of what loumik suggested, but I didn't have any straight juice. I used 2 Welch's white, one red. Color is excellent. Surprisingly, the SG is 1.050 so the plums had more sugar than I thought.
Arne, I did hit is with a good dose of pectic and let it sit 24 hours on the pectic. Pitching yeast this morning, using 71B due the the acid in the plums. Using Go-Ferm and Fermaid-K with this batch. I will also take your advice on the bentonite.
Thanks.

 

[Arne]

Have to rack that stuff, some lees in the carboy. Should get it upstairs and warm it up and hit it with some superkleer or something. Arne.

 

[Stressbaby]

Follow up, with pics:
To start, you can see that the plums held their shape really well, even after freezing and thawing. I mashed them with a 2x4 but still their was not enough juice. So I added 3 cans of concentrate and 20 pints of water to get something the consistency of a typical must. Pitched 71B. The wine developed a big, thick cap, but I kept it punched down at least twice a day. I kept the temps down to generally 18-20C. Fermented evenly down to 1.020 yesterday when we pressed. Starting with 5 gallons I got 3.5 gallons of pressed juice, so I was pleased with that, I can use a 3 gallon secondary now. I left it in the buckets and it has gotten to 1.012 this morning. Smells great. pH still very low at 2.9, and it tastes like it. These pics make the color look more orange than in real life; the color in the bucket now is a deep, dark pink.