My peach plum tree each year ripens the fruit over a two week period. When I try to store the plums in the fridge they get moldy very quick This year I decided to cook them as I do when making jam and then store them in the fridge. Now the rest of the tree is nearly all ripe and I was going to add the fresh picked to the cooked mash. Is there any inherent problems with this method? How accurate is the sg reading from whole fruit? Thanks
Peach plum wine
- Thread starter Wildjer
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Scooter68
Fruit "Wine" Maker
Think you may set the pectin in the fruit. Might want to prepare up to the cooking but then let them set at least a day or two with pectic enzyme.
As to the reading of the SG I'd mash well and again allow the pectic enzyme to to it's thing for a day or two before taking a reading.
As to the reading of the SG I'd mash well and again allow the pectic enzyme to to it's thing for a day or two before taking a reading.
Cooking them will set the pectin. When making jam that is a good thing, but for wine it is the opposite of what you want. Cooking them also can destroy healthy enzymes and micro nutrients, and reduce the flavor. I try to avoid ever heating my fruit.
If you have room in your freezer, wash them and remove the stones, then freeze them until you have enough. I currently have some elderberries in the freezer waiting until I have enough for a batch of wine.
If you have room in your freezer, wash them and remove the stones, then freeze them until you have enough. I currently have some elderberries in the freezer waiting until I have enough for a batch of wine.
Dkrmwiz
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I just zippy bag them and store them in the freezer until I have enough. When I'm ready, I thaw them in the fridge for about 4 days. I've done this with persimmon and sand plum, never had any problems. I do the primary with the pits, they get strained out when going into secondary. Adds an interesting flavor to the plum wine.
Scooter68
Fruit "Wine" Maker
As they have said - I go the freezer route if I don't have enough do a full batch right away. That gives you a couple of advantages. 1) More likely for the fruit cell walls to breakdown after freezing making more juice flavor etc readily avaiable for the wine, or any uses, & 2) Since the fruit is still cool/cold after being thawed out it's less likely to spoil if you let it set overnight for the SG and pH to normalize. I often find that my SG actually goes up after a 12-24 hour wait before starting the ferment. Any longer than that and you risk spoilage, even with K-Meta in the batch.
So I thaw,
Mash/Press the fruit
Add sugar and other needed additives to get my SG and pH balances right (Including a dose of K-meta)
Wait overnight
Recheck the SG and pH and if good,
record those again
Rehydrate my yeast
Pitch yeast
Cover the bucket
And wait.
Since I do my fermenting in a separate building, when I walk into the room the day after pitching the yeast, I can tell right away if the ferment has fired off. The smell is unmistakable. The only thing I need to do is give it a stir, punch down the cap and recover.
PS - The freezer has yielded some interesting findings. It's also in that other building (A second vacant home) and when I go digging to find my fruit for wine making I have found some previously lost bags of fruit. Once it wasn't enough for a batch by itself but when I combined some small bags of Red Raspberry, Blackberry and Black Raspberry, I got just enough for a 1 gallon batch of "Triple Berry" and that turned out the be the most powerfully flavored wine I have made to date. Total pounds was under 6 (something like 5.25 lbs) but those were some great finds that made into a great wine. Sadly there are only 2 bottle left but they are guarded for special use only. Being in the freezer for a couple of years ( ok admittedly 5-6 years in one case) they had lost a lot of the water in them to frost and rendering them more potent once the frost was separated from the fruit itself.
So I thaw,
Mash/Press the fruit
Add sugar and other needed additives to get my SG and pH balances right (Including a dose of K-meta)
Wait overnight
Recheck the SG and pH and if good,
record those again
Rehydrate my yeast
Pitch yeast
Cover the bucket
And wait.
Since I do my fermenting in a separate building, when I walk into the room the day after pitching the yeast, I can tell right away if the ferment has fired off. The smell is unmistakable. The only thing I need to do is give it a stir, punch down the cap and recover.
PS - The freezer has yielded some interesting findings. It's also in that other building (A second vacant home) and when I go digging to find my fruit for wine making I have found some previously lost bags of fruit. Once it wasn't enough for a batch by itself but when I combined some small bags of Red Raspberry, Blackberry and Black Raspberry, I got just enough for a 1 gallon batch of "Triple Berry" and that turned out the be the most powerfully flavored wine I have made to date. Total pounds was under 6 (something like 5.25 lbs) but those were some great finds that made into a great wine. Sadly there are only 2 bottle left but they are guarded for special use only. Being in the freezer for a couple of years ( ok admittedly 5-6 years in one case) they had lost a lot of the water in them to frost and rendering them more potent once the frost was separated from the fruit itself.
I have been pitting the plums and almost finished with the last that I picked yesterday. I have been told that leaving the pits in the primary is not advised due to arsenic leaching.
Dkrmwiz
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I've read up, it's not enough to hurt you. With bigger plums, I pitted them, but the sand plums are so small, it would be a pain in the butt.
Scooter68
Fruit "Wine" Maker
The greater concern is altering the flavor (Bitterness) with whatever those pits might shed into the wine.
My suggestion would be that if you have to leave the stones/pits in the mix, remove them at the earliest possible opportunity. That might mean when you rack into a carboy or sooner if you have bagged the fruit and you find that virtually nothing but the pits remains in the bag.
As mentioned the risk of arsenic poisoning is very small, but the change of the flavor is greater. If you've ever left a peach pit in your mouth or a pit of most stone type fruits you will notice that it doesn't take long for that stone to give off a bitter taste. (And yes, I have done that with peaches, Cherries, and Plums in I was ready to get rid of that stone shortly. I just wanted to get all the 'meat' off that stone.) I would suggest that the same thing can happen in your wine.
My suggestion would be that if you have to leave the stones/pits in the mix, remove them at the earliest possible opportunity. That might mean when you rack into a carboy or sooner if you have bagged the fruit and you find that virtually nothing but the pits remains in the bag.
As mentioned the risk of arsenic poisoning is very small, but the change of the flavor is greater. If you've ever left a peach pit in your mouth or a pit of most stone type fruits you will notice that it doesn't take long for that stone to give off a bitter taste. (And yes, I have done that with peaches, Cherries, and Plums in I was ready to get rid of that stone shortly. I just wanted to get all the 'meat' off that stone.) I would suggest that the same thing can happen in your wine.
