Persimmon wine variations

[Stressbaby]

kfrinkle, did you get a final SG?

 

[kfrinkle]

No, I did not. Once I measure it in the .990 arena and backsweeten later, I am too lazy to do a final S.G., I just sweeten to taste and leave it at that.

 

[Stressbaby]

I racked mine off last night, and after starting with a full 6 gal primary, I have now one full 3 gal carboy. I think it is pretty much done fermenting but I didn't get a SG. It has a strange smell...generously it is earthy, less than generously it is a musty, dirty feet sort of smell. I googled this and found something on TCA. But it seems that TCA would be unusual to see this in a wine which is barely a wine. Hopefully this is just persimmons being persimmons.

 

[kfrinkle]

Yeah, I remember mine smelled a bit off at the beginning as well, be patient!

 

[Stressbaby]

Indeed, I had to pull a little out because I overfilled, and the funky smell is mostly gone already. Thanks for the reminder, kfrinkle!

 

[Stressbaby]

Today I started a couple of gallons of Persimmon-Orange mead. My wife is much happier with the smell of the kitchen this time.

 

[terroirdejeroir]

Care to share a recipe? I still have 6 pounds of persimmons in the freezer...

 

[Stressbaby]

I couldn't find a recipe, so I pieced this together from other mead recipes and based it in part on my first persimmon wine. Remember, I'm pretty new at this and you get what you pay for.

3# 10oz honey
6# persimmons
4t acid blend
2 oranges, rind and juice
1/4 tsp yeast energizer
2t yeast nutrient
2t pectic
14 pints water

I boiled 7 pints water with the honey the way most mead recipes recommend. In the other 7 pints I dissolved yeast energizer and nutrient, acid blend, OJ. I put the persimmon mush in the bag with the orange rind and poured the boiling honey water over it. After it cooled I added the other half of the water mix and the pectic. In the morning I will pitch the yeast.

My SG is 1.075 but I left a little room for a bump from the persimmons or to add some honey later in the fermentation. TA is ~6.75 as tartaric, pH is 3.4. Based on the smell alone I think I have too much orange, but we'll see. Right now I have a little over 2.5 gal, and I figure I need every bit of that for a final volume of 1 gal.

 

[terroirdejeroir]

Just racked, sampled, stabilized and back sweetened my early one-gallon batch of persimmon wine. Beautifully clear, pale golden color and the taste is, how do you say - oo la la!

The five gallon batch is still perking away with vast quantities of what could only be described as "gross" lees.

 

[Stressbaby]

terroir,
That is good to hear!
I added another 10oz of honey to my Orange-Persimmon mead while in the primary and it went into the secondary this morning at 1.004. So much pulp...I will be lucky to finish with a gallon!

 

[Stressbaby]

The mead is in two 1 gal carboys which are each about 1/2 full of pulp. I got some cheesecloth, I'm going to try to filter this pulp and see what I get...I'll report back.

I did find a Jack Keller blog post where he describes a technique whereby he puts the persimmon in a panty hose and puts that inside of a straining bag. I may try that next time.

I started 10 gal of what I hope to be lightly spiced persimmon wine using the base recipe plus 3 cinnamon sticks and 1t pumpkin pie spice (cinnamon/clove/ginger/nutmeg). The cinnamon was notable on day two but by today it is not notable at all...replaced by that funky persimmon smell I got last time. It's a huge freakin' pulpy foamy mess. Will add some pics this weekend...

 

[kfrinkle]

So I spent about 6.5 hours on Saturday getting my 2012 batch of persimmon wine ready to go. After the wife did some research online, we ended up buying a Marshall rotary ricer (with wooden pestle). This was an awesome buy! I took my persimmons out of the freezer Friday night, and started working on them Saturday late morning. I was able to fill the cone about half full, then start the pressing process. Once I got most of the pulp out of each little batch, I took the rest and put it in a pot. I repeated this until the pot was about 75% full of seedy, sticky, gummy leftovers. I then added some water to this, heated it on the stove for a little bit, and then strained this through the rotary ricer again! This time, after I had gotten most of the remaining sticky goo into my primary, I poured some warm water over what remained in the ricer. This finished the process. What was left by this times was about 95% seeds. It was a very long and tedious process, but I feel that I got a lot more out of this time. Also, the consistency was much thinker after this, hence more pulp was pulled out of each persimmon. I ended up starting two 5 gallon batches, hopefully I will end up with 5 gallons after all is said and done!

 

[Stressbaby]

Good tip on the ricer, kfrinkle. Keep us posted. There has to be a better way with these persimmons.

 

[Hokapsig]

guys, thanks for the posts. I was offered all the persimmons that I could handle and wanted to know if a wine could be prepared from them. According to my source, the persimmons are great right now as they are very sweet from the first frost. I will have him collect as many as possible and freeze them for me. It sounds like this wine is very messy to make, but is it worth it after all the issues????

 

[Stressbaby]

Hokapsig,

I don't know yet. Terroir and kfrinkle seem to think so. Time will tell.

I've made three batches now, 3 gal (started as 6.5), 1 gal mead (started as 2 gal), and 5 gal which probably still has 1/2 gal of pulp, even after the first racking (started with 10.5 gal). I'm going to have to make an extra 1 gallon batch just to top off my 5 gallon carboy after I rack off of this pulp! So...unless you figure out a better method or recipe than what I'm using (4# whole fruit/gallon must), you'll end up with just a quantity of wine just under 50% of your quantity of starting must.

Each of my musts has been so thick I could barely get a SG reading. I've wondered if I couldn't improve the "return," so to speak by using somewhat less fruit/gallon.

Also, on about day 4-5 in the primary each of my batches has developed a very peculiar musty or musky smell. My wife says it smells like stinky feet. Honestly it's pretty nasty. kfrinkle said he recalls a funky smell as well so I don't think it is just me. I'm pretty sure I didn't contaminate it but it apparently caused this guy to think that he had and to pitch his wine after 2 weeks. Anyway, it is subsiding in my oldest (3 gallon) batch.

 

[terroirdejeroir]

I haven't had any odor issues, but I use a little less fruit - three pounds per gallon. Just drank a couple glasses of my early season one gallon batch that were left over when I bottled over the weekend. Not sure how to describe it, but it was very pleasant.

I have a five gallon batch going and I got 3 gals and 2.25 liters of wine out of it. I used ICV-D47 on this batch whereas I used Red Star Montrachet on the first batch. Only difference I have noticed so far is the first batch was a lot paler. Might have to sample a bit when I rack again in about ten days.

 

[kfrinkle]

One may be tempted to thin that sludge prior to pitching the yeast, since we always like to get a good SG reading, but with the amount of stuff that precipitates out, I think it is a bad idea. For some reason, my fermentation is a little slower this batch, however I think it may be due to temps in the house, which are hovering around 65F, as opposed to my normal 70F. I am not getting the massive crazy cap each day due to the slower fermentation, which might, in itself, be a blessing. I used champagne yeast this time around.
It has been actively fermenting since Sunday, but I think I will put it into carboys this Sunday, even if it is not quite as fermented out as I would like. Not sure if that is a good idea or not.

 

[Stressbaby]

Yesterday I pitched the yeast on persimmon-orange batch. I used the basic recipe + rind and juice of 2 oranges/gallon.

The Hyvee in Columbia has started stocking some beer brewing supplies. I stopped by there yesterday and picked up a 3 gal carboy and a 12" funnel-filter. I needed to rack my last batch off of (yet more) pulp, so I moved most of that to the new 3 gallon, added some more pumpkin pie spice; the last bit I moved to a 1 gallon and after finding several food recipes that combine rosemary and persimmon, I dropped 1T dried rosemary into that 1 gallon. So as far as variations go, right now I've got:

• 3 gallon straight up
• 3 gallon "spiced" (cinnamon, ginger, allspice, nutmeg)
• 1 gallon orange-persimmon mead
• 1 gallon rosemary-persimmon
• 1+ gallon orange-persimmon wine

Here is a pic of the funnel-filter. I'm going to give this a try with this new batch.

Robert

 

[kfrinkle]

Racked off to one 5 gallon carboy, one 6 gallon carboy, and a few smaller ones today, I could barely get the stuff through the siphon, but I did not want to strain it yet. Here is what that stuff looks like now.

 

[terroirdejeroir]

Here is a shot of my most recent persimmon batch that I just stabilized. Pitched the yeast (ICV-D47) on 10/28. The bottle next to the carboy is from an earlier small batch I made from some early ripening persimmons using RedStar Montrachet. The color difference is pretty substantial even though the wine always looks darker in the carboy than in the bottle.