Persimmon wine variations

[Stressbaby]

Yesterday I racked 3 gal of straight persimmon and 1 gallon of persimmon-orange mead. These wines are 2 and 2.5 months old. Both of them have the same nasty smell that all 4 of my batches of persimmon wine have starting around the third day in the primary. They all smell like a cross between smelly feet and my 18 year old son's gymbag.

As to the possible cause...could it be the prep? For each batch, I left the persimmons on the skins; in three of the four, I poured boiling water over the fruit and sugar, and for one of the four, water wasn't boiled. All were adequately sulfited. I can't see a difference between them. None of my other wines (I have a dozen batches of other various things) have this smell. I was thinking of taking a small sample of persimmons and boiling, mashing, then straining the the liquid, pectin be damned. I was also thinking of going with straight pulp to see if that made a difference. Or maybe it is just persimmons...

As to the remedy...I need one...something...I have 10 gallons of this stuff and it will pain me to dump it. Would splash racking help? Other thoughts? Just more time?

 

[kfrinkle]

You might as well try splash racking. Now, are these the small native persimmons or the oriental variety? I take skins off of the small ones, and I would definitely take the skins off the big oriental ones.

I am currently racking off my persimmon batch. It is a horrible mess. However, I am going to have about 6 gallons of sludge left. The sludge has a ton of excellent color and material left in it. Can I referment this stuff?

 

[Stressbaby]

kfrinkle, these are the native American persimmons.

I don't know about refermenting...did you try it?

I splash racked one of the three gallon carboys, the spiced persimmon wine, and I will say that it has improved enough for me to be confident I will eventually have 3 gal of drinkable cinnamon-nutmeg-ginger-spiced persimmon wine. Not sure if it is the splash racking, the spice, time, or some combination of the three. I will try splash racking one of the others this weekend.

After reading some of Luc's pecic enzyme experiments, I'm thinking of taking my next 4# bag and mashing the pulp off of the skins and then hitting the pulp alone with a big dose of pectic before even starting the wine. If I do that I'll post some pics of the experiment.

 

[terroirdejeroir]

Just opened a split of the persimmon wine from the test batch I made from an early ripening sample. It isn't totally ready yet, but I am thrilled. Fermented it dry and then sweetened to 1.000. Very smooth and tasty with a super long citrus finish. Can't wait to taste the final product. Three gallons bulk aging....

If you are near mid-Missouri I still have 5-6 pounds in the freezer that I would part with.

 

[Stressbaby]

Just opened a split of the persimmon wine from the test batch I made from an early ripening sample. It isn't totally ready yet, but I am thrilled. Fermented it dry and then sweetened to 1.000. Very smooth and tasty with a super long citrus finish. Can't wait to taste the final product. Three gallons bulk aging....

If you are near mid-Missouri I still have 5-6 pounds in the freezer that I would part with.

Terroir, I bet you could get another gallon out of that! I have 16# left, still trying to decide what to do with it.

I've been sampling each of my variations as they are racked and while I won't say I'm thrilled, they are all getting better. My orange-persimmon is the best so far and at an earlier age than the others.

I started another small batch today, and as I noted above, I'm trying a new and different way of managing the fruit in an effort to get more wine, less pulp. If it works better, I'll post pics and details.

 

[Stressbaby]

Probably time to update this thread.

I took the first batch, straight persimmon, and split it into three 1 gal batches. One got no oak, one got light oak (5g chips) and one got heavy oak (10g chips). After only 3 weeks the heavy oak smelled a lot like burnt toast so I racked them off of the oak chips. The heavy oak is clear and bottled and the other two are still aging. I needed the carboy.

Currently I have:
1 gal straight persimmon, unoaked
1 gal straight persimmon, light oak
1 gal straight persimmon, heavy oak - bottled
3 gal spiced persimmon (cinnamon sticks/apple pie spice)
1 gal spiced persimmon (rosemary...don't ask me where I got that idea)
1 gal orange-persimmon - bottled
1 gal orange-persimmon mead - bottled

The ones with orange cleared with no trouble at all, the others are proving slower and more difficult to clear.

 

[terroirdejeroir]

Interesting. I am surprised you are having such trouble clearing. For me, the persimmon wine clears better than any other fruit wine. It is the only one I have done that will clear completely in a couple of months without any clarifying agents. We should get together and compare notes....

 

[Stressbaby]

We tasted and bottled about 6 gallons of various persimmon wine variations yesterday. The remaining wine cleared beautifully with Isinglass.

Straight persimmon - unoaked (1 gal) and light oak (1 gal, heavy toast American) - meh. Minerally? I'm not normally found of minerally wines. Definitely flabby. I looked back at my notes and found a preadjustment pH of 3.8, and I subsequently pounded it with what looks like a heavy dose of acid blend and citric preferment. Then later in my notes I found a post ferment pH of 3.8 as well. I bottled this one without any backsweetening or other adjustments. This is a bit of an experiment, we'll see. I'm also looking for a little more rounded wine here. See below for some adjustments.

Rosemary persimmon (1 gal) - this one came out pretty well surprisingly. It is not backsweetened but the rosemary is there and while it won't be a back-porch sipper, it will be pretty good with the right meal.

Spiced persimmon (3 gal, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, nutmeg) - I think we nailed this one. Let's put it this way...my wife and her best friend love it. I backsweetened just a little, 50g/gallon. This one will be perfect for the fall.

Some general observations after 80# persimmons and about 10 gallons...

• Isinglass may be the preferred fining agent; bentonite and SuperKleer didn't complete the job, but in my trials, Isinglass cleared these wines with ease.
• Addition of some orange seemed to greatly aid in clearing.
• STOUT dose of pectic enzyme perferment helps with clearing - like triple the usual dose
• The standard Jack Keller 4#/gallon recipe provides enough fruit, but yields only about 50% of the desired volume of wine due to the pulp. So in the end you need 8# fruit/gallon for wine from native persimmons.
• I have not yet made a straight persimmon wine that is to my liking.
• The funky smell is generally gone by 6 months.

Now I still have 16# of persimmons in the freezer. Here is my plan, using a version of the Turock bentonite schedule, and using Go-Ferm/Fermaid instead of standard yeast nutrient to see if it affects the funky smell. Feedback welcome:

• 16# persimmons
• 4 oranges, rind and juice
• Juice of 2 lemons
• ~3T acid blend preadjustment
• 12t pectic (!)
• ~6# sugar preadjustment
• 4 Campden tabs
• Oak cubes, medium toast
• 4g Fermaid K
• Go-ferm (1.25 grams/ 1 gram of yeast/17mls of water)

To each 4# bag frozen persimmons, add 1 Campden tab. Allow to thaw, around 8 hours, squeezing the bag occasionally to mix. Add 2t pectic to each bag, mix thoroughly, and let it sit overnight. Put fruit in straining bag. Add orange rind, citrus juice, acid blend, and fruit to primary. Boil water and dissolve sugar. Pour sugar water over fruit mix, water to 4 gallons, stir, and let cool. Add 4t pectic and let sit overnight.
The next morning adjust sugar to 1.085-1.090 and acid to pH of 3.4. Rehydrate yeast with Go-Ferm and pitch.
The next day add bentonite.
Add Fermaid K when sugar down 1/4-1/3.
To secondary at 1.010 or so.
Rack off all of the pulp in a couple of weeks. If I continue to like the effect of the oak on the first batch, I'll try oak cubes on this batch in the secondary.

 

[Gowers Choice]

Was wondering what yeast everyone is using for their persimmon wines. We usually use Cotes de Blancs or the Champagne. However, this fall I'm thinking of atleast one experimental batch using just the natural yeast on the fruit. I don't know about anyone else's persimmons, but mine are usually covered in a natural yeast by the time they fall from the tree. Has anyone else tried the au-natural approach ?

 

[Stressbaby]

Interesting idea. I haven't tried it. My fear would be fermentation from a yeast with 7-8% alcohol toxicity. Are you going to drop back the sugar some?

 

[kfrinkle]

its that time of year again!

So I thought I would jump back into this thread. I still have not bottled my 10 gallons from last year, I should take a pic of at least one of them, it has a nice medium orange color, not sure on the taste yet. My second 5 gallon batch ended up a little more yellow for some reason, and it is not yet ready.

I am went out to grab my first batch of persimmons on Saturday, and the trees out in the woods are loaded. The only problem I had was getting my cooler back the 3/4 of a mile I hiked in with. I immediately ran what I picked through my rice masher, and it was nice, but I am thinking about being lazy and doing a fermentation of the whole fruit, skipping the processing portion. I am just trying to figure out if I can get a 30 gallon batch going in my Blichmann wineasy primary, and if it can actually get pressed and strained through the bottom of that beast without being clogged up.

Thoughts on the fermentation leaving seeds and skin on?

 

[Stressbaby]

kfrinkle - I've done it that way without any issues at all. Tannins are not a problem.

I've bottled several batches from last year. All but the last one had that funky smell. It took me 90# of persimmons, but finally on the last batch of 16# I think I figured out how to manage without getting the funny smell. The keys for me were: 1) keep the temp down in the 19-21C range; 2) don't use D47; 3) GoFerm and staged additions of Fermaid-K. My last batch looks and smells great...it is not bottled yet.

This year my tree is loaded but unlike last year, the persimmons are hanging in there, staying on the tree longer. Of those that are dropping, at least half are not ripe and can't be used. I've got 15-20# so far and hopefully will get another 15# before we're done, but at this rate I will be nowhere near the 90# I got last year.

 

[kfrinkle]

kfrinkle - I've done it that way without any issues at all. Tannins are not a problem.

I've bottled several batches from last year. All but the last one had that funky smell. It took me 90# of persimmons, but finally on the last batch of 16# I think I figured out how to manage without getting the funny smell. The keys for me were: 1) keep the temp down in the 19-21C range; 2) don't use D47; 3) GoFerm and staged additions of Fermaid-K. My last batch looks and smells great...it is not bottled yet.

This year my tree is loaded but unlike last year, the persimmons are hanging in there, staying on the tree longer. Of those that are dropping, at least half are not ripe and can't be used. I've got 15-20# so far and hopefully will get another 15# before we're done, but at this rate I will be nowhere near the 90# I got last year.

I do not know if I have ever noticed this smell you speak of after it gets transferred to secondary. Our house stays below 70F this time of year, and usually is closer to 65-67F range. Did you ever clear up the smell issues with the different variations you made? It makes me wonder if the smell is in the skins, because I have never fermented with skins on.... Thoughts?

Also, how much water are you adding to a batch?
I have attached the pics of my two batches, the early one looks nice and golden in color, the second, which I started this spring (froze that batch) is lighter in color and still cloudy....

I am intrigued with the thoughts of using some yeast besides Champagne, but man, Champagne really ferments that stuff like mad.

 

[Stressbaby]

It definitely is not the skins that gives the odor. This last batch I made (recipe below) has not one whiff of the funky smell and I fermented it on the skins. So far, the smell has not gone completely away from any of the other batches. I may end up tossing all of them.

Here is the recipe for the last batch. It is just now 2 months old and it is excellent. I used apple instead of grape juice and the apple is prominent...maybe too prominent...and I may go with fresh citrus, grape concentrate, or mix of apple and grape next time. My wife is picky and while it is not clear, it smells and tastes great; she already likes it at 2 months. This recipe made 6 gal of must, but because my native persimmons throw a ridiculous amount of gross lees/pulp, you end up with 1/2 of the original volume of wine; so I have this batch in a 3 gal carboy. The pH was adjusted from 4.54 to 3.48. OG 1.090

16# persimmon in 4 x 4# ziplock bags, frozen
3 cans apple jc concentrate
5# sugar
4 Campden tabs
1t Fermaid-K
1t Go-Ferm
4g (1t) tannin
12t pectic, divided doses
6T + 2t acid blend
~4.5gal water
2t bentonite
K1-V1116

To each 4# bag frozen persimmons, add 1 Campden tab. Allow to thaw, around 8 hours, squeezing the bag occasionally to mix. Add 2t pectic to each bag, mix thoroughly, and let it sit overnight. Put fruit in straining bag. Add apple concentrate, acid blend, tannin, and fruit to primary. Boil the water and dissolve sugar. Pour sugar water over fruit mix, stir, and let cool. Add 4t pectic and let sit overnight. Next morning make acid adjustments and sugar adjustments (totals shown above; I would cut the original additions back by 1/3 to start with and then make adjustments at this point after everything as set for a while). Rehydrate yeast with Go-Ferm and pitch. Closely watch the temp and cool it down if >22C. The next day add bentonite. Add Fermaid K when sugar down 1/4-1/3. To secondary at 1.010 or so. Racked off all of the pulp in a couple of weeks to 3 gallon carboy.

 

[kfrinkle]

Interesting on the recipe, thanks! What were your thoughts on using the kv-1116 yeast as opposed to champagne? I am pretty minimalist when it comes to the fruit wines, and the wife does not like too many extra additives, so whatever i do, i keep it simple. That being said, i am going to try to fill up my 30 gallon primary about 1/2 full of whole persimmons, add water to get it to 2/3 and then all the little extras. I thought about this last night, with the blichmann wineeasy, the press piston may do a good job of getting the extra liquid out of the pulp. And yes, all my batches up through last years also lose half volume to sediment, it is pretty amazing isnt it?

 

[kfrinkle]

Went out yesterday morning for a couple of hours, had a pretty darned heavy cooler to walk back out 3/4 of a mile out of the woods, but I am thinking a few more trips and I should have enough for a 30 gallon batch. Now if I can find freezer space to hold them until it is time.

I took a few pictures out there, it was windy and most of them did not come out, but here are a couple of nice ones. These are small trees, which border the patch of large trees, needless to say, I am going to fill the freezer as these ripen.

 

[jamesngalveston]

omg i wish i had some...the best part of fall was when they got ripe in louisiana as a kid...i really looked forward to it every year..sometimes we had to do battle the racoons for them.
lucy man you are to get those babies. and thats the big ones...

 

[Stressbaby]

LOL! At least you can reach those. As I said in my first post, my tree is enormous, biggest one I've ever seen. Not one branch within reach anywhere around the tree, and the girth is prob 6 feet. I just have to pick mine up off of the ground after they fall.

 

[terroirdejeroir]

kfrinkle - I've done it that way without any issues at all. Tannins are not a problem.

I've bottled several batches from last year. All but the last one had that funky smell. It took me 90# of persimmons, but finally on the last batch of 16# I think I figured out how to manage without getting the funny smell. The keys for me were: 1) keep the temp down in the 19-21C range; 2) don't use D47; 3) GoFerm and staged additions of Fermaid-K. My last batch looks and smells great...it is not bottled yet.

This year my tree is loaded but unlike last year, the persimmons are hanging in there, staying on the tree longer. Of those that are dropping, at least half are not ripe and can't be used. I've got 15-20# so far and hopefully will get another 15# before we're done, but at this rate I will be nowhere near the 90# I got last year.

Interesting that your trees are holding on to their fruit. The trees I have access to are just a few miles away from yours (I am less than a mile from Callaway County), but all my persimmons dropped weeks ago. I have access to probably thirty different trees across 150 acres with several different orientations and micro-environments and they are all devoid of both fruit and leaves.

I am going to start a five-gallon batch as soon as I have a fermenter available and I look forward to using K1-V1116 to see how it turns out. I like it with peaches, but I have never used it on persimmons.

 

[kfrinkle]

LOL! At least you can reach those. As I said in my first post, my tree is enormous, biggest one I've ever seen. Not one branch within reach anywhere around the tree, and the girth is prob 6 feet. I just have to pick mine up off of the ground after they fall.

Yeah, but I still wait for these to hit the ground. Picked some more today, I am thinking I have at least two weeks of picking left, some trees are not even close to ripe, this is an interesting season for sure.