Plum wine

[JBP]

Coaching a friend through making his first wine (plum) - no idea what type of plums. Plums from his trees were pitted and frozen as they ripened with a total of 41 pounds. OG was 1.100 (gave him a target of 1.090). Batch split between two buckets ~ 3.5 gallons each - and treated with kmeta. Two yeast starters - 71B and EC1118 (didn't expect a split batch and had given him one packet each on the off-chance he might need the EC1118 to finish) and a very healthy dose of pectic enzyme (not looking at my notes, but based recommendation on info from WMT).

He racked both batches to a single carboy ~two weeks ago at ~3/4 sugar depletion. Relatively slow ferment, but steady - when I visited last night, his basement felt quite cool, so I suspect temp an issue. Based on my readings here, I think the wine was probably on the fruit a bit too long (3 weeks)? SG last night was 1.005 and taste was acidic with an element of "sawdust" (excess tannin from fruit?) - good color and a hint of nice flavor right before the sawdust hits.

Current plan - warm area slightly (no excessive temp change) to encourage it to finish fermenting. And I warned friend that this summer might be optimistic for a drinkable product. Thoughts on whether the sawdust perception might age out? Other than staying the course at this point, any recommendations?

His trees are prolific and he is already talking about trials 2 and 3...

 

[Rice_Guy]

Sawdust? humm?
Moving from 1.100 to 1.005 gives enough alcohol to be stable. ,,,If you wanted to clean out the yeast. That noted with EC1118 in the mix it should end up lower. Yeast are hearty buggers. They are still there and active, just slow. High gravity could be high solids,

By removing the sugars you should be tasting more acid. Did you take pH and TA? This would give a read for what kind of flavor to expect. The plum I have grown was about 4.4 pH, a fairly mild flavor. Green, early harvest will have a lower pH and higher TA.

The plum I have grown isn’t really tannic. With seed tannin (hard tannin) I expect bitter flavor notes. With grape skin tannin (soft tannin) I expect more astringent flavor notes. Again my variety, (self pollinating purple/ Stanley?) doesn’t taste tannic.

Sawdust? just thinking low nutrient can produce mercaptans but I would call that more meat like / fried chicken like. ? ? Humm

 

[JBP]

Thanks, Rice_Guy. Wasn't a mercaptan type flavor. Almost more of a sensation than flavor. A bit of a green, acidic flavor to start followed by a dry sensation, but not astringent. My husband described it as sawdust and I couldn't disagree. Not pleasant but not obnoxious.

We did not take pH or TA as I have mostly been helping remotely. I am planning to drive back out to his place in a week or two and can bring stuff to check then.

Will check what I can and stay the course for now. And not encourage starting trial 2 until we know a bit more about what is happening with this one and deciding what to change.

 

[Rice_Guy]

A technique which the food lab uses is to mask off notes. I wonder what would happen if you added a finishing tannin? An astringent fermentation tannin also would provide long flavor notes that show up at thirty seconds, but isn’t as soluble so might be visible. I like chestnut flavor, grape tannin seems to bring some bitter notes.

 

[JBP]

Helpful info - thanks. Quick glance at Scott Labs:

• FT Rouge = chestnut
• Tannin Riche/Riche Extra = Oak

I have both on hand. If we go with one or the other, should we bench test first or just trial a gallon and give the tannins time?

 

[Rice_Guy]

I like chestnut or apple soft tannin.
I have overdone using crab apple, so encourage bench trial, if only for choosing what flavor notes are agreeable to you. ,,, I don’t like bitter notes.

 

[Mila Hicks]

I like chestnut or apple soft tannin.
I have overdone using crab apple, so encourage bench trial, if only for choosing what flavor notes are agreeable to you. ,,, I don’t like bitter notes.

Same here, I also like it.

 

[JBP]

Finally got to test this wine - fermentation stopped right at 1.000. The pH is 3.36 and TA is 11.9 g/L.

Have not done bench trials with FT Rouge yet - any adjustments suggested prior?

 

[Rice_Guy]

On a numbers basis, WOW, 11.9gm per liter is a high TA. The general guideline is to mimic white grape wines where the TA should be under 7.5gm per liter. That said I run 100% rhurbarb at 12gm and Minnesota hybrids at 11gm. This pushes me to back sweeten to 1.012 or 1.018. How does it taste? extremely acidic or OK? I would hope that you have testing error and the TA is lower.
I like the pH

I expect FT rouge to have astringent flavor notes. Using chestnut tannin it looks like one gram of tannin has as much flavor impact as ten grams of acid blend. The end conclusion is watch how acidic the taste is.

With these numbers I wonder how ripe the plums were? Soft? easy to push into? Firm and easy to split with a knife? I run peach and will pick them at a ripe color but firm and then table ripen them inside so the squirrels don’t damage them. Plums continue to ripen as long as they are at room temperature.

 

[JBP]

Thanks, Rice_Guy - while not a lab expert, I am somewhat confident of the TA number. Tested first with my pH meter (titrating to 8.2 etc) - got a crazy high TA and decided "lab error." Since my sodium hydroxide was pretty old, decided it might have disintegrated and bought new. Retested with pH meter and got 12g/L. Wondered if perhaps my probe needed replacing and pulled out the color change kit. Got basically the same result.

Your questions on the plums are great ones for me to share with my friend for next year's harvest. Since he harvested, pitted and froze them, I am in the dark about the current batch. Quite possible he harvested early to protect from "plum predators" and froze immediately.

I will definitely do bench trials with some chestnut tannin and back sweetening.

FYI - my rhubarb TA is 8.1g/L (tested it at the same time). I love your recipe and just started a new batch from freezer. Currently trying to get it to start fermenting as I think I may have overdosed on kmeta when the fruit was thawing. Two yeast starters of EC1118 have failed to kick it off.