Plum Wine Recipe

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Forgot to add the racking on 13/10/09 we moved FV out of warm kitchen into cold garage. :grin:

One more thing nobody wished me a happy forum birthday yesterday :cheers:
 
Hi all,

I'm keeping this thread going untill I think I've asked EVERY possible question I think, which leads me nicely on to...

Right, I strained, I Demijonathaned, I airlocked and put my three DJs of sweet nectar plum juice under the stairs on the 13th September, as I write this (the evening of the 27th September), it's STILL bubbling away like a guddon 13 days later, we're talking a fat blup every 10 seconds out the lock.

do I just leave it for nature to take its course or should I knock out the yeast prematurely?

another point is...

I put in pectolase, but even now it really cloudy... it looks nice, like a rich orange candyfloss, but this isn't what I was expecting - is this normal?

Assuming that eventually it WILL stop fermenting before I create the worlds first Plum Biodisel Refinery, what of bottling and racking.

I've heard the term "racking" but I don't know how long for, and why, also any considerations like temperature, light, length of time, position of bottle.

and regarding the final botteling...

do I just syphon the whole DJ into the wine bottle, every last drop, or do I leave the last little bit behind? Part of my little-knowledge brain tells me that there would be undesriables lurking at the bottom of the DJ which I wouldn't want to drink

I JUST WANT TO DRINK IT GOD DAM IT, WHY MUST I WAIT - AGAGAAAGAGAGAGAGAGH
 
Read the Wurzel's “HowTo”, the principle is exactly the same, but increase the timescale.

Let it ferment out, leave it for a couple of weeks longer and then rack, then leave it somewhere cool and dark for another month or two. I would leave it to clear naturally but you could try to hurry it up by adding finings.

When it has cleared, rack again to get rid of the undesirables lurking at the bottom of the DJ, then leave it somewhere cool and dark for another 3 months (or more) before bottling, then leave the bottles somewhere cool and dark for a bit longer.

bacchus said:
I JUST WANT TO DRINK IT GOD DAM IT, WHY MUST I WAIT - AGAGAAAGAGAGAGAGAGH
BECAUSE IF YOU'RE MAKING COUNTRY WINES THAT'S JUST THE WAY IT IS!
 
sorry to be dense (sorry!? I make no appologies!) but does RACKING simply mean - the process of putting wine into a bottle or container, or does it contain some element which means it's not just bottling?
 
Moley said:
Racking is simply syphoning the good stuff off the spent fruit pulp and dead yeast, usually into another DJ or some vessel of equal or slightly smaller capacity.

Once your wine has cleared and thrown its final sediment, if you're very careful not to stir up the sediment, or if you have help, final racking could be straight to bottles.
 
i think it's all gone to pot... sadly, there are now "things" floating suspended in the brew. I'd left it since the 11th of October to start clearing, it's still pretty cloudy, but now has things which look like white grains weroith small fiberous tails attached.

I guess this isn't normal and it's become contaminated.

This is absolutley frustrating and annoying.

For starters, it took a biblical age to ferment, I hydro'd it after a calender month and it was only at 10% - I thought it was meant to be done in 8-10 days?

I decided to stablise and campden it.

After 48 hours I added the finining, it's been sat there now for over 2 weeks, I WAS about to message on here and ask how long can I leave it - just thinking about wine oxidising an ruining if it's not capped and sealed.

I sampled it about a week ago, it was tasting okay, sweet and pleasent, but more importantly the complete pea soup fog and cleared a bit and looked as though it was on the way to being crystal.

I looked again this morning and like I said, it's about as clear as it was a week ago, except with this F******* lumps of S*** in it.

--------------

So, is it screwed?

71567_161413733889419_100000623816335_392877_7859436_n.jpg


Can this be filtered out?
 
Does it look slightly oily?

If you've got a filter, rack the wine to a fermenting bucket, whip it to a froth and add two crushed CTs per gallon, then filter.
 
bacchus said:
i think it's all gone to pot... sadly, there are now "things" floating suspended in the brew. I'd left it since the 11th of October to start clearing, it's still pretty cloudy, but now has things which look like white grains weroith small fiberous tails attached.

I guess this isn't normal and it's become contaminated.

This is absolutley frustrating and annoying.

For starters, it took a biblical age to ferment, I hydro'd it after a calender month and it was only at 10% - I thought it was meant to be done in 8-10 days?

I decided to stablise and campden it.

After 48 hours I added the finining, it's been sat there now for over 2 weeks, I WAS about to message on here and ask how long can I leave it - just thinking about wine oxidising an ruining if it's not capped and sealed.

I sampled it about a week ago, it was tasting okay, sweet and pleasent, but more importantly the complete pea soup fog and cleared a bit and looked as though it was on the way to being crystal.

I looked again this morning and like I said, it's about as clear as it was a week ago, except with this F******* lumps of S*** in it.

--------------

So, is it screwed?

71567_161413733889419_100000623816335_392877_7859436_n.jpg


Can this be filtered out?

Leave it alone for a while let it settle rack after another month.
plum wine can take an age to clear.
 
i'm not sure, that's to say i'm not confident that it's not contaminated, so what i've done is taken off 1 dj's worth, capped it and have now left in in my wardrobe, I'm planning on just forgetting about it until after Christmas and then see what it's like - thank for all your helps :cheers:
 
Hi Welshwitch

Could you tell me how much and which yeast you used in this and when you added it please please?

Thanks
 
GOD DAM! THAT'S A BLAST FROM THE PAST... christ has it been a year since I made this?... yes.

In the end, the "bloom" in the wine caused me to chunk most of it out, which was a poor decision, as the DJ I kept cleared up and tasted pretty good by Christmas.

I've been finishing a college course, full time looking after kids, and now have started a new job since this brew, I know it's a poor excuse but not found the time this year. I should really pull my finger out.

Nice to check back here though - all the very best to you all!!
 
I started a new job in September and struggled to find the time to brew much for a while. Thankfully I forced myself to do some this summer and have 5 gallons of plum wine and 3 gallons of black+elderberry on the bubble downstairs.
 
We've been following a recipe similar to this but we've been using damsons (same family right?) and added sultanas.

We've just syphoned off just over 3G of the stuff. After the putrid smell of rotting fruit and sludge is out of the way, it's starting to taste rather nice and is measuring at 12.47%.

Giving it a go with some Wilko finings and then hopefully bottling at the end of the week to let sit and mature.

Not bad for our first "from scratch/without a kit" wine :D

I highly recommend this!
 
Nice to hear from you ChewedKandi, this year the plumbs got half inched by my father-in-law (Not actually sure what happened to them all). But on the plus side, the lack of plumbs caused me to find another source of free booze and I opted for the apples, after a long day of food processing and squashing a wood disk within a bucket using a car jack, I ended up with 3 DJs of Apple juice, and the cider.

It's been sat in the attic getting ready for Christmas since September.

Let me know how the damson sultana brew goes? it sounds like it could be delicious
 
bacchus said:
Nice to hear from you ChewedKandi, this year the plumbs got half inched by my father-in-law (Not actually sure what happened to them all). But on the plus side, the lack of plumbs caused me to find another source of free booze and I opted for the apples, after a long day of food processing and squashing a wood disk within a bucket using a car jack, I ended up with 3 DJs of Apple juice, and the cider.

It's been sat in the attic getting ready for Christmas since September.

Let me know how the damson sultana brew goes? it sounds like it could be delicious

Well after the initial testing while it's been fermenting/very slight bubbles for over 3 weeks, compared to how it is now at the month stage, the burning taste has gone and it's starting to taste more fruity. The other half has said it's very drinkable now... but we're holding out for Christmas :)
 
ChewedKandi said:
.... the putrid smell of rotting fruit and sludge...
I highly recommend this!

ChewedKandi said:
... the burning taste has gone ...
...The other half has said it's very drinkable now...

Should we be concerned for your health? Are your taste buds ok?
I don't know whether to think that it was ruined and off ages ago, or whether you've made something fantastic?!

I'm confused... :oops:
 
Crastney said:
ChewedKandi said:
.... the putrid smell of rotting fruit and sludge...
I highly recommend this!

ChewedKandi said:
... the burning taste has gone ...
...The other half has said it's very drinkable now...

Should we be concerned for your health? Are your taste buds ok?
I don't know whether to think that it was ruined and off ages ago, or whether you've made something fantastic?!

I'm confused... :oops:

Haha well we're both newbies at this whole thing - so perhaps we did something wrong. One of the problems (?) may have been the damsons were very ripe - a week or so more and they would be floor mush. So we were initially concerned about that being the reason we had a putrid smell of rotting fruit. As we're both newbies at this, we're seeing this as our test batch for years to come :D

We almost threw it all away a week back because that smell was still there, but we opened it this week and the smell is gone. The initial tasting - when the putrid smell was there, there was a harsh taste of alcohol, but this has mellowed now.

So we don't know exactly what has happened or if it's a case of patience and just leave the wine alone!

It's clearing very well with Wilko finings. It would be a shame to not be patient with it though since we've got 18 bottles worth in the bucket :D
 

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