by oldbloke » Sun Jul 13, 2014 20:18
Spotted a couple of kilo punnets of plums reduced to a quid in Tesco, thought it'd be rude not to, so started a plum wine today.
Reminded me I don't think my recipe is on here...
I've had some good plum with fruit from local trees, not sure exactly which variety, but the yellowy ones rather than the red/purple ones.
It goes more or less like this, per gallon:
Stone 4lb(ish) of plums and halve or quarter them
Bung them in a bucket with a crushed Campden, 75g(ish) of chopped raisind, 2 cloves, 5g or so finely sliced root ginger, half to 1 tsp acid (I like a citric/tartaric mix), half a pound of sugar, and boiled water to make up to a bit less than a gallon.
My original recipe says to pour boiling water over, but that's just asking for trouble from the pectin, so today I used recently-boiled water.
When it's cooled a bit, a generous tsp pectolase.
Leave to do the flavour extraction for 3 days to a week, stirring occasionally
Strain onto the rest of the sugar - my notes says 2lbs, but I may first do some sanity checks on the ABV this time
My notes say bring this to the boil, or nearly, but again that's just asking for pectin trouble, and I'm not clear what it's supposed to do apart from make the sugar easier to dissolve, so a little gentle warmign for that will do this year.
Once cool enough, pitch yeast and add nutrient, ferment until done, rack onto stabiliser.
Finings may be needed.
This wine tends to need a bit of time for a slight bitterness to fade, but is then gorgeous.