Persimmon Wine

[Gowers Choice]

Any suggestions for persimmons? We made some last year which was probably the best batch of the year. The taste was excellent, but the process was a pain. I picked mostly fruit that had fully ripened and fell from the tree. The mash from the primary fermentation was the consistency of baby food. We couldn't really press it out, so we bagged it and massaged juice out of it. The result was a 5 gal carboy with about 2 1/2 gals of persimmon sludge in the bottom. We only got 10 bottles out of the 5 gals.

Should I pick a little less ripe fruit this year that still has some substance?
A filtering system?
Appreciate any suggestions.

 

[Bert]

Have you ever tryed steam juicing your fruit??? You get rid of a lot of pulp that way and I feel it helps with clearing....There are posts on steam juicing you may want to look at.....

 

[Gowers Choice]

interesting.. I'll check that out, thanks.

 

[smokegrub]

Were I doing a persimmon wine I would definitely steam-juice.I also would not pick any fruit from the tree because under ripe fruit is very astringent.

 

[Gowers Choice]

Persimmons are tricky, the trees are pretty big so it's not like you can just shake the tree. The fully ripe fruit will fall off the tree, but by that time they're half mush.

Under what section can I find a "how to" on steam-juicing? I looked through a couple sections but didn't see any how-to info.

 

[Waldo]

Maybe this will help GC
http://forum.finevinewines.com//forum_posts.asp?TID=2780&KW=steam+juicing

 

[Gowers Choice]

Awesome, thanks Waldo. Just one question, being that's it's already pure juice, can you just skip the primary fermentation and go straight to the carboy with your sugar and yeast? Or is there a step inbetween I didn't notice?

 

[Waldo]

Cannot skip the primary. Or I wouldn't anyway.

 

[Wayne1]

From my understanding, the purpose of the primary is to provide a large surface area so that the yeast can get enough oxygen for the initial stage of their work - rather than to aid with distraction. Wish I had that much juice to work with now! Good luck!

 

[Gowers Choice]

Picked 20 gallons of persimmons so far (wife not happy about 18 gal tote box taking up freezer space). Gonna shoot for another 20. Wish I could get ahold of a steamer,but the show must go on.

 

[Gowers Choice]

btw, ended up making 25 gallons of wine

 

[Waldo]

Any pictures ? We do like them you know

 

[Bert]

You are going to have a lot of wine to play with....GOOD LUCK

 

[Gowers Choice]

I'll try and post some. Have 38 gallons going all together, 25 persimmon, 5 plum, 5 peach/raspberry, and 3 blackberry. Not much to see right now, just a line of carboys against the wall in a basement. Looking forward to the bottling parties.

 

[suprasteve]

So this is a little late but I haven't been on in awhile...
I first tried making wine because I had a persimmon tree in my front yard that was producing way more fruit than I could eat. I had the opportunity to trynearlya dozen batches of various sizes over 2 years and I found out a couple things that worked for me. First, I froze all the fruit before using it. I would cut off the tops (with the little leaf things still attached) and let them thaw just enough to peel the skins off. Then I'd drop the whole persimmon in a very fine meshed bag. I had 5 gallon carboys and always at least 6 gallons of fermentable juice, so I'd set aside at least a gallon carboy for topping up because of all the pulp that would settle out of the wine. I think on average I racked my persimmon batches at least 5 times to get them clear. I would let it bulk age and settle out for at least 6 months, usually closer to a year. Even then I'd still get some sediment, but not too bad. Personally I didn't like my all-persimmon batches because they would come out a little bit chalky. The best batch I did I added some of those Welch's niagra grape frozen concentrate things to the persimmons. I believe it was around 1 per gallon (maybe like 4 per 3 gallons?). It turned out really well and is still probably the best light wine I've made so far. I know this is probably too little too late, but maybe its good for some ideas for next time. I can dig up more info (starting SG, yeast, time in carboy, other ingredients, exact number of Welch's things, etc) if it would be helpful, I just have it on a different computer. Best of luck!

 

[Gowers Choice]

Re-racked my 25 gallons yesterday. Went from 25 gal to 12 gal after siphoning wine off the persimmon sludge. Each carboy was at least half sludge. Definitely need to get a steam juicer before next years batch.

 

[Gowers Choice]

Ended up with 51 bottles all together. It was interesting to see the variety in taste we had between the two carboys that used Cotes De Blancs (but had different amounts of lees and sugar) and the other jug that we used Lavin yeast. Actually the Lalvin batch turned out much dryer with less fruit flavor. We ended up blending it with the sweeter batch which seemed to help fill in the gaps for both.