Wild Plum Wine

[hannabarn]

I made 6 gallons of Wild Plum wine. 3 lbs per gallon. 18 lbs for 6 gallon batch. In the carboy for 3 months. I tasted it today and the flavor is not bad but it is a bit thin. Is it too late to something to give it more body. I was thinking of Plum Smart.

 

[ckassotis]

Someone may disagree with me, but I would say no. Not too late. You could "juice" some plums and add that juice as a flavor pack to enhance the body, I would think. I honestly have no idea how one would do that with plums - perhaps steam?

Not sure about plum smart. I see that it is 100% juice, but don't have any knowledge about whether they might add anything in the way of chemicals that might cause a problem.

I would think that might be okay - what is typically suggested is to concentrate the juice down so that you are adding, in essence, a plum "concentrate" to maximize flavors and not dilute down the wine.

Not sure what others might think.

 

[Bert]

HI hannabarn, It's been a while .....I did a plum wine 2 yrs. ago with 4lbs per gallon and that was on the thin side also...nice flavor after a bit of backsweetening, but thin body.....not sure what you can do at this point to improve it...I think a F-pack may help,but to add enough to make a difference would bring down your Alc. content to a wine cooler.....maybe someone else has some ideas

 

[Wade E]

This is why I stress that 6 lbs per gallon is really a minimum with fruit wines. I hate to see everyone do all that just to not be happy way down the road. Ive been exactly where you are with a plum wine and did exactly what you are talking about. For more flavor I took 2 quarts of the Plumsmart and simmered them down to 1/2 a quart, cooled and added and also added some glycerin to boost the body. I reduced it so as not to dilute the wine too much but still get all the flavor. The glycerin will add a bit of sweetness or a perceived sweetness.

 

[hannabarn]

Thanks for confirming my idea. Wade, I thought I remembered you posting quite awhile back about adding plum smart. I don't think I can make this wine any worse. I guess I should have started with maybe 1 gallon instead of 6. I don't really like 1 gallon batches as they take just as much time and effort as a 6 gallon.

 

[fivebk]

What about simmering some bananas down with a little water and adding that to your wine. you would have to let it clear again, but adding plumsmart you would have to let that clear also. Just a suggestion?

BOB

 

[Wade E]

It didnt cloud mine up after simmering it down like that. Your adding so little to 6 gallons.

 

[hannabarn]

Since I'm just playing with it now, I think I'll try the plumsmart. The banana sounds interesting but I don't know what it would do to the taste. The recipe I used said to use 3# per gallon if using wild plums be cause of the acid content. 4 gallons if using regular plums. So following Wade's recommendation, I should have made 3 gallons. Good thing to remember for next year.

 

[Wade E]

I dont recall plums being very high in acid and remember you could always remove acid pre and post fermentation but flavor is always needed!

 

[hannabarn]

I added plum smart concentrate to the wild plum wine yesterday (Wednesday). It sure did darken it and gave it a better wine look! I haven' tasted it but I think I will wait a few days and then taste it.
I have 1 gallon in a small refrigerator set at 45* to see if it will hasten the clearing!

 

[grapeman]

Good luck with it Barney. I have never done a plum wine before.
Weather take a turn for the colder there?

 

[Wade E]

Did you concentrate it, how much did you use and how much did you concentrate if you did?

 

[hannabarn]

No the weather didn't turn colder. It is hovering around 32*. But we just had 18" of wet heavy snow! I have been snowblowing and plowing all day long! predicted to be 44 tomorrow. That will help (I hope)! I haven't uploaded any pics on this new forum format.

 

[hannabarn]

Wade, I concentrated it per your instructions. Te plum smart came in 1 1/2 qt containers so I simmered it to 3 pts and added it! I have 7 gallons of nice dark red plum wine!

 

[mountbaldy]

Wade, that's an interesting concept. I think I may have to try that this next year when we do plum wine.
My wife and I make plum wine every year. We use some cultivated plums of one of the neighbors. It usually turns out like ice wine due to the insane amount of sugar our recipe calls for (that's how the wife likes it too.) This past years' batch turned out overly sweet because I decided to play with the yeast we used. I ended up having to add some distillers yeast to it to get the stuff to not be like syrup. Somehow I forgot to taste the wine before I back sweetened... We'll see how it is in another 6 months.
One comment I wanted to make regarding juicing plums is that we use a steam extractor for that process. It works very nicely. We save some juice for jelly, use the pulp for butter and make wine out of the left over juice. This year we had close to 7 gallons left over.

 

[hannabarn]

I think I'll use a steam juicer this year if there enough plums. The plums I use are growing wild in my neighbor's abandoned farm field. Last year was a good year and I got the plums before the bears did. I have to race the black bear for plums and choke cherries!

 

[hannabarn]

I'm back!! Got away from winemaking for awhile. I'm down to about 50 bottles of various flavors so I now have a batch of chokecherry, apple, grape clearing. I also have a batch of wild plum I'm waiting for clearing