Mirabelle Plums

[canadianmoonshiner]

The mirabelles (yellow plums) are getting soft/sweet & just about to turn yellow. I normally wait 'till they're ripe then mash thru a collander to remove the pits/skins to make syrup/jam/vinegar. I read somewhere I can't recall that to make the best eau-de-vie/brandy they should be harvested when slightly under-ripe/green. Can anyone confirm this or provide some experience? Once they turn yellow they go really fast & the bugs get them so I've got 3-7 days at most to decide what to do. 3 trees with a few hundred pounds all at once is a little too much for me to make all into jam. If no one can help I might just let them turn then puree/freeze it all & try to sell it to one of the jammers at the farm markets but a nice wine/brandy would be nice since I haven't made any in 4 years. BTW picked first blackberry today! SW BC Canada.

[thecroweater]

I would think they would be very hard to work with green. All my plums I used were ripe to very ripe , got the boiler charged with them right now in fact

[myles]

Yes get them in the fermenter when ripe. There is no problem adding more fruit slowly over a day or two, alternatively freeze them until they are all ready.

[MDH]

I just throw them in a barrel and let them ferment on their own for a month including the pits, then distill it only once to 50-60% and dilute using the very late tails (at that point it's just plum flavored water).

That's the way I did it last year, chances are I'll do it again this year. The taste is excellent white, I haven't tried aging yet so perhaps I'll do that this year.

[beelah]

I was given about 30 pounds of yellow plums that were frozen from last year and year before.. they were all pitted and cleaned...I just threw them in the fermenter and let them thaw, added some pectic enzyme and a bit of sugar. I let them open ferment for a week then syphoned into carboys and let them finish for another two weeks...cleared really nice. Ran the first batch real hard and hot and got nice flavour, then added the gallon of low wines to the next 5 gallon batch and ran it slow. I also added a 1/2 gallon of feints from may last run of UJSSM. Came out at about 70% abv in my pot still, but didn't have quite as much flavour as my first run Could have been the feints modifying the profile or maybe too much sugar in the second batch. Next time I run plums, just plums, no sugar and see what I get.

[thecroweater]

Not much is what you will get. Not adding sugar will make a nice sliv but ya need a whole Damn lot of plums . I'll copy and paste my method here if folks are interested

[MDH]

http://www.slivovice.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[myles]

My standard method is to use 5 or 6lb of plums to each gallon, dependent on the type of plum. I will later add 1lb of sugar to each fermenter gallon to boost the yield just a little bit.

So lets say I have 125lb plums that will finish up as 25 gallons in the fermenter.

I put the fruit in the fermenter with 10 gallons of water and whack it with a sharpened mortar mixer adding pectic enzyme to help release the juice. Let that sit overnight whilst I start off the yeast in a gallon demijon. Next day I add the yeast and let it ferment the fruit pulp for 3 or 4 days.

Then add the sugar, top up the water to the final amount, give it another blast with the mortar mixer to stir it up well, and leave it alone until it is done. I ferment on the stones and fruit pulp and sort everything out at the end.

This is quite a low proportion of added sugar and it just lifts the fermentation to about 7 or 8%. In a good summer or a different climate, you might not need to add any sugar at all.

[thecroweater]

Plum Brandy


Plum brandy is known by many names, the most common being Slivovich or slivowitz and there are many methods to make it
When fermenting fruit the general rule of thumb is not to exceed a ratio of 1 part fruit to one part sugar to 5 parts water and this will produce a spirit that will taste virtually the same as a wash with no sugar (purists will argue that point) . I've done Sliv with no sugar and with about 2:1 ratio and couldn't differentiate between the final product, only to greatly reduced yield. Generally I use 2 kg of fruit to 1 kg of sugar to 5 ltrs of water but not everyone can get a lot of fruit free so the method I will write up is using the maximum rule of thumb ratio based on a 25 ltr wash
Yeast
fresh plums have a white power coating the outside of the skin, this is yeast and you can use it to ferment with. The thing is the type of yeast will vary from tree to tree and district to district so the attributes of your wild yeast until you use it are unknown. to guarantee a good fast ferment I would recommend a white wine yeast . If they are bought polished plums you will need to add yeast for certain and never use a bread yeast when dealing with fruit . The final product will be awful
Plum Brandy
5 kg's of plums
5 kg's of white sugar
20 ltrs of warm water (around 30' centigrade)
20 to 30 grams of wine yeast
Hydrating the yeast
have about 500ml of warm water at around 30" Centigrade and I dissolve a tbl spoon of sugar in it (but that's not imperative) and then add the yeast
Method
dissolve the sugar into 10 or so ltrs of water, a paint or plaster mixer on a drill works well for this
Mash the plums, this works best if the plums have been picked a few days before and allowed to deteriorate a bit. Place the plums in a bucket and mash them, I use a plaster mixer on a drill . when they are fairly well mashed add some of the sugar water and remix/mash the plum pulp then tip into your fermenter, pulp stones and all.
Top the fermenter up with the remainder of the sugar water and warm or cool water so that it is around 27 to 32' when full (leave 70 to 100mm head space, 150mm for bigger ferments) . stir in your hydrated yeast and that's the wash started.
Racking your plum wash
Now the fun begins. This stuff has a fair bit of sediment and I like to milk all the wash I can out as there are some nice flavors in that mush down the bottom . make sure the ferment has finished, some times fruit washes can stall due to a low pH level (too much below say 4 may need adjusting)and an alkaline may need to be added to keep the yeast healthy (I use hydrated lime) . I also wait for most of the cap to sink but that may not be necessary.
Bail or siphon the top wine off until you get down to the sediment. there are several ways to deal with this crap and this is how I do it. I scoop a small bucket out and tip it on a flyscreen placed over a bucket until it gets too thick for that method and then I put it in a towel and wring the towel out . the resulting wash is pretty sludgy but with a good rolling boil you shouldn't get any issues with scorching, I never have
Make sure you do good cuts with fruit brandy, fruit contains pectin and the yeast will turn that pectin into methanol. The methanol will fraction off in your head cuts, you can blend some tails in to add a complexity to the spirit but don't bother blending in any heads

[Tater]

Plum Brandy


Plum brandy is known by many names, the most common being Slivovich or slivowitz and there are many methods to make it
When fermenting fruit the general rule of thumb is not to exceed a ratio of 1 part fruit to one part sugar to 5 parts water and this will produce a spirit that will taste virtually the same as a wash with no sugar (purists will argue that point) . I've done Sliv with no sugar and with about 2:1 ratio and couldn't differentiate between the final product, only to greatly reduced yield. Generally I use 2 kg of fruit to 1 kg of sugar to 5 ltrs of water but not everyone can get a lot of fruit free so the method I will write up is using the maximum rule of thumb ratio based on a 25 ltr wash
Yeast
fresh plums have a white power coating the outside of the skin, this is yeast and you can use it to ferment with. The thing is the type of yeast will vary from tree to tree and district to district so the attributes of your wild yeast until you use it are unknown. to guarantee a good fast ferment I would recommend a white wine yeast . If they are bought polished plums you will need to add yeast for certain and never use a bread yeast when dealing with fruit . The final product will be awful
Plum Brandy
5 kg's of plums
5 kg's of white sugar
20 ltrs of warm water (around 30' centigrade)
20 to 30 grams of wine yeast
Hydrating the yeast
have about 500ml of warm water at around 30" Centigrade and I dissolve a tbl spoon of sugar in it (but that's not imperative) and then add the yeast
Method
dissolve the sugar into 10 or so ltrs of water, a paint or plaster mixer on a drill works well for this
Mash the plums, this works best if the plums have been picked a few days before and allowed to deteriorate a bit. Place the plums in a bucket and mash them, I use a plaster mixer on a drill . when they are fairly well mashed add some of the sugar water and remix/mash the plum pulp then tip into your fermenter, pulp stones and all.
Top the fermenter up with the remainder of the sugar water and warm or cool water so that it is around 27 to 32' when full (leave 70 to 100mm head space, 150mm for bigger ferments) . stir in your hydrated yeast and that's the wash started.
Racking your plum wash
Now the fun begins. This stuff has a fair bit of sediment and I like to milk all the wash I can out as there are some nice flavors in that mush down the bottom . make sure the ferment has finished, some times fruit washes can stall due to a low pH level (too much below say 4 may need adjusting)and an alkaline may need to be added to keep the yeast healthy (I use hydrated lime) . I also wait for most of the cap to sink but that may not be necessary.
Bail or siphon the top wine off until you get down to the sediment. there are several ways to deal with this crap and this is how I do it. I scoop a small bucket out and tip it on a flyscreen placed over a bucket until it gets too thick for that method and then I put it in a towel and wring the towel out . the resulting wash is pretty sludgy but with a good rolling boil you shouldn't get any issues with scorching, I never have
Make sure you do good cuts with fruit brandy, fruit contains pectin and the yeast will turn that pectin into methanol. The methanol will fraction off in your head cuts, you can blend some tails in to add a complexity to the spirit but don't bother blending in any heads

I prefer wine yeasts but used bread yeast on fruit for years with good results.What kind did you use?I don't leave stones in mine.When I first started we just mashed with hands tossing seed and fermenting till everything settled and dipped off wash .Then went to just fermenting on pulp.But have went to putting skins and chunks that wouldn't mash into a sack and weigh down in wash ..Think it was goose eye that suggested it that way and I do believe it helps with keeping more cent.Seems to me that plums peaches mango's do have more cent in the tails.Also as to added sugar ya have a choice to make either fruit with sugar wash or sugar with fruit added wash.When ya can taste the difference your there

[thecroweater]

Ok its many years since I made fruit wine to drink but I found that the bakers yeast by Tandaco was a big failure as far as unwanted/ off flavours go, I haven't tried that one for sliv. The most common yeast used in Oz for rum and sugar washes including sugar heads like UJSM is Lowans red or Lowans gold, Tandaco is sometimes used and for the more pedantic safmalt (me these days ) or La Ma...... damn can't recall the name . I believe Lowans source there yeast from the French company La M.... (the one I can't remember) and it is a yeast breed on a molasses based strata.I found lowens to be a poor choice producing some really conflicting esters not conducive to a brandy. This was my personal findings backed up by quite a few others. I can't speak for Fleischmanns as as far as I know it is not available here but I've found those rum/bakers yeasts best avoided. I have had outstanding results from EC1118 and Selezione active cerevisiae/Australian White (results from native yeast varied from damn good to very slow and stalled)
As for the stones hmm that's a little euro thing , they all say it adds a complexity to the flavour, I wont still on them but I think it may add something to the ferment perhaps a ever so slight nut flavour
Edit that yeast company is Lallemand (why do you try posting when your drinking crow)Edit 2(I am drinking Sliv though so hmm maybe some insight after all