Starting a plum "Brandy"

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Biggreenavalanche
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Starting a plum "Brandy"

Post by Biggreenavalanche »

Starting a plum "brandy"

Recipe...started with a bushel basket of ripe to over ripe plums, spit em, "squished" em and dropped into two 6.5 gallon primaries...added four gallons boiling water...added four lbs cane suger to each...allowed to cool while stirring every few minutes...added yeat nutrient and Lavelin EC1118...prim ferment for two week...stained and transferred to two 6.5 gallons secondary fermenter carboys....aerated and is continuing to ferment as I type...for some reason this has been slow ferment, but not spoiled and is continuing...will update as I continue....btw, smells really tasty !

Cheers,

Rich
Biggreenavalanche
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

Post by Biggreenavalanche »

Oh, forgot to say I also used a pectic enzyme ....

Cheers,

Rich
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Paulinka
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

Post by Paulinka »

Ripe plums already have an epic amount of sugars and beside that lots of food for the yeas. Sugar increases final alc. volume but cuts down on quality real bad. Yeast nutrient is for fruits that lack nutrients, like watermelon. Pectinase is pretty much good for most fruits, but it is very useful to puree the fruit (just after cleaning and deseeding it) with a drilling machine eqipped with paintmixer. I have a paintmixer designed to be used especially for plum: it has sharpened blades and cuts and purees in the same time, for a half bucket it only takes a few minutes to have plum-cream, ready to be inoculated. Just my tips you may wish to try next time. :)
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Jimbo
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

Post by Jimbo »

Paulinka wrote:Ripe plums already have an epic amount of sugars and beside that lots of food for the yeas. Sugar increases final alc. volume but cuts down on quality real bad.


+1
Paulinka wrote:Yeast nutrient is for fruits that lack nutrients, like watermelon. Pectinase is pretty much good for most fruits, but it is very useful to puree the fruit (just after cleaning and deseeding it) with a drilling machine eqipped with paintmixer. I have a paintmixer designed to be used especially for plum: it has sharpened blades and cuts and purees in the same time, for a half bucket it only takes a few minutes to have plum-cream, ready to be inoculated. Just my tips you may wish to try next time. :)


Good points all. Ive found with apples, cherries and plums, just mash em up (juice the apples) and let er rip with a good yeast. No water, no sugar, no nutrients, nothin. Let mother natures yeast deal with the fruit in its natural state. Never had an issue in 20 years of fermenting fruits. You could even let the natural yeast do its thing but its a little riskier as there are lots of stuff that like fruit sugars, so its a bit of a race in teh beginning. I like using a large yeast starter, Its like dropping a blown 350 in a Vega and racing a stock Pinto. Pretty much guarantees whos gonna win.
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Paulinka
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

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Jimbo wrote:Let mother natures yeast deal with the fruit in its natural state.
Absolutely spot on. I tasted a few days ago a pot-stilled apricot brandy presented by a friend-of-a-friend. It had a marvellous scent, a fresh taste, and a very long, almost disturbingly long sweet apricot aftertaste. I was pretty much shocked, as my best apricot felt so empty compared to that... I had lots of questions, about how he made it, and most of the answers was pretty shocking.

He used wild yeasts, and fermented in a wooden (acacia) barrel that was passed down to him long time ago. That barrel was only used for apricot, but for decades, and only a good clearing with well-water was all it got through those ages.

But... what is the trick in cooking that mash? He said: time, patience, and being cool all the time while being patient. The only way to cook out the esthers renowned for the long nice aftertaste is to cook out the living sh.t of the fermented mash, slowly, with good cooling. With a double walled pot, until 2% ABV comes out.

Okay, I have a single walled pot now, so yeah, whatever, maybe later I will try to reach these heights. :? But what about blending? Much to my surprise, he also drops out the lethargic scene that usually comes in between 45-41% while distilling the low wines. He said something about "waves to ride" in the tail, and that there can be big differences in the tail area with different fruits, sometimes he use a lot, sometimes he only blends a very little part, only that has the highest clarity of the enjoyable properties we look for.

And after blending he dilutes the spirit with some magic water, ceramic filtered and energized and whatnot. Maybe those ions are rotating in a better way than those in distilled water? Well, at this point the evening started to turn a bit drunky for me (some for my friends presented their new beers to the public), but I hope I learned something I can keep in mind nonetheless.

Right now I try to use proper yeasts, even those have trouble fermenting, as we have an extremely hot summer, I pretty much think that wildlings would die horribly ten times in these conditions. Even with good yeasts I had to re-yeast my sur cherry this summer. But it turned out to be very good, I'm drinking it right now. Cheers! :thumbup:
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NZChris
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

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You don't have to leave wild yeast completely up to chance. If you can get some fruit a day or two before and make up a starter culture with it, you can give the wild yeast a head start, or if it doesn't look good, decide to pitch something else.
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

Post by shadylane »

To make a Plum brandy, start with a Plum wine.
Use sodium metabisulfite "Campden tablets" to kill the wild yeast, then pitch a big dose of EC1118.
The old way of doing things works, but modern ways are more consistent.

Edited:
Making a good Brandy begins with the ferment, next comes the cuts and it ends with the ageing.
Last edited by shadylane on Mon Jul 21, 2014 6:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Jimbo
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

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No need to add a chemistry set to the mash either. Screw chemicals, sugar, nutrients, all of it. If you pitch a good starter it will overpower any wild yeast fast. If you want wild yeast just squash and let it go.

Go to Serbia where every villager in every village makes Slivovitz (plum brandy) by the tank load, ask them about potassium metabisulfites and youll get blank stares. They been making plum brandy for eons. Consistently.
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

Post by shadylane »

Successfully, Yes.
Consistently, maybe.
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

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Yes I take my words back lol. Ive had great slivo and godawful bile they call slivo. Maybe someone should introduce them to sulfites haha or at least good sanitization
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

Post by shadylane »

The stills used for making brandy in that part of the world is different from what we are used to.
And the way they ferment is also.

Edited:
My opinion was based on research and You tube video's
I've never been there.
Biggreenavalanche
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

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Thanks to all for the advice ! Will let y'all know how this comes out...ferment is still going strong...again thanks for the tips !

Cheers,

Rich
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Paulinka
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

Post by Paulinka »

shadylane wrote:The stills used for making brandy in that part of the world is different from what we are used to.
I'm happy to show some: http://www.palinkafozes.com/hazi-palinkafozok
If I would recommend one design it would be the "Duplex Panka", double walled, 95L, $1750.
Right now I use the last one in that same block, it only cost $200, but just 17L, low volume is good for experimenting but pretty big time to go through with 50+ L mash.
shadylane wrote:And the way they ferment is also.
Slivovitz's ferment is made from pressed plum juice, Hungarian Szilvapálinka's (our plum brandy) is made from shredded and deseeded plum, basically a puree. Taste is a bit different, compare rosé to redwine made from the same blue grapes. I love and have both.
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

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Sodium metabisulfite is for wine, not for stillin', unless you live in Rotorua with it's permanent sulfur pong, and I'm sure you don't.
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

Post by shadylane »

Biggreenavalanche wrote:Thanks to all for the advice ! Will let y'all know how this comes out...ferment is still going strong...again thanks for the tips !

Cheers,

Rich
How's the ferment going?
Just out of curiosity, years ago a friend named Rich, road a bicycle from Maine to California.
By chance are you the same Rich?
Biggreenavalanche
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

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Ferment still going, slowing a bit though...

Nope not that Rich...

Cheers,

Rich
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

Post by thecroweater »

All plums are not the same, they do not all have crazy amounts of sugar I found most red flesh plums are quite sweet, some yellowy orange flesh plums are a bit sweet, yellow fleshed ones are quite tart and some white flesh ones are so tart that birds won't even touch the. Good tasting brandy can be made from all of them but very obviously if there is little to no sugar present it will be required to add it
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

Post by Jimbo »

Crow I dont know if plums are like apples, but tart apples and sweet apples have the same sugar levels. Tart apples just have more malic acid
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skow69
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

Post by skow69 »

Palinkafozes.
hazi_fozde_kep_1
hazi_fozde_kep_1
Right Freaking On!

I've been staring at this for an hour and I have no clue. Zero. I can't read Hungarian. Google translate threw in the towel. Didn't crack a word.

I love the symmetry. Four, 1-2-3-4 thermometers. That thing cantilevered off the bottom of the column looks for all the world like a 2 hp motor. There is either a sight glass in the middle of the column or some weird reflection. The only thing I would bet on is nobody builds this kind of complexity into a still without a damn good reason.

Paulinka, can you shed some light on this for me, please? It's a way cool looking still. Somebody obviously has a plan for it and I can't figure out what it is.
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

Post by shadylane »

The gear motor is probably a pot stirrer
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Paulinka
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Re: Starting a plum "Brandy"

Post by Paulinka »

Yes, it is definitely a stirrer. TBH I do not know a lot about these machines, but what I can read about it's advert is that it is a double-walled single-run still that can be used as a double run potstill too. It also has a built-in stirrer and the builders especially recommend it for distilling thick mashes, like grape lees and marc.

It can also be used for making a very thick plum marmelade, that is baked first and then cooked for about two days until it thickens hard. The same model with a bit more feature (glasses and plates) have a video here, enjoy the stillpr0n my friends, it is really-really mouthwatering:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MbHLZTYYws

Not the same model but here is a long instructional movie from a single-run pálinka distiller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jgVY5ixaGs

I find these videos very interesting, however, for fruit brandies - and for AG/rum too - I much more prefer the traditional pot methods, my choice from that shops' portfolio would be the Duplex Panka, with an inbetween thumper if needed. Lot's of people here are fascinated by the features these towered-multiplated stills provide, and with carefully controlled technology and great knowledge, from professionally fermented quality fruitmash they can make exactly the same tasting and smelling liquors that otherwise synthetic aromas give. :wtf: Some of them are completely soulless drinks. IMHO, contrary to that, pálinka made with traditional potstills have a broader taste, and an adventitious touch.

This of course absolutely means not that I would not be happy with a still like you asked about, it is a great sill for spirits other than pálinka, for pálinka it is a bit of a "new school", but more and more people like it better very day. Kind of like what happened when californian style wines hit the market, the barrel aged old style wines became to heavy soon. Sorry for the wall-of-text, got to go back and cook the last batch of my apricot mash now. :)

Cheers.

(edit: take a look on this distillery, it is the kind which I like for fruit spirits and their product is parallel to the traditional Hungarian expectations about what makes a good pálinka. They have double run traditional potstill technology, that suits for making pálinka from 3000 metric tons of fruit per year. They also age plum-, apple-, and grape pálinka in barrels, evaluate it yearly, but the goal is to put it on market at 17yrs old. The distilleries' specialty is Birs (Quince) and Cigánymeggy ("Gypsy" Sour Cherry, which is a very aROMAtic black cherry that has a big stone and a tiny but very sweet and special tasting fruit) and is a pioneer for brandy made from pumpkin and wild berries, but the latter are only exquisite products made in little batches. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beIxCeGxayU)
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