Peach and plum ferment

Information about fruit/vegetable type washes.

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tommysb
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Peach and plum ferment

Post by tommysb »

I am fortunate to have both a peach and two plum trees in my garden, and now, the first plums are starting to ripen.

Last year, I harvested peaches and froze them, with the intention of making peach brandy. I 1) didn't get round to it, and 2) wasn't sure if i had enough for a decent ferment. The fruits don't all ripen at the same time and with only a single tree, it's hard to get a lot of good fruit all at the same time, ready to start a ferment. This was part of the reason for freezing.

Now that plums are coming, (also in small batches, a few ripe fruits each day!) I decided to combine this year's plums with last year's peaches. There are enough peaches to get the ferment off to a nice start, and I will add in plums to the ferment as they come ripe.

I was on the fence about mixing the two, and not wanting to 'put all my eggs in one basket', so to speak, so I had also been adding the peaches slowly to the ferment, to see if it took off properly. I didn't want to have stored a (small) freezer full of fruit for a year, and then lose it all to an infection. Oh yes, I decided to go for a natural fermentation on this one...If i have problems I will probably try to save it with some EC-118 or similar, but having tasted the difference in complexity in spontaneously fermented wild yeast wines, and having read Paulinka's notes on the great Palinka thread, I feel it's worth the 'risk' here, in an attempt to make the best product i possibly can, with fruit from my own garden.

Here is the ferment. Just starting. Peaches are destoned and sliced, plums are whole. I am going to blend the plums in a day or two, but didn't have a paint-mixer handy. I added a bit of mineral water also, to cover the peaches - I made the mistake at first of not doing this, and they turned a bit brown and oxidized.
IMG_20220706_122156.jpg
Some more peaches are defrosting here. I don't want to dump them in and shock the ferment by dropping the temperature, so I'm letting them thaw a little. I hope they also don't oxidize. Actually....as I write that, i realise I could let them defrost in a water bath with a little lemon juice....
IMG_20220706_122216.jpg
The plan is to run the ferment in a 'one and done' through a plated column.

I have a couple of still, one 100L which stirs the mash, and a 50l which I could place on an induction heater. Not sure if I will have enough to fully load the 100L still, but maybe could work adding some water, which would also reduce the chance of scorching.
I am not sure which I will use to run it yet, it will be a judgement call once the ferment is finished, based on consistency, etc etc. If I use the unstirred still, I will butter the bottom, but not sure if that will do anything useful in the stirred still.

I'll update as ferment progresses.
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EricTheRed
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Re: Peach and plum ferment

Post by EricTheRed »

Just a point on freezing - we generally freeze most of our fruits - it helps break up the 'meat' - then the pectolyase can get at the pectin
If i have enough peaches for a batch, i don't, but things like strawberries where it takes a few weeks to get enough, we freeze them all.
Have not noticed any reduction in flavour - in fact it seems to help getting more of it out
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tommysb
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Re: Peach and plum ferment

Post by tommysb »

Yep, agreed! The defrosted peaches break down into total mush!

Not using any pectin enzymes in this, sticking with the 'natural' philosophy, probably at the expense of abv yield.
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Re: Peach and plum ferment

Post by tommysb »

I got hold of a paint stirrer a few days ago and pureed the whole lot. We've had some HOT days here, and the ferment was going a bit nuts. Had to do punch-downs on the rising cap a couple of times per day.

Now the weather has cooled off a bit, and this morning, the cap had not risen. Instead, looked like so (sorry, I stirred a little before I thought to take a photo.
IMG_20220711_102917_1.jpg


After stirring some more with the mixer, we had;
IMG_20220711_103333_1.jpg
Now, one thought about adding whole fruit vs pulping it.

I was throwing the plums into the pulp whole. Some of them had splits in the skin, if they had fallen from the tree and were very soft. Others had skin intact, just swimmig around in the slurry of blended peaches and plums. These plums were probably going through a little bit of CARBONIC MACERATION. . In any case, the harder, less ripe fruits were left uncrushed in the ferment for a few days. When doing punchdowns, the whole fruit had become softer, and more crushable by hand. So a little bit of feeling around, when I encountered a whole plum, if it was soft, i squeezed it to crush it. If it was hard, I left it to continue to ripen/macerate.

I have about 30l in total, and since the ferment has slowed down, I plan to seal and airlock it, and let it finish secondary fermentation over the next week or so, or until I can get round to running it.
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Re: Peach and plum ferment

Post by Demy »

I have often fermented with spontaneous leavening, it is true it creates a superior aromatic complexity, the downside is that it is less predictable in the results but 99% will be fine .. and I wouldn't worry much about infections in this case since a spontaneous leavening it will have yeast and bacteria anyway. Lately I've been making a plum ferment with 3 different yeasts, it seems to be going well (there is a post on the forum). I don't use pectin enzyme either.
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Ben
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Re: Peach and plum ferment

Post by Ben »

Seems like stirring after high krausen is to be avoided. You really don't want to introduce oxygen after the yeast have finished breeding cycle.
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Re: Peach and plum ferment

Post by tommysb »

SHOULD be ok with a little bit of stirring, in practice. - my reasoning being that stirring also releases CO2 that's in the solution, and drives out oxygen. This only really applies during vigorous ferment though. Certainly, of course, we do not want to be driving huge amounts (or any, if we can help it) of oxygen into the ferment.

I have been pretty laissez-faire in this approach, probably recklessly so based on the small size of the ferment.

It's weird - in the wine world, they are nowhere near as fastidious about sanitation, oxygen, etc etc compared to beer world. First time in a winery, after having in beer world for some years, I was shocked by the fact they just seem to hose everything down with water, commonly do open fermentation, don't really sanitise (in the way breweries do). I think I am letting that spill over into my ethos with this ferment, too.

Anyway, all this to say....yes. I agree Ben. But it's a case of 'do as I say, not as I do' :D
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Re: Peach and plum ferment

Post by Demy »

In the fruit ferments the "hat" that forms at the top must be sunk otherwise it could mold, so you did well even if you don't need a mixer ... but if there was still whole fruit you did well, I often see during The fermentation (in the hat) of the fruits not totally ground so I take the mixer and I make it turn for a few minutes, if instead you are at the end of fermentation, mix gently and close .... distil as soon as possible as soon as ready (observes the surface to understand if it's the right time).
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Re: Peach and plum ferment

Post by tommysb »

And here's what can happen if you don't punch down regularly enough. Just as Demy warned.
IMG_20220714_150611.jpg
I managed to skim the mould, and it looked like this.
IMG_20220714_150831.jpg
And afterwards another punch down. I hope it survives.

We're also having a heatwave here - forest fires, and the suchlike, meaning activity is faster than I would like. It's a bummer, I also need to travel this weekend, so won't be able to punch down, and I don't have time to run it before I go. I REALLY hope it survives and I can sort it out in 3 or 4 days time.
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Re: Peach and plum ferment

Post by Demy »

In this case I suggest you separate / squeeze the solids and leave only the liquid part fermented .... so it should last longer and you can walk away more calmly.
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Re: Peach and plum ferment

Post by tommysb »

I took Demy's advice and separated the liquid and solid, but it was very rushed.

The fruit wine tasted like it had a slight lacto infection, but nothing terrible.

I had a hard time separating it with the press - I should have used a straining bag or something, but didn't realise until it was too late. The solids were very small, and somewhat leaving the press under even the smallest amount of pressure. The whole operation was rushed as I was doing it on my lunch break, before evening travel. Definitely not ideal.

I separated about 15-20Litres of liquid and that is sitting in a fermenter now, with a lacto pellicle on top. Since I couldn't use any real pressure on pressing the pulp, there was still had a LOT of liquid and flavour etc left in it. Not wanting to lose that, I decided to 'preserve' it, by mixing with some low wines I stripped from red wine.

So i will end up with two brandies from this. One - grape, plum and peach, and the other just plum and peach.

I need to run it soon as the pellicle is already making me a bit nervous!

Will update some posts with photos when I have more time.
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Re: Peach and plum ferment

Post by tommysb »

Just an update on this (some months later).

The yield from the plum/peach ferment was very low, and the product off the still on the stripping run was much lower than I expected, i think that it indicated abv of about 2-3% in the wash. Not sure what happened there.

Anyway, I ran that on bubble plates, smeared it by running too hard, and just added it all back into the grape, peach, plum pot.

Had a small bit of spirit out of running that, and the feints went into an all feints run with some run feints.
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Re: Peach and plum ferment

Post by Bradster68 »

Iv made apple and peach brandy this year. All natural no sugar or anything added. No stirring nothing. Used ec1118.
The apple smelled and tasted great. Peach seemed mellow. Left some white, some on toasted and some on used brandy oak. Let you know next year how it tastes. 🍻
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Re: Peach and plum ferment

Post by Aquaman13 »

I'm currently doing a peach mash. In reading above, I read I need to punch down my yeast cap. How often? How soon from initial start up?
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Re: Peach and plum ferment

Post by njinjune »

CO2 release from my fermenting peach mash is slowing down after only 4 days….does that seem right?
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subbrew
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Re: Peach and plum ferment

Post by subbrew »

njinjune wrote: Wed Oct 04, 2023 4:38 am CO2 release from my fermenting peach mash is slowing down after only 4 days….does that seem right?
Lot of factors go into that.

Temperature
Yeast used
pitch rate
ripeness of peaches and thus starting gravity
PH of mash

But if it is a bit warm, you pitched a good pitch of an aggressive yeast, and you had a moderate starting gravity it could certainly be mostly done in 4 days.
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Re: Peach and plum ferment

Post by njinjune »

Thank you! It is warm. I used K1-V1116 and starting SG was 1.058. Tonight I’m going to check SG 🤞🏻
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Re: Peach and plum ferment

Post by njinjune »

SG measured at around 0.999. Tasted good. Still a little carbonated. Is that ok? Should I wait a bit more?
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