Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Discussions of fruits, veggies and grains other then just mashing

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stillanoob
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by stillanoob »

I agree about letting it clear too. And I would avoid sticking a finger in or messing around with it unless you are prepared to run it. Pear gets infected easily, even easier than apple. Like Cranky says, first sign of an infection run it.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Lesse, fruity goodness. I ran the strip run on my plum must last week. Good but I do taste some sugar bite. Turns out that I am hopefully getting some more plums. But the first 5 gallons have to go for wine because my wife and her kids really like the plum wine we made last year. But there should be some left over for another plum must. This time I will not add any sugar. So I am going to wait and mix the low wines from both batches. I went to rack my last carboy of apple cider into a keg for drinking but it had the slightest vinegar taste to it. So I stripped that and will add that to the pear brandy I am doing soon.

On to my question: I am making some raspberry wine today or tomorrow. A quick look at recipes and I see none that do the primary fermentation on the fruit. Is there a reason for that with raspberries? My instinct would be to ferment on the fruit for 5 -7 days and then rack into glass. Punch it daily for a few days if there is much floating, otherwise leave it alone. Thoughts about on or off the fruit?

They recipes seem to call for between 3-4 pounds of fruit. I have 10 or 11 pounds for this project. So I could make 2.5 gallons or 2 gallons. More flavor vs more product, the usual dilemma. Any opinions?
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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stillanoob wrote: Thu Aug 26, 2021 10:59 am They recipes seem to call for between 3-4 pounds of fruit. I have 10 or 11 pounds for this project. So I could make 2.5 gallons or 2 gallons. More flavor vs more product, the usual dilemma. Any opinions?
Personally I would always opt for more flavour. A few hundred ml of nectar that I save for special occasions and good friends would be worth more to me than a litre of "meh". I've rarely encountered a beverage that I thought would have been better watered down a little (I've encountered some that would be better used for window cleaning mind).

Edit to add: I'm living vicariously by your fruity goodness this year. With the exception of the elderberries which appear to almost ready to pick now, this year is looking pretty poor on the fruit front!
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by CoogeeBoy »

Racked my 50kg of pears today, will net about 50kg of wine ready to distill tomorrow I hope.

I got about 50% of clear liquid before I got into the trubs so I sieved the rest, that was a pain, I can see now why would you would only ferment the juices however, I can now see how I would "rack" the mash (what do we call a fermented fruit mash, is it a wine? I think it is) more readily and without any hassles.

My question now is, when I distill it, will it be a pear brandy or a pear schnapps?

Given I am making a brandy, do I strip it and then do a "spirit run" or second distillation in pot still mode?

In short, this is my first fruit brandy, any help gratefully appreciated.

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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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stillanoob wrote: Thu Aug 26, 2021 10:59 am On to my question: I am making some raspberry wine today or tomorrow. A quick look at recipes and I see none that do the primary fermentation on the fruit. Is there a reason for that with raspberries? My instinct would be to ferment on the fruit for 5 -7 days and then rack into glass. Punch it daily for a few days if there is much floating, otherwise leave it alone. Thoughts about on or off the fruit?

They recipes seem to call for between 3-4 pounds of fruit. I have 10 or 11 pounds for this project. So I could make 2.5 gallons or 2 gallons. More flavor vs more product, the usual dilemma. Any opinions?
I think the reason for using juice only is fear the seeds will add bitterness. I've seen several recipes that include doing the primary ferment on the whole fruit. I do that with blackberries but haven't made a strictly raspberry wine but haven't had a problem with the blackberries.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Bushman »

I second Cranky’s comments about berry’s. Although I don’t make wine most of my recipes in my liqueur book states when Macerating strain but not to push on the solids to squeeze more liquid.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Well, I decided to ferment on the fruit. I had 10.3 pounds of fruit and made 2 gallons and 1 extra quart so I should net 2 gallons. I brought the water and sugar to just starting to boil, added the fruit, kept the heat on for a few minutes while mashing the berries up with a whisk. Covered and let cool, it was almost bedtime before it was cool enough to put in a fermenter and add the pectinase and yeast, EC1118. Ferm locker bubbling nicely this morning. When I poured the must into the fermenter it seemed like the fruit was pretty broken up so I don't think I am going to worry about punching down, I don't think it will form much of a cap.

Coogee, that would be a brandy in my book. Yes, pot still it twice. I am going to be picking pears myself this weekend and then letting them sit and sweat for a week or so and then press.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Oldvine Zin »

stillanoob wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 7:09 am I brought the water and sugar to just starting to boil, added the fruit,
Why add sugar water?

Stay safe
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Oldvine Zin wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 2:40 pm
stillanoob wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 7:09 am I brought the water and sugar to just starting to boil, added the fruit,
Why add sugar water?

Stay safe
OVZ
I'm making wine. It needs to be 12% or so to keep.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Oldvine Zin »

stillanoob wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 2:53 pm

I'm making wine. It needs to be 12% or so to keep.
Just asking because in a previous post you stated that this batch was going to be no added sugar and we all know that is a better way to get the fruit flavors without the sugar bite.

Stay safe
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Oldvine Zin wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 5:03 pm
stillanoob wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 2:53 pm

I'm making wine. It needs to be 12% or so to keep.
Just asking because in a previous post you stated that this batch was going to be no added sugar and we all know that is a better way to get the fruit flavors without the sugar bite.

Stay safe
OVZ
That was the plums. I am getting some more and won't add sugar to that. The raspberries are a different project.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by CoogeeBoy »

stillanoob wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 7:09 am
Coogee, that would be a brandy in my book. Yes, pot still it twice. I am going to be picking pears myself this weekend and then letting them sit and sweat for a week or so and then press.
:D
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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CoogeeBoy wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 4:08 am My question now is, when I distill it, will it be a pear brandy or a pear schnapps?

Given I am making a brandy, do I strip it and then do a "spirit run" or second distillation in pot still mode?
I think you can call it what you want but I'd call it pear brandy. If you look up pear brandy it's seldom oaked. I personally don't think pear needs any oak.

Yes 2 runs. One word of advice. In my experience cuts on pear are nothing like cuts on apple, the flavors come of in completely different places in the run so be prepared for that.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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cranky wrote: Sun Aug 29, 2021 2:07 am
CoogeeBoy wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 4:08 am My question now is, when I distill it, will it be a pear brandy or a pear schnapps?

Given I am making a brandy, do I strip it and then do a "spirit run" or second distillation in pot still mode?
I think you can call it what you want but I'd call it pear brandy. If you look up pear brandy it's seldom oaked. I personally don't think pear needs any oak.

Yes 2 runs. One word of advice. In my experience cuts on pear are nothing like cuts on apple, the flavors come of in completely different places in the run so be prepared for that.
Thanks Cranky,
The big takeaway for me was the difference in the 2 strip runs. The first one I ran the clear liquids from the top of both fermenters. The second run I used the less clear, no solids, but a little cloudy. I could really smell the pear in the second run, not so much in the first.

The other one is the low yield, i got about 6.5l @ 40% ABV so about 5% t0 5.5% yield from the just under 50l of must. I was a bit disappointed in that but it was consistent with my plum brandy. In short, don't make fruit mash unless you get free fruit!
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Life has been a bit rough lately and I've had to work from my laptop lately which is a pain because I don't have my photo editing program on it and doing anything on windows 10 seems to be a real pain. On top of that I also got a new phone which takes great pictures but they tend to be problematic to edit for some reason.

I had to go out to the mobile home the other day to work on prepping it for selling and found the plums were ripe and ready to pick
PLUMS 27 AUG 21 #4 -A-C.JPG
so I picked what was easy to reach.
PLUMS 27 AUG 21 #3 -A-C.JPG
I think this is around 4 gallons

Yesterday Mrs. Cranky cut them all in half and we are planning on running them through the Victorio. They are probably destined for jelly...although I'm very tempted to make a batch of Sugarplum Fairy wine with them.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I finally got the picture I took of the picked plums to go through. So here they are in the refrigerator waiting to be processed.
PLUMS 29 AUG 21 #2A-C.JPG
This afternoon we have been slowly feeding them through the strainer which does a real nice job but requires the regular strainer attachment. The berry strainer didn't work well at all.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Today I decided the sugar plums are finally ready to pick. They were few and far between on the tree this year
sUGARPLUMS 01 SEP 21 #20A - C.jpg
but I managed somewhere around 30 of them
SUGARPLUMS 01 SEP 21 #21A - C.jpg
As usual their sugar level is almost off the scale
SUGARPLUMS 01 SEP 21 #22A - C.jpg
If you look close that's about 28.8 Brix (my new phone really sucks at taking macro pics)

This will keep Mrs Cranky happy for a few days until she gets them all eaten :D
I'd make a fortune if I could get an entire orchard of those trees :problem:

It also helped keep her from complaining about me "dragging more junk home" when she found out I picked up some free strawberry and garlic plants
FREE STRAWBERRIES #3A - C.jpg
I had strawberry plants in Michigan when we lived there. Not many but over a weeks time I managed to accumulate a nice bowl of then to make a dessert out of only to come home and find the bowl gone and my son telling me how much he and his girlfriend enjoyed them :evil:

Hopefully I can keep these alive and keep the birds away from them so I can have a few strawberries next year :D

Garlic plants are nice to have if for no other reason than humming birds absolutely love garlic flowers. I have those little moochers year round but they entertain us as well as the cats immensely.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Bushman »

Removing the pits from plums is a lot of work. My. Wife is freezing some for smoothies and drying the other half. Doesn’t look like there will be any liquor drinks from this years crop.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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cranky wrote: Wed Sep 01, 2021 5:03 pm Hopefully I can keep these alive and keep the birds away from them so I can have a few strawberries next year :D

Garlic plants are nice to have if for no other reason than humming birds absolutely love garlic flowers. I have those little moochers year round but they entertain us as well as the cats immensely.
For what its worth cranky, we would prepare a patch of soil with horse manure and plastic cover to keep the weeds down. We would get strawberries bigger than tennis balls and more strawberries than we could eat. Give them some feritilizer, full sun and watch them go!

Good luck with it
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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You're probably tired of hearing it but as I've already said I've been working on a new chopper video. It's complete except for a little bit of music and a 3 second segment of apples being picked. I currently don't have any apples ready to pick so I've been driving around looking for some yards with neglected trees and apples on the ground. I have found several, as well as many more trees not yet ready to pick.

Today I stopped at two of the houses and to ask for permission to pick.

One of them didn't answer the door, not exactly a shock. The other did and gave me permission to pick "A good portion of the apples" and "Most of the plums"...that's right they also have plum trees.

Nice big Italian plum trees
PLUMS 03 SEP 21 #2A- C.jpg
Just loaded with plums
PLUMS 03 SEP 21 #3A - C.jpg
Plums the size of goose eggs
PLUMS 03 SEP 21 #4A - C.jpg
and Mrs Cranky doesn't seem totally opposed to me picking them. So in the next few days I need to find the time to stop there and get those 3 seconds of video shot and see how many plums I feel constitutes "most" :ebiggrin:
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I finished processing the plums I picked this morning.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Bushman wrote: Fri Sep 03, 2021 4:26 pm I finished processing the plums I picked this morning.
Processing them seems to take the most time. I'm hoping to make it back to those trees I found in the next couple days and hopefully get a few buckets of them. They are only running 14 brix but that isn't too bad.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Today I tried one of my Seckel pears and it was obviously ripe so I went out and picked the rest of them. Seckels are tiny so the 25-30 I picked only took up about a half gallon.
PEARS 05 SEP 21 #3A - C.jpg
but they are tasty sweet little pears. They are running 19-20 brix which is much higher than any apples I've tested this year.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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cranky wrote: Sun Sep 05, 2021 6:22 pm Today I tried one of my Seckel pears and it was obviously ripe so I went out and picked the rest of them. Seckels are tiny so the 25-30 I picked only took up about a half gallon.
PEARS 05 SEP 21 #3A - C.jpg
but they are tasty sweet little pears. They are running 19-20 brix which is much higher than any apples I've tested this year.
Shit! I better get over to the tress and check the pears. I've been so busy making enough corn to fill a barrel, I've forgotten about checking the pear trees.
I suspect I'll be busy all day tomorrow picking pears.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Since I have never tasted the real thing, I got me a bottle of Slivovitz:
20210902_113950_resized.jpg
It is good. Really good. Up front it tastes much like what I have made. But the back end is almonds with a little bitter. When I made mine I was afraid of the stones. No longer. Next batch I think I will follow the method of putting the low wines back on the pulp and stones. While the almond/bitter does take over the plum notes at the end it is a terrific complement to the spirits. I tasted the little bit of low wine hearts I saved from the stripping run of plums with added sugar. I don't pick up what I thought was the sugar bite now that it has sat for a couple of weeks, so maybe it just needed a little air and time. The plum flavor is subtle though.

In other fruity goodness, I picked pears last week. If they are ripe and ready this week I will go ahead and press this week. If not, next week. I racked the raspberry wine I made last week. Mmm, tasty! Now into the secondary fermenter for a good while. My friend says she should have the plums she has for me this week. I hope there is enough to pinch off some more plum brandy but to keep the peace I must make some wine first. I also ordered a couple of Blue Damson plum trees. I have room near my other plum trees. Some day I hope to make some real Slivovitz.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Even if I don't have make my press yet, I decided that I'll not let another year to pass. So I asked today permission to pluck the apples in someone backyard, tomorrow I'll go for my first apples! If apples are waiting for me, it will be a good motivation to work on my press...

I don't think that I'll ever have very large quantities. And I don't know what to use as a chopper. Use a kitchen grinder or buy this?

https://brouwland.com/en/crushers/19614 ... 6E,1BIFU,1
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Fredistiller wrote: Thu Sep 09, 2021 7:34 am Even if I don't have make my press yet, I decided that I'll not let another year to pass. So I asked today permission to pluck the apples in someone backyard, tomorrow I'll go for my first apples! If apples are waiting for me, it will be a good motivation to work on my press...

I don't think that I'll ever have very large quantities. And I don't know what to use as a chopper. Use a kitchen grinder or buy this?

https://brouwland.com/en/crushers/19614 ... 6E,1BIFU,1
My first year I used a food processor and a 3 gallon press. It was time consuming but worked and cost very little money. It often comes down to tradeoffs, a lot of work or a lot of money. My recommendations are to think about future expansion. Large equipment handles a lot of apples but needs to be stored. Hand cranked stuff can wear you out pretty quickly but works just fine. Don't under estimate the number of apples you may get in the future. When people find out you collect apples they often seek you out and sometimes even bring you apples. I'm only limited by the free time I have and distance I'm willing to travel. I've had people 20-30 miles away wanting me to come pick their apples. I could easily do 3,000+ lbs if I had time.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Fredistiller wrote: Thu Sep 09, 2021 7:34 am Even if I don't have make my press yet, I decided that I'll not let another year to pass. So I asked today permission to pluck the apples in someone backyard, tomorrow I'll go for my first apples! If apples are waiting for me, it will be a good motivation to work on my press...

I don't think that I'll ever have very large quantities. And I don't know what to use as a chopper. Use a kitchen grinder or buy this?

https://brouwland.com/en/crushers/19614 ... 6E,1BIFU,1
Hours of fun for the whole family there!
But I had no idea all that stuff was around. Thank you for the link, my mate who has a small hobby farm with lots of fruit trees will be most im-pressed.

:D
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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cranky wrote: Thu Sep 09, 2021 11:01 am
Fredistiller wrote: Thu Sep 09, 2021 7:34 am Even if I don't have make my press yet, I decided that I'll not let another year to pass. So I asked today permission to pluck the apples in someone backyard, tomorrow I'll go for my first apples! If apples are waiting for me, it will be a good motivation to work on my press...

I don't think that I'll ever have very large quantities. And I don't know what to use as a chopper. Use a kitchen grinder or buy this?

https://brouwland.com/en/crushers/19614 ... 6E,1BIFU,1
My first year I used a food processor and a 3 gallon press. It was time consuming but worked and cost very little money. It often comes down to tradeoffs, a lot of work or a lot of money. My recommendations are to think about future expansion. Large equipment handles a lot of apples but needs to be stored. Hand cranked stuff can wear you out pretty quickly but works just fine. Don't under estimate the number of apples you may get in the future. When people find out you collect apples they often seek you out and sometimes even bring you apples. I'm only limited by the free time I have and distance I'm willing to travel. I've had people 20-30 miles away wanting me to come pick their apples. I could easily do 3,000+ lbs if I had time.
Yes, the choice between a lot of work or a lot of money is a difficult one. And saving space is paramount for me too. I'm still in the "I don't know fase". I went for the first time asking and picking around yesterday and today. I was surprised how friendly the people are. Maybe I'll get more apples than I can think. But I believe that I'll never handle as much as fruit as you do.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Fredistiller »

[/quote]

Hours of fun for the whole family there!
But I had no idea all that stuff was around. Thank you for the link, my mate who has a small hobby farm with lots of fruit trees will be most im-pressed.

:D
[/quote]

I go to my brother to test his "professional" juice strainer with apples next week.
Hope you can use the link!
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