Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Discussions of fruits, veggies and grains other then just mashing

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cranky
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by cranky »

I was outside today and decided I may as well pick the cherries on my black cherry trees because they have produced more this year than ever before.
CHERRIES 27 JUN 21 #2A - C.jpg
CHERRIES 27 JUN 21 #3A - C.jpg
They taste better than the ones I was given the other day but some have worms and that is an issue so I feel they are best suited for brandy :D

As far as sugar, the lighter ones are running 14-15 brix and the darker ones are hitting 18. I forgot to test the free ones the other day before I froze them so can't say anything on them until I thaw them to start fermenting.

There is a huge cherry tree near the Transparents that usually come ripe around the 2nd week of July but the cherries are so small and the pits so big it would take a lot of time and effort to get even a small amount of juice out of them but I always want to try :roll:
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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There is a huge cherry tree near the Transparents that usually come ripe around the 2nd week of July but the cherries are so small and the pits so big it would take a lot of time and effort to get even a small amount of juice out of them but I always want to try :roll:

Ferment on the stones?
I think that is what I would do.

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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Saltbush Bill »

cranky wrote: Sun Jun 27, 2021 5:03 pm but some have worms
Weeeehaaaa built in yeast Nutrient :D
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by NZChris »

You're a lucky boy, Cranky. I'm jealous. Cherries don't produce very well at my latitude, so I've never found a cheap source of fruit to play with.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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The Baker wrote: Sun Jun 27, 2021 6:57 pm There is a huge cherry tree near the Transparents that usually come ripe around the 2nd week of July but the cherries are so small and the pits so big it would take a lot of time and effort to get even a small amount of juice out of them but I always want to try :roll:

Ferment on the stones?
I think that is what I would do.

Geoff
See, the real problem isn't the amount of meat to stone ratio or how to ferment them. It's the amount of time to pick Vs the amount of time I have Vs the amount of time it takes to pick the apples in the same yard. So far the apples have won since I can pick several hundred pounds of them in the amount of time it would take to pick a bucket of cherries.
Saltbush Bill wrote: Sun Jun 27, 2021 10:31 pm
cranky wrote: Sun Jun 27, 2021 5:03 pm but some have worms
Weeeehaaaa built in yeast Nutrient :D
I don't pay much attention to worms in fruit intended for fermenting. Yesterday I read about wormy cherries and what people do about them. Some people eat them straight worms and all, some remove the worms, some only use wormy cherries for cooking or canning and say the worms come out when you can and sink to the bottom. One of the most interesting things I found was a fine mesh bag that fits over the tree allowing sunlight in but too fine for the fruit flys so they can't get to them to lay eggs. The other alternative is to start spraying as soon as you see evidence of fruit flys and spray every week until picked.

My cherries are like the ones that bring a dollar a piece in Japan and China so I really should look into protecting them better.
NZChris wrote: Sun Jun 27, 2021 10:42 pm You're a lucky boy, Cranky. I'm jealous. Cherries don't produce very well at my latitude, so I've never found a cheap source of fruit to play with.
I am very fortunate to live in a place where the only limit on the amount of free fruit you can pick is the amount of time you have to pick it.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by cranky »

Yesterday I reran all the apple feints from the previous runs and am currently seeing what I can get out of them. I'm finding that this Ciderhouse yeast seems to add a whole lot of really nice flavor to the tails side. I've always gone a bit heavier on the tails than I probably should be in this case what I perceive as tails is stretched way out, more than most but I'm liking the flavor a lot.

I just finished the blending the feints run and it came to exactly 1/2 gallon with really nice flavor and 2.5 gallons going into the feints carboy for a future reflux run. I think that in the end I will keep somewhere around 3 gallons total from all the canned apple juice, maybe a little more at something like 65%. I would have liked a little more but I do need to be able to give some of the cider away at Christmas so this will have to do.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Bushman »

Cranky I found a plum tree near our community garden that is loaded with white plums. Have you done anything with plums?
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Bushman wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 4:51 am Cranky I found a plum tree near our community garden that is loaded with white plums. Have you done anything with plums?
Slivovitz! I made some earlier this year, natural ferment, took a long time to ferment out, my ferment was relatively low yield, I got maybe a litre @50% ABV from 15kg of plums.

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he has been giving me some good tips on brandy and schnapp making.
Taking a break while I get a new still completed....
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Bushman wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 4:51 am Cranky I found a plum tree near our community garden that is loaded with white plums. Have you done anything with plums?
Of course I've done things with plums. Usually I don't get enough to do a plum only run so they wind up in a mixes fruit. Unlike some others I'm not a big believer in wild yeast so use one of my regular go to yeasts. I do find that plum tends to take a long time to ferment out.

That reminds me I have a 5 gallon bucket of fermented plums from last year or the year before somewhere in my garage. I should see if I can find it.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Speaking of plums Yesterday I stopped by the plum thicket on my way home to see how the Asian plums are coming along. I can actually reach the Asian plums there.
PLUMS 13 JUL 21 #5A - C.jpg
There aren't a tone of them but they are beginning to ripen
PLUMS 13 JUL 21 #5B - C.jpg
This is the same location as the white apple tree which is very close to ripe
WHITE APPLES 13 JUL 21 #4B - C.jpg
Yet again it taunts me
WHITE APPLES 13 JUL 21 #4A - C.jpg
So near and yet so far :( All that stands between me and those nice white apples are 15 feet of blackberries in a depression in the ground of unknown depth. It's probably for the best, I've tested numerous apples that are ripe or close to ripe and nothing has tested higher than 10 Brix. I'm not sure what's causing the low sugar but something is.

But on the bright side I picked my first ripe blackberries yesterday
BLACKBERRY 13 JUL 21 #1A - C.jpg
Not that that is going to matter this year. Some things have come up that are probably going to prevent me from doing anything at all with fruit...or pretty much anything distilling or even fermenting related for the foreseeable future :(
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by stillanoob »

So jealous of the plums! The whole county here is having a poor plum year. And my second favorite thing I have ever made was the white plum brandy. :evil:
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Fredistiller »

We had terrible weather here, weeks of cold wind and rain when it should have been warm and sunny. The lasts days were catastrophic it rained in 3 days what normally rains in 45 days. It results in a massive flood. They evacuate the centre of the 3rd town of the country. A lot of people died or are missing. Damages are tremendous. The neighbouring countries Germany and Netherlands are also badly affected.

We escaped the worst as we live uphill and 80km from the heaviest rain fall. Fortunately, but for a bit of the plaster of the garage wall, some damp tiles in the basement and a swampy garden, we had no damages.
Today the rain finally stopped and we should have sunny weather next week.

I don't know how the fruit bushes, the grapes and the rowans will react with so much humidity for such a long time. 2 weeks ago, I already saw that the rowan at the north side of the house showed signs of "disease" with leaves turning black and rotting on the tree. But to be honest it seems trivial worries to me now...

BBC news :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A65JzDltY4
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Yesterday I had some errands to run that happened to take me past the Vista Bella and the Transparent. They are both dropping apples now so I picked a few just for the purpose of testing.

The Vista Bella's are just such a nice looking apple
VISTA BELLA 22 JUL 21 #2A - C.jpg
VISTA BELLA 22 JUL 21 #2B - C.jpg
But even the ripe ones that are falling off the tree are only testing at 10 brix.

The Transparents on the other hand doubled in size in the past 2 weeks and are now testing at 13-14 brix, which is higher than usual.
TANSPARENT 22 JUL 21 #4A - C.jpg
TANSPARENT 22 JUL 21 #6A - C.jpg
They taste pretty good too.

Mrs. Cranky has been wanting to make apple sauce so I might go pick a bucket or two and fee if she will be happy with these for sauce. The problem with that is likely going to be there is a sharp, somewhat sour taste to them in addition to sweet and Mrs. Cranky likes her apples sweet without any sour. So I will probably need to make up a small sample and see what she thinks.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Fredistiller wrote: Fri Jul 16, 2021 11:31 pm We had terrible weather here, weeks of cold wind and rain when it should have been warm and sunny. The lasts days were catastrophic it rained in 3 days what normally rains in 45 days. It results in a massive flood. They evacuate the centre of the 3rd town of the country. A lot of people died or are missing. Damages are tremendous. The neighbouring countries Germany and Netherlands are also badly affected.

We escaped the worst as we live uphill and 80km from the heaviest rain fall. Fortunately, but for a bit of the plaster of the garage wall, some damp tiles in the basement and a swampy garden, we had no damages.
Today the rain finally stopped and we should have sunny weather next week.

I don't know how the fruit bushes, the grapes and the rowans will react with so much humidity for such a long time. 2 weeks ago, I already saw that the rowan at the north side of the house showed signs of "disease" with leaves turning black and rotting on the tree. But to be honest it seems trivial worries to me now...

BBC news :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A65JzDltY4
Damn! I haven’t seen anything about this on my local American feeds. Stay safe out there guys. As it is we are sitting in one of the worst droughts on record this year.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Stonecutter wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:17 pm Damn! I haven’t seen anything about this on my local American feeds. Stay safe out there guys. As it is we are sitting in one of the worst droughts on record this year.
It's been 43 days since we've had any measurable rain here (Seattle is calling it 39, but my weather station is on day 43). That's extremely unusual for my location. Usually it rains from Labor day weekend until the weekend after 4th of July. No rain in the extended forecast either.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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People think it rains all the time in Seattle but really from June to the end of August we tend to have warm dry sunny weather. Aug through April it's usually cold and wet.

This year the weather seems to be messed up everywhere. It got to 108 at my house a few weeks ago but was under 80 on the other side of the country where it should have been over 100.

I saw some of the stuff on the flooding in Europe although not a whole lot of it.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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cranky wrote: Sat Jul 24, 2021 5:36 pm People think it rains all the time in Seattle but really from June to the end of August we tend to have warm dry sunny weather. Aug through April it's usually cold and wet.

This year the weather seems to be messed up everywhere. It got to 108 at my house a few weeks ago but was under 80 on the other side of the country where it should have been over 100.

I saw some of the stuff on the flooding in Europe although not a whole lot of it.
We just got back from the east coast where it was hot but our last night in Virginia Beach it poured so hard that it flooded the roads as we drove back to our AirBNB. Probably more rain in 4 hours than we got the whole month of June.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Last night I checked the plum tree in my back yard to see how the Asian plums were doing and found I was too late on 4 of the 6 it produced and just barely on time for the last 2. I gave them to Mrs Cranky who really enjoyed them. They had that distinct banana flavor that the plums on the other tree always have which is weird since I'm pretty sure these were a different variate. Maybe it's the soil giving them that flavor. I don't know but that flavor makes them so strangely different than any other plums I have eaten.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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As always seems to happen when I don't have time to deal with it people come to me asking me to pick their fruit :roll:

A couple days ago I got a text from the person who bought the house I used to pick at that has plums, apples, pears, thornless blackberries, figs, grapes, persimmons, and even pawpaws :esurprised: He said the Shinseiki pears, blackberries and one apple are ready to be picked and asked if I would like to come pick them.

I already knew what was ripe or past ripe there. Ordinarily I have a shitty memory but for some reason cam remember the fruit at most locations I have picked and when it ripens.

Due to life throwing us some rather severe curveballs lately I had no intention of doing anything with fruit this year but Mrs. Cranky has mentioned wanting to put up the years jelly before she is out of commission for a bit. (more on that later in a future thread) So I talked to her about me taking a couple hours to go over there and pick enough blackberries for the years jelly and apples for sauce and maybe the years apple butter. She said something about making the Asian pears into sauce but I already know she doesn't like Shinseikis so if I pick them it will be for brandy. Actually I think the 10% or so addition of Shinseiki brandy is the big thing missing in my apple brandy. Straight up it tastes like little white flowers but added to apple brandy it really makes it sing. The picture that was sent of the tree looks like it is seriously loaded too. Add that to the ones I'm getting from my own trees and it should be enough for just the right amount to add to the barrel aged stuff.

Speaking of Shinseikis... I stopped by the mobile home today to check on things and discovered that the tree with 2 kinds of pears on it actually has 3, one of them being Shinseiki and the other being a different Asian apple-pear that Mrs Cranky loves. The Shins are ready so I picked most of them but the other one still has at least a week to go. The only real problem is they are tiny this year.

So now my plan is to go over to that house tomorrow or Wednesday (probably Wednesday) and see how fast I can pick what is available. I'm also going to try to secure permission for the figs, Pawpaws and persimmons when the time comes, if they are still there, as well as anything else. Maybe even talk to him about getting some green walnuts next year from his English walnut tree.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Sometimes you have to say, 'No, but thanks for the offer'. I have a hard time doing that, but I'm getting better at it.
Last edited by NZChris on Sun Aug 01, 2021 2:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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We had more episodes of heavy rain. Causing flooding in other parts of the country. Not as impressive as the first episode but still. 202 municipalities out of 262 can call on the disaster fund...you get the picture.
I hope we have seen the worst.

Sometimes we can see the sun for a few hours, but the sky is most of the time cloudy. It still rains frequently. When I walk in the garden my footsteps make "sprotch, sprotch, sprotch". Normally, in this time of the year people complain about brown spots in the grass...

The wild plants like elders, blueberry and rowan (but for the one at the north side) looks to cope with the situation. The black currants were okay too, even if they gave not so much this year. The redberry leaves have some brownish stain I don't like. The berries are almost ripe (judging by the colour and they fell off) but the taste is very sour, even for redberries. The grapes are in bad condition and catch the black rot. I'm afraid I won't have any this year.
Fortunately, the elders have tons of fruits, I hope they can ripe with better conditions.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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NZChris wrote: Sat Jul 31, 2021 11:29 pm Sometimes you have to say, 'No, but thanks for the offer'. I have a hard time doing that, but I'm getting better at it.
I know sometimes you have to politely turn down offers. I've certainly had to turn down my share of them over the years simply because it was too far away or would take too much time.

This one is too good to turn down because it will save me a ton of time just on the blackberries. Last time I picked blackberries there I picked 3/4 of a bucket of them in something like 15-20 minutes. So Mrs Cranky can get her years worth of jelly put up quickly. That and it gets me another in with that property and hopefully the fruit that I haven't been allowed to pick like the figs and Pawpaws. Mrs Cranky would really like a regular source of figs and would like to try Pawpaws so largely it's for her.

Speaking of doing things for Mrs Cranky today she made the mistake of letting me go to Lowe's unsupervised :roll: She knows better, especially at the time of year they are marking down plants...and especially when I have cash in my wallet so she doesn't know what I'm spending.

I did manage to hold back and not buy the 50% off Macoun apple tree in spite of wanting one for some time now but, as I explained to her, I had to buy her some flowers...some little white bell shaped flowers...that only flower in the spring for a few weeks...and produce little purple berries in the summer :D How could I pass that up for $4 each?

She actually wasn't upset about it...well not too upset anyway...at least she took it well because she knows better than to let me out on my own.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Fredistiller wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 1:31 am We had more episodes of heavy rain. Causing flooding in other parts of the country. Not as impressive as the first episode but still. 202 municipalities out of 262 can call on the disaster fund...you get the picture.
I hope we have seen the worst.

Sometimes we can see the sun for a few hours, but the sky is most of the time cloudy. It still rains frequently. When I walk in the garden my footsteps make "sprotch, sprotch, sprotch". Normally, in this time of the year people complain about brown spots in the grass...

The wild plants like elders, blueberry and rowan (but for the one at the north side) looks to cope with the situation. The black currants were okay too, even if they gave not so much this year. The redberry leaves have some brownish stain I don't like. The berries are almost ripe (judging by the colour and they fell off) but the taste is very sour, even for redberries. The grapes are in bad condition and catch the black rot. I'm afraid I won't have any this year.
Fortunately, the elders have tons of fruits, I hope they can ripe with better conditions.
What's going on over there this year really sucks. Hopefully next year will be better. I hope this messed up weather is just a short lived problem but who knows any more.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Fredistiller wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 1:31 am We had more episodes of heavy rain. Causing flooding in other parts of the country. Not as impressive as the first episode but still. 202 municipalities out of 262 can call on the disaster fund...you get the picture.
I hope we have seen the worst.

Sometimes we can see the sun for a few hours, but the sky is most of the time cloudy. It still rains frequently. When I walk in the garden my footsteps make "sprotch, sprotch, sprotch". Normally, in this time of the year people complain about brown spots in the grass...

The wild plants like elders, blueberry and rowan (but for the one at the north side) looks to cope with the situation. The black currants were okay too, even if they gave not so much this year. The redberry leaves have some brownish stain I don't like. The berries are almost ripe (judging by the colour and they fell off) but the taste is very sour, even for redberries. The grapes are in bad condition and catch the black rot. I'm afraid I won't have any this year.
Fortunately, the elders have tons of fruits, I hope they can ripe with better conditions.
We were a bit north of you camping in the Netherlands a week ago. While we don't necessarily expect fantastic weather in the NL, the 50km/h gusts and driving rain got a bit boring after a while. Round here it's much the same fruit-wise (we've not had your weather). The sloe bush that I took about 4kg from in 45mins last year has 4 berries on it this year. Not checked up on the elders yet but they flowered well after the frosts and should be ripe pretty soon. Depending on the next month or so and how the apples fare, my first year of stilling may be limited to gins, infusions and whiskys!
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by cranky »

With Mrs Cranky's blessing I made my way over to pick this morning. There was so much to pick and so little time. The Shinseiki pear has grown quite a bit since I last picked it
Shinsaiki pears 04 AUG 21 #1A - C.jpg
and is loaded very heavily even though the pears are tiny
Shinsaiki pears 04 AUG 21 #3A - C.jpg
Most of my time picking was spent on this tree but I neglected to bring a ladder or clippers and Shinseikis are very fragile trees so if you go at them too aggressively you will do a lot of damage. My normal method of picking is to use clippers to cut the stems. Today I had to do my best to hold onto them and pull them off but some damage still happens although I did my best to keep it to a minimum.

I was told the plum tree was pretty much done but upon close inspection I found several large clusters and managed to get a full bucket of them.

In the back was a nice apple tree that was dropping. I seem to recall that it always drops at this time of year. The apples on it are huge but most, if not all, are wormy. Not that worms bother me too much but I don't really like to bring them to my house. When I do bring wormy ones to the house I like to compost the pressings in my composter, which seems to help keep them away from my apples. I don't know what the problem is over there but the early apples over here don't usually get worms.

Then there were blackberries. Obviously they were quite early this year as most of them were well past ripe. I still managed to get 2 - 2.5 gallons of them and my brand new berry screen just arrived for the old hand crank food strainer I was given so we will be testing it out shortly and Mrs Cranky should have enough to make the jelly she wants. She was saying this morning that she wants to go pick blueberries and make blueberry jelly as well but I know she isn't up for it :(

All in all today was a good day. 3 hrs of picking and I left with 2 buckets of apples, 4 buckets of pears, a bucket of plums and 2 - 2.5 gallons of blackberries.
FRUIT 04 AUG 21 #2A - C.jpg
Now I need to process them all :roll:
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by stillanoob »

Well, I didn't quite get carried away with fruity goodness. More like moved by fruity okness.

You never know what contact will (rim shot) bear fruit. Last year I helped install an antenna at a new hams house and I told her I was always looking for fruit. Whaddaya know, I got an email yesterday saying that she had some plums for me. As I have bemoaned earlier in this thread, this year has sucked county-wide for plums and I had despaired of making any plum brandy or wine this year. Anyway, she had about 12 gallons of plums for me. I am not sure what kind they are, red skinned, light yellow fruit, mealy even when perfectly ripe and free-stone. Not very good for eating but they taste OK. Flavor is a little light.

Unfortunately, I am on my own this week, the wife and kids/grandkids are all off having adventures while I am stuck at the ranch holding down the fort. Not that it isn't nice to have some time to myself but I could have used a hand. I got to use the new outdoor sink for its intended purpose, cleaning fruit. It sure is going to be handy when apple season rolls around. Anyway, I got the plums mushed and de-stoned. Came up with about 7 gallons of must. Added 5 gallons of water and 5 pounds of sugar. Yes, I know the purists will roll their eyes but this is all I am getting this year. Should yield a few drops and better than nothing for sure!
20210804_155341_resized.jpg
20210804_155602_resized.jpg
EDIT: Just went and did the first daily punch down. It is fermenting furiously and tastes good. The flavor is a little light but it should produce something drinkable.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by cranky »

In case you missed it on the good deals thread I was given a Victorio No. 200 food strainer the other day.
JUICER #1A - C.jpg
The only thing it needed was the optional berry screen for blackberries. The guy that gave it to me said it is awesome for blackberries. So I bought a screen. It arrived yesterday just in time to process the blackberries I had picked yesterday morning.

Last night I washed and bagged the blackberries and put them in the refrigerator. The total came to exactly 2 gallon bags full.

So today Mrs. Cranky and I set about processing them with the Victorio. I have to say I cannot say enough good things about this strainer. It went through those 2 gallons of blackberries very quickly separating the juice from the seeds just like they say it should.
BLACKBERRIES 05 AUG 21 #1A - C.jpg
When it was all done we had a little over 3 quarts of pure seedless blackberry juice
BLACKBERRIES 05 AUG 21 #10A - C.jpg
and a not very big bowl of what wasn't juice
BLACKBERRIES 05 AUG 21 #6A - C.jpg
Cleanup was easy and fast and I wish I had bought one of these 10 years ago :D
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by CoogeeBoy »

You know, someone needs to invent a large fruit stoner, like the cherry stoner but larger.
Even better if it was automatic!
Taking a break while I get a new still completed....
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Fredistiller
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Fredistiller »

Maybe I should consider buying one of those instead of making a press. Would it be good for elderberries do you think? And what about grapes?
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cranky
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by cranky »

Fredistiller wrote: Sat Aug 07, 2021 5:57 am Maybe I should consider buying one of those instead of making a press. Would it be good for elderberries do you think? And what about grapes?
I personally think for some things a press is irreplaceable but the manual says this about grapes
image.png
I don't know if the grape spiral is strictly necessary but I found a website that says the Norpro sauce master parts fit the Victorio 200. The berry strainer I bought was for a Norpro and fits perfectly.
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