Persimmon wine

[Dnderhead]

Persimmon Wine

Makes one gallon.

Ingredients:

3 lbs. Persimmons 7 Pints Water
2-1/4 lbs. Sugar 2-1/2 tsp Acid Blend
1/2 tsp Pectic Enzyme 1 Campden, crush
1 Pkg Wine Yeast 1 tsp Yeast Nutrient


Keep your acid tester and hydrometer handy. As with all wild fruit the sugar and acid content varies greatly from year to year and even from one location to another. The recipe above is a general recipe to use which you may have to adjust.

Directions:

Pick fully ripe persimmons, preferably after first frost.
Wash and drain the persimmons. Cut in half and remove seeds. Cut into chucks and using nylon straining bag crush, mash and strain juice into primary fermenter. Keeping all pulp in straining bag, tie top and place in primary.
Stir in all other ingredients EXCEPT yeast. Cover primary.
After 24 hrs., add yeast . Cover primary.
Stir daily, check hydrometer reading (S.G.) and press pulp lightly to aid extraction.
When ferment reaches S.G. 1.040 (about 5 days) strain juice from bag. Syphon off sediment into clean secondary. Attach lock.
When S.G. reaches 1.000 (usually about 3 weeks), fermentation is complete. Syphon juice off sediment into clean glass container. Re-attach airlock.
To aid in clearing, syphon again in 2 months and again, if necessary, before bottling.
Allow the wine to age.
If a slightly sweetened wine is more to your taste, add 1/2 tsp. of stabilizer and 1/4 to 1/2 cups of dissolved sugar at bottling.
(note if distilling,, no aging required,nor "stabilizer")( I like to sweeten after with honey)

[WalkingWolf]

Thanks Dnderhead
I used to drink quite a bit of persimmon wine. Had an old friend that made it and he loved the dark beer I'd make and he was always up for a trade whenever i had some beer on hand. Hadn't had any in maybe 25 years. I'll hang onto this recipe and give it a go in the fall.

WW

[Dnderhead]

The biggest problem is getting all ripe fruit ,as any unripe fruit will spoil the batch and will turn out bitter. of course the vinters are not going to bother with picking them over, so you do not see it made "commercially"

[Whitedog]

Why would you have to add all the fruit at one time? Couldn't you add fruit in stages as they became ripe as ya want 'em? We do it with sugar all the time... just a thought.... WD

[Dnderhead]

I suppose you could Whitedog, some, add fruit to secondary,in the belief that their will be more flavor.
(also just a bit of info,, they used to save the seeds roast and use like coffee.)

[Tater]

When i go for total soft ripe fruit I ripen in closed boxes and freeze as each individual fruit reaches its peak.

[blanikdog]

Mine are in boxes ripening as I speak. Trouble is that I keep eating the buggers, but I have a helluva lot.

blanik

[kiwistiller]

bump

Got me 30kg of nice organicly grown persimmons all at very different stages of ripeness though.
Ripening in boxes isn't something I've heard of, you just mean a cardboard box or whatever? I was planning to try and sun ripen them. would box be better?

Also, you ever distilled this stuff dunder? Reckon I could get away with distilling on the pulp?
will definitely try to do the roasted seeds trick.

[blanikdog]

Apparently they give off a gas - the name I can't remember, and I only heard it a week or so ago - which hastens the ripening Kiwi.

blanik

[Dnderhead]

ya got back ,had a crash..

been a while but if you can do fruit on the pulp it seems to have more flavor, take your unripe fruit,, place in paper bag,, add apple or a banana in with them.
(place ripe in could), the ethylene gas helps ripen.(a cardboard box mite work if you can close it)

[kiwistiller]

awesome, cheers guys. go til they're completely soft mr b? past the peak eating point?

[Dnderhead]

their is different kinds of them, but you want any fruit "juicy" ripe if at all possible.

[Titus-a-fishus]

Apparently they give off a gas - the name I can't remember, and I only heard it a week or so ago - which hastens the ripening Kiwi.

blanik

Ripe tomatoes and bananas give off a gas that hastens ripening

So an old trick to ripen fruit faster was to put the unripe fruit in a brown paper bag with the ripe bananas
Brown paper bag so the fruit doesn't sweat and spoil.

Works for us.

[blanikdog]

awesome, cheers guys. go til they're completely soft mr b? past the peak eating point?

I prefer to eat them when they're like a jelly, and that's how my current lot were Kiwi. Taste one or two or three or... and you will know when they are ripe. Soft and no bitterness. If they're bitter you'll know all about it.

I should have racked mine by now I guess, but have been crook for a few days. Maybe tomorrow.

blanik

[kiwistiller]

They're starting to migrate into the freezer now, hope I'll find room for all of them... I'm trying to eat through all the food in there ASAP
If this doesn't work out blanik I think I'll just blame you

[blanikdog]

I have to report that I'm a little disappointed with the persimmon wine, kiwi. Not a lot of flavour and virtually no colour. It surprises me as I did expect lots of both. I fermented on the skins which were bright orange. It's as dry as a lime burners boot. Shame really.

However, all is not lost cos being is distiller these days, rather than toss it I can turn it into a nice schnapps aged on its own wood if there are some decent prunings at the orchard, or maybe pear.

blanik

[kiwistiller]

what yeast did you use blanik?

[blanikdog]

EC 1118 Kiwi. Lalvin

[kiwistiller]

Ah ok. I've gone for a more flavourful yeast, hopefully that will make a difference

[blanikdog]

Keep us posted, kiwi There's always next year and this bugger is half over allready. What yeast are you using?

blanik

[Dnderhead]

most wine turns out dry, then is sweetened after, try to sweeten some and see if it brings out the flavor or not.
there is a number of ways of making sweet wine.
1) stopping the ferment,by using potassium bisulfite/potassium sorbate
2) over sweetening,, after ferment stops, add a little more sugar,if it stars fermenting,wait until that stops ,add more,keep doing this until you have reached the limit of yeast and is as sweet as you like.
3) after wine has cleared, add sugar, if all yeast has not been removed it can start fermenting agin so best to add potassium bisulfite/potassium sorbate before doing so.
4) way is to filter, down to .5 microns this is not always good as it can remove flavors as well as yeast
5)back sweetening, this is adding some fruit juice back to the wine, the ferment has to be stopped first. this the ladies like as it is more like a wine cooler.
5) by heating, heat to 140f (60c) heating and cooling should be done quickly , so best done in small batches. then sweeten.
no mater how you slice or dice it, the yeast has to be stopped/removed before sweetening or it can start fermenting agin.this could be delayed months possibly in your bottle,with bad results.

[kiwistiller]

Thanks dunder.

[blanikdog]

I went the add sugar method (2) and it seems to be doing the job dunder. Adding sugar did bring out the fruit flavour so I'll just add a cuppla kg when it stops this time and see how we go.

Thanks for that dunder.

blanik

[kiwistiller]

going to get the first lot of mine going today. The yeast I'm using blanik is BV7, it is made for aromatic whites. copypasta:

BV7 will both preserve and enhance the grape variety and terroir,
promoting excellent flavour complexity, good wine structure and
balance but especially FULL AROMATIC FLAVOUR.....
BV7 produces a wide range of low level beneficial congeners such as
higher alcohols and esters and high glycerol promoting full body and
structure to the wine and contributing significantly to mouth-feel, wine
texture and palate intensity.....
Avoid fermenting above 13% abv. ethanol, BV7 is not particularly
ethanol tolerant. Acceptable temperature range is 15 to 30OC (59 -86OF)
but ferment below 22OC (72 OF) for maximum flavour development.

[blanikdog]

Thanks kiwi. Mine is still chugging along. I'll add more sugar today. I'll try that yeast next year - provided your report is favourable, meanwhile I'll talk to local commercial winmakers around here.

[kiwistiller]

I learned a valuable lesson today. going through 30kgs of frozen fruit with bare hands will really, really hurt by the end of it.

[blanikdog]

hurts the feet too.

blanik

[kiwistiller]

Test batch of persimmon wine going through the still right now - initial results are promising, there is a very distinctive persimmon smell coming from early tails. late heads were almost rum-like. center hearts was uninspiring. But overall, more persimmon than I could detect in the wine, so yay for that!

The wine by itself has fermented out dry to taste almost like a young chardonay, with a touch of that limey, young reisling thing going on - might be the germanic wine yeast I used. I think if I were in it for the wine, I'd need to sweeten it a bit, or stop it sooner instead of letting it go dry.

edit - this is only a 15 litre charge, basically just a test to see if I should distill or keep as wine and sweeten. results point to distill, but I'll wait til it has aired to decide. still have another 20kg of persimmons in the freezer, so plenty more to do.

[Tater]

Seems to me I find more/best taste in early tails on fruit washes .

[kiwistiller]

Ok, my persimmon experience is a bit, meh. I wasn't impressed by the brandy, but didn't do any aging experiments. I probably should have, but I'm short on vessels at the moment. As I've posted elsewhere, The cuts were confusing. the best tastes were in early heads and mid tails on the last run I did, with the hearts just tasting bland and... off, somehow. A flavour I can't quite describe. The wine is... OK. I found it best after fermenting it dry and then sweetening again. I ended up with a clear wine, faintly blushed with a peach sort of colour. I don't like it enough to really persist with it after however many months its been. I won't be doing persimmons again. This stuff will be stripped to a fruit neutral and used for other fruit macerations. Can't win em all, but you sure can salvage alcohol from the less than stellar efforts, at least. Last run in my current shed. Onwards to a bigger garage without a low ceiling!