Finally! Plums!

[bartus-h]

I finally got my hands on the best plums... the free ones... Althoug I did not count the cost of moving to the countryside in the first place

I have already pulped them and removed the stones. I am now left with 13 kg of plum pulp. And I thought mashing apples and pears was al lot of work! Plums beat those hand down!

If I would have enough plums, I would do a plum-only ferment, but since I only have 13 kg, I need to do some trickery, since my stlll has a minimum load of 4 liters (otherwise the element is above the fluid level). My other complication is that I have to keep the mash thin enough to avoid scorching.

I have looked up the sugar content of plums, which varies between 7,5 and 13,8 gram / 100 gram of fruit, so for my calculations I will use 10 gram / 100 gram or 10%. So I have 1,3 kg of sugar from my plums.

So I basically I think I have 3 options:

1. Add water to get 10 liters of 7% potential mash and distill only once (slowly).
2. Add water to get 10 liters of 7% potential mash, do a stripping run. Then wait till I get more plums, ferment again, then do a spirit run on the low wine and the fresh ferment.
3. Add water and sugar to get 25 liters of 10% potential mash and distill twice (low wine would be about 7,5 liters, enough to fill my boiler).

I think I prefer option 3, since I am more confident I can make better cuts then doing a single distillation. Option 2 is uncertain, I don't know if I can get more plums...

Does anyone have any thoughts on that?

[Pikey]

I've just posted a similar thread, I'm going your option 3 although if you follow the link in that thread - you'll come to reference to tater's "Tried and true" recipe for fruits and berries.

BAsically if you add sugar, you get more alcohol and so you don't need to run more than once, provided your wash abv is highh enough.

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 38&t=67209

[bartus-h]

In preparation, I actually read those threads All info here needs translating to ones actual situation though, so your feedback is appreciated!

This also means option 3 has a failsafe: try doing it once, if that fails, I can still do it twice!

I have added my (wine) yeast now, the plums were already more than 10 liter, lol... I added a little water to remove the air from in between the plums, so I have about 15 liters now...

I'll add the rest of the sugar and water tomorrow...

[der wo]

I would simply add yeast. No sugar, no water. If there is air between the plums, either they are not ripe enough or you didn't crush them enough.
I would distill twice or distill with a reflux column or plates.

[bartus-h]

I agree, but distilling twice is not going to work with my setup (the low wines will not be enough to keep my element covered, and I don't have a reflux (yet!)). I just added a very minimal amount of water, and the yeast is already bubbling my water lock...

So I can only do one of the three options above (or I am very interested in option 4)

Would adding water to the low wine be an option for the second distillation? I didn't think it would help the amount of flabour coming over...

p.s. der Wo, I am looking into your infested dunder/ rum experiments, interesting!

[der wo]

IMO try to find more plums for two more ferments. If not possible, perhaps next year.
Sorry, not the answer you want to hear. IMO single runs will always be tailsy. And adding water dilutes the taste.

[bartus-h]

You're right, there's no right solution within the given boundaries

The guy I got the plums from has a lot of pear trees. I can do it properly with those...

Since I do need to process these plums in some way, I will go with added sugar and two distillations...

Probably next year I will have a proper supply-chain, and a still with indirect heating and a LM head... One needs to keep oneself busy

And this type of drink is what got me interested in this hobby in the first place (although the rye bread whiskey is already a drink I can reward myself with after a hard days work)!

[Pikey]

You lose some flavour by adding sugar - but there is more alcohol, so probably a significant net gain in USEABLE flavour. Now if you distil it, you get something with about the right amount of flavour. distil it again and you will lose a lot of that flavour.

Taters "tried and true" fruit wash -

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =14&t=2196

[Bushman]

I would simply add yeast. No sugar, no water. If there is air between the plums, either they are not ripe enough or you didn't crush them enough.
I would distill twice or distill with a reflux column or plates.

+1, and going slightly off topic, I was given a downed plum tree and have to admit making aging chips both charred and toasted have added a great taste to my whiskey.

[der wo]

The guy I got the plums from has a lot of pear trees. I can do it properly with those...

Then make two ferments with pears and one spirit run with the plum and the pears low wines. Many traditional spirits are mixed fruits, normally plums, pears and apples. "Obstler" in my country, "Palinka" in south eastern Europe...

[bartus-h]

Good suggestoon..! And nothing is stopping me fron trying some of the peaches distilled once, right out of the still to get an idea how it would taste, peach only..

[thecroweater]

I would have to disagree with most comments and suggestions made. Plums have a pretty strong favour but are not watery, adding some sugar and water is no problem and with a lot of varieties not adding water is problematic. I have a thread here outlining what a lot including myself consider the maximum boundarys which is a ratio of 1, 1 and 5. Now I wouldn't actually use this maximum ratio unless you had to but a ratio of say 3 parts plums to 1 part sugar to 5 parts water will yield you a fine plum brandy. I hallways leave the stones in the ferment and they are removed when pressing the Marc for distillation. If you are pot stilling you kinda do want two runs so don't be scared to use water you still will remove it. I am running plums at the moment that have a high fruit content almost no sugar and wild yeast. The sole reason is I had a damn lot of fruit time wasn't on my side and a lack of available fermenters at the time. Point is my yield as expected is way the hell down but the flavour is not significantly different from my normal Slivowitz . So what the hell, you have a limit amount of fruit make it work for you and there is no value in a pretty smelling compost pit

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... lum+brandy

[zach]

I had a friend that let me pick 15 gallons of plums a month ago from her trees.

I pitted the first 5 gallons and put the other 10 gallons in cold storage. I found a tool on amazon to pit plums.

The 5 gallons produced about 2.5 gallons of pulp. I added about a gallon of water and used 1 pack of EC-1118. I used a paint mixer on a drill to pulverize the pulp. I added no sugar to this first ferment. I punched down the cap every 12 hours.

I didn't get an initial gravity, but the final gravity was 0.995. I distilled and got about 0.6 liters of hearts at 50%, 1 liter total collection.

Looking at the remaining pulp after the first ferment I decided to add 4 lbs of sugar and more yeast and try a 2nd ferment on the remaining skins. ( I was thinking grappa style) Again the ferment went to 0.995. I added the feints from the first run and distilled. I was happy with the hearts of this 2nd run. Most of the flavor that was in the pure brandy was present in this 2nd run. Also it had no sugar bite.

So I pitted the remaining 10 gallons of plums. (Hands hurt afterward) and divided into two 5 gallon buckets. I added 4 lbs of sugar to each bucket and topped off with water. Again used EC 1118. After straining, I pot stilled and got about 1.5 gallons at 50%. I then did a spirit run with everything (except the 600 ml of from the first run) and collected 2.5 quarts at 75%. I diluted to 50% for drinking. The plum brandy has delicate flavor and is much smoother than the Tuica I've tasted from Romanian friends.