20 lbs of Plums! Need ideas of what to make.

[BeerJam]

I have 20 lbs of plums, they are the small dark red / purple kind.
I'm looking for ideas and (recipes) of what to do with them. (the boozy kind)

So far i have come to three possibilities.

- Plum wine
- Plum Jerkum
These two seem very simular. From the recipes i have read the difference is in the amount of fruit used and the fermentation time. Jerkum seems to use less fruit than wine and is fermented for only a couple of months..... am i correct?

Plum Tc - Anyone had any success with this? I would like something i could drink sooner rather than later.

Thanks

[Geezah]

hehe
I was just given a load of plums and was about to look for a wine recipe.
Gonna make a spicy jam for coating ribs/drumsticks etc with, but I wanna make something to drink from them too.

[Gordonmull]

I did a plum wine 6 months ago and it still hasn't cleared. I've thrown some extra pectolase at it but still no real joy. It's helped a bit but it's still coudy. Posed the question over on wines at home and got this answer:

"I have heard of problems with cloudiness with plum wine can be alleviated up front by washing the whole plums in soda crystals (sodium carbonate).
Obviously it's a bit late for that in your situation, but it may explain the problem."

Might be worth considering.

[GARYSMIFF]

Jam

[oldbloke]

About 3.5lbs plums will do a gallon of wine. So you can make quite a bit. Mine cleared OK but has taken a full year to be worth drinking. I think I used a CJJB recipe:

9lbs plums halved and stoned, 125g raisins, crushed campden tablet, 1/4oz root ginger, 4 cloves, 1/2tsp citric, 1/2tsp tartaric, gallon boiling water
covered and left for 4.5hrs
gallon cold water, 5g pectolase
cover and leave 55 hours
strain, boil, pour over ...
5lbs sugar
[seem to have 2.5gallons...]
Split across 3 demijohns 3/4 full, cool to 21C, yeast+nutrient
Took 3 weeks to clear enough to rack, racked into new demijohns: 2 plus a litre

[BeerJam]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

Currently i have two dj's each 1/3 full of 1.5lb of blended plums and 1.5L of apple juice.

I had an OG of 1.047 with the apple juice alone so i did not bother with any extra sugar. I pitched the yeast at about 23C and fermentation has begun, it is a bit tentative though. I have seen other peoples TC go crazy but even after almost two hours there is only a very thin yeast head. Guess i will just have to wait and see what happens!

Jam is a great idea! So is the rib marinade, i will be making both tomorrow evening.

Thanks for the wine recipe , that looks like the best one i have seen. I will be giving that a try probably tomorrow night. The only thing i do not have is tartaric acid, is that essential?

[oldbloke]

I don't think it's too acid, but the housesitters thought it a bit tart, so maybe you don't need it. I just went with the recipe I found. I couldn't tell you the taste difference between citric and tartaric myself anyway, I'm still fairly new at this game myself.

[Yeasty Rob]

I did a plum wine 6 months ago and it still hasn't cleared. I've thrown some extra pectolase at it but still no real joy. It's helped a bit but it's still coudy. Posed the question over on wines at home and got this answer:

"I have heard of problems with cloudiness with plum wine can be alleviated up front by washing the whole plums in soda crystals (sodium carbonate).
Obviously it's a bit late for that in your situation, but it may explain the problem."

I did a plum wine last year and had the same problem, stayed very cloudy and didn't taste every nice when I came to try a 'tester' as I was decanting into a clean DJ so ended up chucking it.

The soda crystals might be the answer.

[Marshbrewer]

Beerjam, did you treat the blended plums with pectolase / pectic enzyme? The reason I ask is because plums make amazingly good jam because they are jam (ho ho) packed with pectin, which in a wine, is a recipe for cloudyness. Still, some of the best ciders are cloudy, so whadda I know!

[BeerJam]

Update...

The plum cider (plider as i have christened it) went crazy theother night and and is still bubbling away today. It is a fantastic red-orange colour, looks like fanta fruit twist!

Today i finished off the last of the plums. I used 2KG to make some jam! Yes JJSH i noticed just how much pectin they have in them, the jam is very well set and tastes great! I also attempted a plum marinade but unfortunately the results were disappointing, i think i made it too sweet, it just ended up tasting like spicy garlic jam, a very strange flavour . Ha
I added a teaspoon of pectolase to each dj of the plum cider, should i add some more? It is currently cloudy in the dj's but i think a lot of that is the yeast and sediment.

I have also started a plum wine. I added 6bls of plums, two pints of boiling water and a campden tablet to a fermentation bucket. Will continue from there tomorrow.

I got the plums outside someones house at the side of the road, they had picked them and were giving them away for free! They have even more there now, but i think i have made enough plum based stuff for a good while.

Little story and a bit of a warning...
I had my plums siting in the fermentation bin, ready for me to add the campden tablets to them, as i opened the container of the tablets a puff of dust hit me right in the face and in surprise i inhaled it. It was bloody horrible and i felt it sting my throat. I instantly started coughing right from the depths of my chest and did not stop for a good 5+ minutes. I checked the ingredients on the campden tablets and gave them a google search.

They are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_metabisulfite
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene_glycol

Luckily i found out they are both non toxic and can easily be broken down by the human body. However Sodium Metabisulfite can cause reactions to asthmatics, so that explains my coughing fit. On a lighter more funny note Polyethylene_glycol is used as a laxative.

I think the reason why the dust was in there is that they had not been used in almost a year, but the box containing all my home-brew equipment had been moved around on multiple occasions so the tablets must of knocked about and broken up a bit.

[Marshbrewer]

1 tsp per demi should be fine, that's what I add for plum wine.

[Hawkmoon1704]

2lb of plums, pierced skins
1/2lb sugar
4 cans of stout (ive used newky brown)
4 pints of water
Pitch yeast or use a starter bottle
ferment in plastic bucket for a week. Rack of and mature for about 2 - 4 weeks then drink, it should come out quite sweet and porty.

[Geezah]

I ended up with 9lbs of plums which I washed in Soda crystals, rinsed then cut in half and de-stoned.
5 litres of boiling water and 5 litres of cold.
I added 14g of diced ginger, 4 cloves, 1 crushed campdem tablet, 1tsp of pectalose and 1 tsp of citric acid and left for 3 days.
Filtered it off through a muslin cloth and sieve, squeezing what I could out of the plums without forcing them through as mush.
Boiled 1.5 litres of water and desolved 2 kg of sugar in it and added to wine.
Split between 3 demijohns - approximately 12 litres
OG 1078
Added 1 tsp of yeast nutrient and 1 tsp of yeast, now to sit back and wait.

Smells awesome!

[Cheshire-cheese]

I have heard of problems with cloudiness with plum wine can be alleviated up front by washing the whole plums in soda crystals (sodium carbonate).

Any ideas how much soda to use?
I'm about to start a batch of plum wine

[Geezah]

I just sprinkled some into a bowl of hot water ..... about a tablespoons worth.
My wine is now clearing after 2 rackings but still has some haze to it yet