Brewing Plum Wine

DATE: 2017-09-15

AUTHOR: John L. Godlee

This year we had lots of plums, so many that a couple of branches snapped off the tree, so I decided to make plum wine to use some up. But because I've been living out in the styx for most of the summer, even though I had my equipment I couldn't get to a local brewing store to get all the consumables I needed like wine yeast, yeast nutrient, pectinase etc. so I decided to try and make wine using things we already had in the store cupboard.

The harvest

The recipe I used:

## Ingredients

	
3 kg ripe plums
	
1 tsp citric acid
	
6 pints water
	
1x 7g sachet bread yeast
	
1 tsp yeast nutrient


## Method
1. Wash plums in cold water
2. Halve and destone plums
3. Place plums in fermenting bin with airlock in lif
4. Add water and  citric acid
5. Mash plums with potato masher
6. Cover and leave for 24 hours at ~16-20C
7. Add yeast and yeast nutrient, stir
8. Cover and leave for 5 days at 18-20C
9. Press and strain the pulp using cheese cloth into a second pan
10. Clean cheese cloth and strain again into demijohns 
11. Add airlock and leave for 14 days before replacing with an airtight stopper
12. Strain again and discard silt that may have settled in demijohn if still very hazy

In lieu of a fermenting bin I could have used any bucket with a lid, like the ones that horse feed or cat litter come in. Unfortunately I don't see an easy way to make a homemade airlock, they're quite cheap though.

Straining the pulp through cheese cloth

The wine is now sitting in a demijohn waiting until it stops bubbling, then I'll seal it and wait a bit longer before drinking it. It still looks really hazy now, but I might strain it again later to make it look nicer.