plum wine fermentation

racked my plum wine to secondary, and its bubbling like coffee maker!

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• plum
• wine
• making
• fermentation

[torchidman]

I am making my first batch of plum wine, and enough only for one gallon............It is really off to a good start in 1st ferm, and a big pile of puffy foamy reddesh foam sitting atop of the juice..........I can cut through this with a knife, and it separtates almost like a cake..........by the way, I used fresh, dark plums, some exotic from new zealand, and very juicy...........I want to create a yelowish color like you get when you buy it out......will this or how do I get that

color?

Tks.

[Weaselnest]

@torchidman any plum wine that is yellow, probably had skins that were yellow. the wine's color comes mostly from the skins on fruit wine like this. So if the skins were dark, and if you used enough, the wine will be reddish or blush colored. the more skins you use, the more tart, or more flavor you'll get... what your shooting for, is to get just the right amount of fruit to impart just the right amount of flavor to where its not too hot, or tart, or not too flat and thin tasting.

[Weaselnest]

i still have this wine in storage. because it was very "hot" and not very pleasant. time should mellow it out. im sure its ready to drink now, i just havent had time to taste it in the past 6-8 months. i'll sweeten it, and bottle.

[jowatson73]

hi my plum doesnt look lik ethat at the moment, its got loadsa mush on top, its bubbling below........ do I have to decant this into another demi john JO

[Weaselnest]

@jowatson73 no decant is where you expose it to air and let it sit to develop flavor, like opening a bottle of wine and decant it before drinking (i could never wait), once your wine ferments for a few weeks, that mush should fall down to the bottom, then you rack the wine into another clean carboy, and try to do so with as least amount of agitation as possible, cause doing so adds more oxygen to the liquid. just make sure you top the vessel off within a inch or so from the top.

[Weaselnest]

@jowatson73 also, when this wine was in the primary vessel (6gal bucket) i had all the plums in a "pulp bag" and when i racked it to the secondary (that you see in the video) i removed and squeezed the bag out, and discarded the pulp. that way i dont end up with a ton of trash in the secondary. it takes longer for all that stuff to settle down to the bottom between rackings. i might rack within a month, then rerack in another two months, then rotate every 6 months til its ready to bottle.

[Weaselnest]

@hawkdlb06 No i didnt use a heater, but it was in the 90's im sure, too much heat will kill yeast.

[hawkdlb06]

by running the heater on your fermentation bottle does that speed up the process from turning the sugar to alcohol

[Weaselnest]

@fardisghomeshi i just used a regular packet of wine yeast... cant remember which strand, but it was Red Star brand.

[fardisghomeshi]

how much yeast u use for that much wine?