Homemade plum wine: recipe

In the East, plum wine has been made a very long time ago, but in Our Country, plum wines are only gaining popularity, gradually pushing their grape and apple “competitors”. Plum has its own characteristics, which must be taken into account by the winemaker, but the technology for making homemade wine from plums is quite simple, anyone can do it.

How to make homemade plum wine, as well as the best recipes for such wines, can be found in this article.

Subtleties of plum wine

The main characteristic of such a fruit as a plum is the high content of pectin in the berry. Pectin contributes to the gelling of plum juice or puree, which makes it very difficult to extract pure juice from fruit. But plums are very sweet, and this is a big plus for winemaking.

When preparing homemade plum wine, you need to know some of its nuances:

• plum wine can be semi-dry, semi-sweet or sweet – it depends on the amount of sugar that the winemaker added to the plum juice;
• semi-dry plum wine goes well with meat, and sweet varieties can be served with dessert;
• all varieties of plums are suitable for making an alcoholic drink, but for a beautiful color it is better to take dark fruits;
• harvest fruits when they are fully ripe, this can be recognized by the appearance of ripe plums on the ground around the tree;
• after harvesting, it is recommended to leave the crop in the sun – after a couple of hours the plums will become sweeter;
• before making wine, the fruits are not washed, so as not to wash off the whitish coating – wine yeast.

Step-by-step recipe for homemade plum wine

To make the drink moderately strong and moderately sweet, you need to follow the technology of its preparation. For traditional plum wine, the following proportions must be observed:

• 10 kg plums;
• a liter of water for every kilogram of plum puree;
• from 100 to 350 g of sugar per liter of juice obtained.

Making homemade wine consists of such big steps:

1. Plum preparation. The collected fruits are recommended to be slightly dried in the sun, for this they are laid out on a clean surface and kept in this form for 2-3 days. After that, the plums will acquire a special aroma, become much sweeter. If the fruits are very dirty (for example, collected from the ground), they can be wiped with a dry cloth, but in no case should they be washed. If the fruits are washed, the wine will not ferment. Rotten fruits, plums with traces of mold or damage are best discarded, as they can cause souring of the wine and spoil the entire product. Fruit pits must be removed.

   

2. Squeezing juice. The pulp of plums is crushed to a state of a homogeneous fine puree. This can be done with a pusher, blender, meat grinder or food processor. The resulting puree is mixed with water in a ratio of 1: 1. This mixture is left in a dark place with a temperature of 20-22 degrees for at least two days. Three times a day, the wort is mixed with hands or a wooden spatula so that no debris gets inside, the container with plum puree is covered with gauze. As a result, the peel should exfoliate from the juice and rise up. This can be judged by the appearance of air bubbles and foam, which indicate the beginning of the fermentation process. The must is filtered through several layers of gauze or through a sieve, separating pure plum juice. It is necessary to prepare a vessel for fermentation in advance – a glass bottle or a jar where to pour the plum juice.

   

3. fermentation stage. It’s time to add sugar. The amount of sugar depends on the natural sweetness of the plums as well as the taste preferences of the winemaker. It should be at a minimum of about 100 g per liter of juice, and it is better not to exceed the dosage of 350 g per liter so as not to disturb the fermentation. In order for the wine from the plums to ferment well, sugar is added in two stages: the first half is added after decanting the juice, mixing well with a wooden spoon or spatula. The wine vessel is filled to 75% to leave room for foam and carbon dioxide – products of fermentation. From above, the bottle is covered with a special lid with a water seal or they build it on their own (a medical glove with a holed finger is quite suitable). Homemade wine from plums should ferment in a dark place with a temperature of 18 to 26 degrees. The remaining half of the sugar is divided into four parts and added gradually, after 4-5 days. When the glove deflates, or no air bubbles are visible in the wine, fermentation is over. This will happen in about two months. A loose sediment should form at the bottom of the bottle by this moment, it must be left, pouring the wine into a clean container. At this stage, you can add more sugar to taste or fix it with vodka or alcohol (no more than 15% alcohol from the amount of wine from the plums).

   

4. Maturation. To lighten up, plum wine needs a lot of time – at least three months. Plum wine bottles should be filled to the top and hermetically sealed with lids. After that, transfer the wine to the cellar or refrigerate. Every twenty days you will have to filter homemade wine from plums, pouring it into another bottle through a plastic tube, leaving sediment at the bottom. Full transparency of plum wine is unattainable, so it is useless to filter it endlessly.
5. Storage. After 3-6 months, the wine from the plums is bottled and stored in a dark and cool place (cellar or cellar). Wine can be stored for no more than five years.

   

Another recipe for homemade plum wine

This simple recipe is slightly different from the previous one, but you need to take the same ingredients for making wine: plums, water and sugar.

How to make plum wine at home:

• In order for the plums to release juice, each fruit is slightly cut with a knife and put in a jar, interspersing fruits with layers of sugar.
• The container filled with plums is topped up with clean water (it is better to take spring or well water) and left warm or in the sun for about a week.
• During this period, the contents of the vessel will delaminate: there will be pulp on top, sediment on the bottom, and in the middle there will be wort, which must be carefully poured into a clean bottle (this is convenient to do using a tube from a medical dropper).
• Three times with an interval of three days, sugar is added to the wort at the rate of 50 g for each liter of liquid. The bottle should be covered with gauze.
• The pulp remaining after decanting does not need to be thrown away, fresh plums with cuts and sugar can be added to it, and again put in a warm place for fermentation. A week later, the wort is again cleaned and poured into clean containers. The pulp can be squeezed out.
• When the wine stops fermenting, it is drained from the sediment and left for a couple of days to clarify. This is done with both wines.
• Both filtered wines are mixed and bottled clean. They are stored in a cool place for about 2-6 months – the wine must age.

Plum wine is amber-red, translucent, slightly thick, with a strong aroma of ripe plums.

Pitted plum wine

Pitted plum wine has a special aroma – it is a light almond flavor with a slight bitterness. This wine is especially appreciated by lovers of homemade alcohol.

For winemaking, dark plums of such varieties are suitable: Canadian, Renklod, Mirabelle, Hungarian. You can also take yellow fruits: Altai, egg, white honey.

The ratio of ingredients is the same as in the traditional plum wine recipe, but you need to prepare the drink a little differently:

1. The collected plums are sorted and the stone is removed from them. Half of the bones are broken and the nucleoli are removed from them. Plums are well kneaded by hand.
2. Transfer the puree from the plums to a saucepan or basin, dilute with half the water. For each liter obtained, 50 grams of sugar are added, peeled bones are also poured there. Everything is mixed.

   

3. The container is covered with gauze and left in a dark place at a temperature of 18-26 degrees for three days. Stir the wort three times a day so that it does not sour. Each time the wine is tasted, if the taste seems almond enough, some of the seeds can be caught so that there is no excess bitterness. After 10-12 hours, the wine should ferment, which will be indicated by hissing, sour smell and air bubbles.
4. When the wort ferments, it is drained, the pulp is filtered off, and the juice is poured into a clean bottle, filling it to 34 volumes. Add 50 grams of sugar for each liter, mix.
5. Cover the bottle with a water seal of any design. Transfer to a dark and warm place for fermentation.
6. Six days later, sugar is added again in the same amount. Fermentation will last another 50-60 days.
7. Drain the young wine from the plums from the sediment, sweeten or fortify with alcohol (optional). It is poured into bottles, closed with lids and taken to the basement for 2-3 months for aging.
8. Regularly inspect the bottles for sediment, decant the wine until the sediment stops appearing.

Making plum wine at home is a simple and straightforward process. For everything to work out, you need to follow the technology and adhere to the indicated proportions. It remains to choose a recipe for cooking and get down to business!