The popular plum wines, which we know from supposedly Japanese production, are in fact a miserable surrogate and are produced in most cases from recycled wine material. We will prepare plum wines at home, using self-grown, 100% natural fruits. In this article, you will learn how to make homemade wine from blue, yellow, and blackthorn plums, which are harvested in early autumn.
Plums can be used to make white and red wine, including dark rosé. The technology for all varieties of wines from plums is the same, and differs only at the stage of compiling the must. The most difficult stage in the production of plum wine is the extraction of juice, since plums contain a lot of pectin, a substance that turns the pulp into a jelly-like mass. Unlike apple wine, plum wines are more sugary, so the fermentation process tends to be more intense.
Recipe for wine from plums according to the technology of winemakers
All plums contain little acid and are sometimes not sweet enough, so the wine is not strong enough, and due to pectin it takes a long time to clear. More suitable for winemaking are simple varieties of blue plums, for example, Ochakovskaya blue plum, which contain more acids (about 1,2%). Dessert and liqueur wines are best made from blue plums, it is more difficult to make strong wines and the situation is very bad with table wine, with the exception of blackthorn, which is the most suitable wine material.
Mirabelles are ideal for white plum wine, as well as other varieties of yellow plums (egg ones), including cherry plums. Light and strong table wines are better prepared from mirabelle, sweet wines from other yellow ones. In principle, tables with must proportions will be presented below, and this will be enough for experienced winemakers. The detailed process of preparing the drink is outlined for beginners.
1. Fruit picking. Plums should be collected as late as possible, when they are already beginning to fall off. Ideally, the area around the tail of the fetus should wrinkle. In any case, the collected fruits should be laid out in the sun and left to dry for 2-3 days – during this time the juice will become thicker, more aromatic and sweeter. Also, this process is necessary to enrich the fruits with bacteria and fungi necessary to start the fermentation process.
2. Getting juice. Berries do not need to be washed. It is better to remove the stones immediately, otherwise they can transfer the taste and smell of bitter almonds to the drink. However, if you like the almond flavor, you can leave the pits on. Then all the fruits must be placed in a strong container and carefully crushed, in other words, each fruit must be turned into a puree.
Then, the resulting puree must be filled with water. If you do not delve into the strict realities of winemakers, you can adhere to a 1: 1 ratio, that is, add 1 part of purified water to 1 part of plum puree. If you use more strict recipes that take into account different varieties of plums, add as much water as indicated in the wort recipe (see tables below).
The resulting mixture should be covered with gauze and left in the open air at a temperature not lower than +20 degrees. After the fermentation process has begun (foam has begun to form), and this usually happens after 2-3 days, the puree with water should be well filtered through a fine mesh or gauze. We no longer need dry substances and seeds, and the extract from the plums, which we will call plum juice for convenience, should be poured into a fermentation container (barrel, tub, glass bottle, jars, etc.).
3. Fermentation. First we need to make a must for our wine, that is, add the necessary amount of sugar to the plum juice. To do this, use the information from tables 1 and 2.
Table 1 shows recipes for making wine:
- From simple plums (sugar content 10%, acidity – 1,2%), suitable for cherry plum.
- From Hungarian plums, renklods, etc. (sugar content 11%, acidity – 0,7%).
- From blackthorn (sugar content 13,5%, acidity – 2,7%, including tannic acid 0,4%)
Table for compiling 100 liters of must for preparing 80 liters of plum wine from blue plums and cherry plums
Table 2 shows recipes for making wine:
- From mirabelles (sugar content 13,5%, acidity – 0,8%).
- From yellow plums (sugar content 13%, acidity – 0,7%).
Compilation table for 100 l of must to prepare 80 l of plum wine from white plums
Note: 1 – light table wine; 2 – strong table wine; 3 – strong wine; 4 – dessert wine; 5 – liqueur wine.
Note: in the recipes of some wines, in particular strong and dessert ones, tartaric and tannic acids are indicated in the ingredients. Tartaric acid can be purchased at wine shops or replaced with regular citric acid. Tannic acid is mainly understood as tannin (gallotannic acid), a light yellow, brown-brown powder, which is sold in pharmacies. Acids, in particular tannins, increase the strength of the wine, that is, reduce the likelihood of its deterioration as a result of long-term storage. If you have the opportunity and desire, it is better to add these components to your plum wine in the indicated amount.
Add the required amount of sugar to the wort and mix well. We fill the container with juice no more than ¾, since during the fermentation process the wine will actively foam. After that, we install a water seal on the fermentation tank, which will block the access of oxygen and allow carbon dioxide to escape. We discussed the design of the water seal in detail in the article on making homemade apple wine.
A fermentation tank with a water seal should be placed in a dark place where a constant temperature is maintained in the region of 20-22 degrees. It should ferment from a month to a month and a half, fermentation ends when the release of gas stops. If after a week the fermentation has slowed down a lot, the wort can be mixed well again or done periodically, up to several times a day. The fermented wine is drained from the sediment and sent for maturation.
4. Maturation. Homemade wine made from plums takes a very long time to clear, and it is very difficult to make it completely transparent without special procedures. In principle, if you are not bothered by haze, you can drink plum wine after 2-3 months of maturation, which should take place in a dark, cool room (in a cellar, for example). At the same time, some winemakers recommend removing it from the sediment no earlier than in a month, but it is better to wait two. If it is possible to wait, wait 2-3 years, during which time the wine will finally lighten up, but the turbidity will still remain.
For complete clarification, you can use: gelatin, chicken protein, tannin or fish glue. The easiest way to do this is with gelatin: 100-10 g of gelatin is taken per 15 liters of wine. To do this, gelatin must be soaked in cold water for a day, during this time the water must be changed 2-3 times. The swollen gelatin must be dissolved in warm water or warmed wine and pour this solution into the ripening wine. Wait 2-3 weeks until the wine is completely clarified – the gelatin will pick up all the turbidity and settle at the bottom. Then we remove the drink from the sediment and enjoy a delicious, transparent plum wine.
This is probably one of the easiest recipes for homemade plum wine that can be found on the World Wide Web. We hope that now you will be able to make plum wines right at home, forgetting about the miserable, perverted Japanese swill, which the capitalists proudly call wine.