Pleaches

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Pleaches

Postby RuddyCrazy » Tue Feb 23, 2021 6:17 pm

G'day Guy's,
About 5 years ago SWMBO came home with a pleach tree which is a cross between a plum and a peach :teasing-tease: anyway this year we put the net over the tree and got our first good harvest :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Got home from my first day in the new job and got asked eh we peeled all those pleachs so do you want to make a brandy :laughing-rolling: Took a brix reading and 1085 :scared-eek: from the litre of pulp I reckon will make for a 4 litre ferment as goota leave room in the demi for when it takes off or a huge mess will result.

So I can go two ways with this ferment it or just add some 90% and do a maceration.

Just on getting the last of the pulp into the demi which went in via my 4" copper funnel so it's all pup and no lumps. Anyway if I go the ferment I'll have a good wait for the EC1118 yeast to start and I'm finally on that 2nd yeast brick :laughing-rolling:

anyway back to it

Cheers Bryan
Last edited by RuddyCrazy on Tue Feb 23, 2021 6:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Pleaches

Postby RuddyCrazy » Tue Feb 23, 2021 7:02 pm

Anyway went the ferment route and got the SG up with some inverted sugar and now waiting for the EC1118 yeast to kick into gear. :handgestures-thumbupleft:
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Re: Pleaches

Postby wynnum1 » Tue Feb 23, 2021 8:49 pm

We had a peach tree here in Brisbane years ago but was a waste of time with fruit fly and wondering if could just ignore the grubs and ferment.
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Re: Pleaches

Postby RuddyCrazy » Wed Feb 24, 2021 6:08 pm

When I got home from work today went and checked on the ferment and it does look like it foamed right up as the airlock was completely blocked :scared-eek: So took out the cork bung which holds the airlock and flushed it out. Then put it back on and it started bubbling away every few seconds :handgestures-thumbupleft: The foam cap has died down and is now about 3"'s high and the temp of the ferment is 26C, I'm going to keep the temp in the mid 20's so it can ferment a tad quicker and it's easy to warm up the demi. Just warm some water in my 10 litre stock pot and put the demi in the stock pot. I did that yesterday as after adding the inverted sugar the temp was 36C and too hot for EC1118 yeast, the rainwater from the tank was 20C and 3 minutes in that water cooled the demi down to 28C :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I ended up with a sg of 1075 and as there won't be enough to do a strip run I'll add some 90% to get the wash in the boiler upto 30% or more then do a nice slow run in my 2" potstill taking small cuts so after the angels take a share have good look at the cuts to see which ones to blend. Then onto French Oak for a few months to age and now we have the net over the peach tree may get a few kg's of fruit for the next batch. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Now as far as using fallen fruit none were thrown in the bucket and the chooks had a good feed as only the best fruit is used as one bad egg will spoil the whole scrambled eggs :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

Cheers Bryan
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Re: Pleaches

Postby RuddyCrazy » Sat Feb 27, 2021 1:01 pm

G'day Guy's,
Well got the demi on the bench in the sun to warm up a tad

pleach.jpg


Now the cork is a bit leaky so the airlock is just keeping the grubs out :laughing-rolling:

Plenty of activity going on and I just love that red colour of the wash :happy-partydance:

Cheers Bryan
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Re: Pleaches

Postby Wellsy » Sat Feb 27, 2021 4:57 pm

I suspect you are the biggest grub most likely to get at the wash mate.

When it comes to booze we all know a small cork is never going to stop you
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Re: Pleaches

Postby RuddyCrazy » Sat Feb 27, 2021 5:37 pm

Wellsy wrote:I suspect you are the biggest grub most likely to get at the wash mate.

When it comes to booze we all know a small cork is never going to stop you


Mate SWMBO is saying it's going to bad to lose the colour and I replied well take some of the peach's off the tree and ripen them on the window sill then blanch, peal and freeze them so I can add them to the boiler for a bit of extra flavour. Then I said we won't use all of them and I'll make a tincture in some 90% to add to the spirit output to get some colour back :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Now this is a thread about using what fruit we grow on the farm that can be turned into brandy. Our apple trees still have a few years to go and one job I have is making some guards for the trees so the kangaroos can't get at them :angry-banghead: This year with our established apple tree the roo's ate every apple and bud in sight so now crop off that tree this year :angry-banghead:

SWMBO has put many trees in and NOT told me where they are and everyone has died so I said this morning tomorrow drippers are going in and lets just get this sorted :handgestures-thumbupleft:

For now with my day off she has gone out saying she doesn't want to listen to a beer drinking bogan :happy-partydance: and with an IQ of 160 I can imagine doing not much(trying to contain swearwords here ) is not on the cards :laughing-rolling:

Mate doing things right is a bonus for future crops where I can spend one day a week (the Sunday) after a big Friday night and the following Saturday just to finish the slab or SWMBO will)

This will make sure with our existing trees and new grafts they have enough water to keep the trees alive :laughing-rolling:

In 4 years I will get my super (if this govt doesn't change the rules) and a bore will be put at the back of the farm. I was told years ago by my neighbour who was 80 years old Bryan over there go down 40 feet and get brackish water, go down 60 feet and get stock water, go down 100 feet then bottle it and sell it. He said I had an aquifer under that bit of land and the well that was there was filled in the war to stop the enemy coming thru it, true story.

Now I will use a couple of 44 gal drums to power a pump to raise the water and take it over the hill, now by using a smaller pipe then a bigger pipe over the high point will produce the chugger effect where it will suck the input water over the hill and I'll do a full circuit to keep the water trough's filled and the final output will go into my 1 mega dam :handgestures-thumbupleft:

This all about putting fruit trees on the farm just I can make brandy.

Cheers Bryan
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Re: Pleaches

Postby wynnum1 » Sat Feb 27, 2021 9:12 pm

How big is the hill because if can store water up on top of the hill could use gravity and set up solar or wind to pump up.
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Re: Pleaches

Postby Amberale » Sat Feb 27, 2021 9:40 pm

Solar and wind are nice but expensive.
We have a petrol pump at a 5 meg dam 30ft below the house ( and orchard ) and 2x22,000litre tanks 70ft higher up again.
Those tanks are also filled by over 200sqm of shed roof.
It takes less than 2 litres of fuel to pump 10,000 litres up to the tanks and I need to do it less than 10 times a year.
It also functions as a fire fighting water supply and will run the on-house fire sprinklers for nearly four hours(full tank of fuel followed by the two gravity tanks, we’ve already left).
I’d like a couple of solar pumps but can’t justify them yet.
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Re: Pleaches

Postby wynnum1 » Mon Mar 01, 2021 11:14 pm

Amberale wrote:Solar and wind are nice but expensive.
We have a petrol pump at a 5 meg dam 30ft below the house ( and orchard ) and 2x22,000litre tanks 70ft higher up again.
Those tanks are also filled by over 200sqm of shed roof.
It takes less than 2 litres of fuel to pump 10,000 litres up to the tanks and I need to do it less than 10 times a year.
It also functions as a fire fighting water supply and will run the on-house fire sprinklers for nearly four hours(full tank of fuel followed by the two gravity tanks, we’ve already left).
I’d like a couple of solar pumps but can’t justify them yet.

Have seen some cheap second hand Solar panels for sale may be worth looking at some second hand and could be from demolition or replacing with newer .
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Re: Pleaches

Postby Amberale » Tue Mar 02, 2021 11:27 am

Yes mate.
The expensive bit is the pumps. :(
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Re: Pleaches

Postby RuddyCrazy » Tue Mar 02, 2021 5:17 pm

To expand on the 44 gal drums, you cut them in 1/2 top/down then overlap them about 22% then brace them. Do the same with the second one and mount it at 90 degrees ontop of the first one, put say a 2" steel shaft up the middle of the drums and attach the lower to an old car diff. Attach a pump on each side ( a positive displacement pump) and when the wind blows it will pump water all day long.

Bore pumps are coming down in price every year and it isn't a hard job to setup some solar panels and a small cheap sinewave inverter to pump the water out of the ground and say have that pumped water from the bore go to a 5,000 gal tank up the hill from the drum setup so there is some head pressure when the wind blows.

There is a hill above my shed shed and according to google maps got a 90' drop from the top of the hill to the side of my shed. I do have an old water pressure alarm that was used in a high rise that is suitable to be a pelton wheel fully enclosed too. Now this would only give me around 600 watts of power max over the water course when it comes down the hill but still 600 watts aint nothing to sneeze about when in the long run it's free and my shed battery will take just about any charge I give it :laughing-rolling:

Cheers Bryan
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Re: Pleaches

Postby scythe » Tue Mar 02, 2021 6:29 pm

You need to start adding sketches or photos.
Sound's like a good idea but I can't picture it (the 44gal windmill).
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Re: Pleaches

Postby Amberale » Tue Mar 02, 2021 8:26 pm

Vertical axis wind turbine.
Big plus for me is that you can put the generator in a solid box on the ground to minimise noise.
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Re: Pleaches

Postby Wellsy » Wed Mar 03, 2021 4:38 am

You could even put a heater in that box and use it as a winter fermenter hmmmm

I am an ideas person, I think I will go and dig a hole, hopefully it won’t fill with water
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Re: Pleaches

Postby RuddyCrazy » Sat Mar 13, 2021 11:48 am

G'Day Guy's,
Checked the SG on the Pleach wash just now and 992 :happy-partydance: Still got a few bubbles from the yeast active so I'll leave it for until next weekend then I'll run it nice and slow in my 2" potstill.

Cheers Bryan
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Re: Pleaches

Postby Sam. » Sun Mar 14, 2021 7:41 pm

RuddyCrazy wrote:G'Day Guy's,
Checked the SG on the Pleach wash just now and 992 :happy-partydance: Still got a few bubbles from the yeast active so I'll leave it for until next weekend then I'll run it nice and slow in my 2" potstill.

Cheers Bryan


Single pass ya reckon? :think:
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Re: Pleaches

Postby RuddyCrazy » Sat Mar 20, 2021 11:54 am

G'Day Guy's,
Running the Pleach now and I topped up the boiler with some 90% neutral to raise the ABV to 40% for the run :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Now if I do get enough yield from this run I'll do another one tomorrow and just add more neutral to get the boiler to 40%

Taking a D.P. :obscene-drinkingchug: and man has the flavour come thru :happy-partydance: so by doing the second run will really polish off this project and then onto French Oak for a few months.

Cheers Bryan
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Re: Pleaches

Postby RuddyCrazy » Sat Mar 20, 2021 2:07 pm

G'Day Guy's,
Still going on the run and I suppose it is time to mention my strategy :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Ok this Pleach ferment was only 4 litres and thats after I used a biab bag to squeeze the last of the goodies out :teasing-neener: Now in order to get a good run in my 5 litre 2" pot still which was the first still i made :handgestures-thumbupleft:

By having the boiler at 40% I take 2 litres out of the first run and go nice and slow treating it as a spirit run. Now after airing overnight I reckon I'll endup with about 3.75 litres @ 40% so to top up the boiler i just use my neutral to top it up and some fresh rain water to temper it to 40%.

Now with the final run in the morning I'll end with close to the same 2 litres then after cuts and diluting to 65% I have enough to fill a one of 2 litre goon bottles for aging.

This one will be the third one I've put down on those 2 litre goon bottles and just had a taste of the apple and licorice root, now I have read it can take ages for apple brandy to come good and the one i did in January still needs a heap more time where the licorice root like always is just getting better on oak :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Still got 12 litres of 90% neutral in store and when I get down below 10 litres time to put more TPW on to make another batch as I'm never going to run out of it again :angry-banghead:

For heating I'm using a 2 ring crab burner with only the centre jet working with a very low flame, over time I tweak the HP reg to keep the flow rate the same and when the ABV goes below 60% I open it up it take the tails to finish the run.

Cheers Bryan
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Re: Pleaches

Postby RuddyCrazy » Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:29 pm

G'Day Guy's,
Did the spirit run yesterday and tonight did the cuts :handgestures-thumbupleft: ended up with just over 1.5 litres of 81% so got on the forum up in the shed to get onto the calculator page to work out the water needed to get down to 65% :laughing-rolling: only due to me being too lazy to get my own calculator out :laughing-rolling:

Turned out a tad under 2 litres total so added everything to a 2 litre goon bottle and cut some domino's off my big domino then charred them. I did 4 of them but after 3 went in the goon bottle was full :handgestures-thumbupleft: so the last one can go in later after the angels take a share.

Now to do the cuts I used the spoon method with a few drops of water and a few drops of the spirit, last week i stopped at the scientific shop and bought a few pipettes which made the job a heap easier and more accurate.

Well the taste of this is simply outstanding and leaving it a few months on the French Oak will bring out more of the flavour.

Cheers Bryan
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