Page 16 of 20

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Sat May 06, 2017 12:56 pm
by Bumper
plums.jpg
...So 10kg of late season angelino plums came home from the markets with me today, time to do a small batch of plum brandy....

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Tue May 09, 2017 10:25 pm
by Bumper
Holy crap this wash smells incredible. I did a 5l starter with ec118 and apple juice for 50l. it is bubbling like mad. Thanks all for the wisdom, will be doing bicarb ph adjustments tomorrow :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Mon May 15, 2017 3:54 pm
by crow
as I had a few to many irons in the fire this year I let my plums go on natural yeast, low and slow. I have one more run of AG left and I will start on the plums that have been sitting all these long months.

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Tue May 16, 2017 6:39 pm
by Bumper
crow wrote:as I had a few to many irons in the fire this year I let my plums go on natural yeast, low and slow. I have one more run of AG left and I will start on the plums that have been sitting all these long months.
It could be your best drop yet!

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 8:41 pm
by Bumper
Just ran 50L of this, strip and spirit run. Fan..bloody...tastic. 4l of hearts with a touch of tails @65%. 1l white and 3 litres on 1 domino of french oak. Thanks again for the recipe!

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 3:27 pm
by crow
Part way through running, one thing I noticed is I can't pull out out much above 80% 85 tops. The yield is well down as expected but the flavour is very similar. Its smoother out the spout, weather that makes a lot of difference once aged time will tell.

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Sun Aug 27, 2017 5:05 pm
by crow
Well that was the first run, the average yielded at around 88% abv and the flavour was just great. Naturally the yield is a bit disappointing for the volume but hey how much sliv does a bloke need. I just have my final chutney run left which experience tells me will yield higher and carry more flavour. What I can say is without a doubt the longer the wine is left on the marc the more robust the plum flavour is.

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Tue Nov 28, 2017 11:33 pm
by ClownOfDespair
Just curious if there is any particular wine yeast you would recommend for best results as I am currently in the process of stripping my cherry plum tree in my backyard and some have been put aside for jam/preserves and the rest is for brandy which will be run through a pot still

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Sat Dec 02, 2017 2:03 am
by crow
A white wine yeast or a lot use EC118. I had good results with wild yeast last year, it was fairly slow but did ferment out and gave a good flavour. The thing about natural yeasts is it is a gamble for one and two your ratio of fruit to sugar and water wants to be pretty high. Last season I had such a glut of fruit and a bit of a shortage of spare fermenters also it was in my interest for it to go slow as I had some whiskey experiments on the go. To answer your question probably any yeast used for lighter tasting drinks, white wines yeasts, EC118 which is good for most fruit, EC 116 which is good for very light wines like those flavoured with flowers or the natural yeast on the fruit which can vary from outstandingly fantastic to low yielding crap. The other option you have is to go with wild yeast and should it stall have the EC118 on hand to take over, that method is done by a few so they can get the wild yeast flavour while still maximizing yield wild yeasts can vary a great deal from place to place but less likely to from year to year.

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2018 7:19 am
by AndreasG
I make plum brandy regularly.
My take on best practiced is freeze the fruit first. 6KG black plum. The freezing makes it much easier to mash the fruit. I think it also intensifies flavour in the wash.
Defiantly don't add pits to the wash. Nasties in them and do nothing for flavour. I put the fruit through a blender and give it a light boil on the cook top and add sugar. 6KG for a 25L wash. Use yeast you prefer. Check PH as fruit wash can stall. Adjust as needed.
First run, reflux still.
Add 3 KG processed fruit to product reduced to 70%
Leave for one week.
Blend to 40%
Second run, pot still.
Enjoy

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Mon Mar 19, 2018 7:24 am
by Sam.
AndreasG wrote:I make plum brandy regularly.
My take on best practiced is freeze the fruit first. 6KG black plum. The freezing makes it much easier to mash the fruit. I think it also intensifies flavour in the wash.
Defiantly don't add pits to the wash. Nasties in them and do nothing for flavour. I put the fruit through a blender and give it a light boil on the cook top and add sugar. 6KG for a 25L wash. Use yeast you prefer. Check PH as fruit wash can stall. Adjust as needed.
First run, reflux still.
Add 3 KG processed fruit to product reduced to 70%
Leave for one week.
Blend to 40%
Second run, pot still.
Enjoy


G'day mate, how about dropping into the welcome centre and introducing yourself, sounds like you might have some interesting recipes :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Thu Mar 22, 2018 1:51 am
by AndreasG
I draw on old school ideals when it comes to making drinks full of flavour.
I am no expert, I try ideas and share results. I want to explore new ideas and methods.
My next goal, peaches!

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Thu Mar 22, 2018 6:58 am
by woodduck
Sounds interesting mate, I should start looking into some of these fruit washes they sound pretty delicious :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Thu Mar 22, 2018 7:06 pm
by db1979
AndreasG wrote:I draw on old school ideals when it comes to making drinks full of flavour.
I am no expert, I try ideas and share results. I want to explore new ideas and methods.
My next goal, peaches!

Peaches sounds bloody good :-D

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 8:17 pm
by crow
The seeds are virtually harmless in the wash if unbroken and do most certainly add flavour and layer of complexity to the finished product. Most of this idea that stone fruit seeds are bad stems from the fact that it is wise to limit the amount used in fruit wine but what carries or doesn't carry over is another thing It is actually the kernel of the fruit inside the nut that contains traces of hydrogen cyanide or amygdalin that can convert to it but here is the thing, hydrogen cyanide is not heat stable and will break down to harmless compounds long before boiling so it is virtually impossible to carry it over in distillation. it will carry over a bit of compounds and formed esters that are pretty darn good in moderation flavours like almond, sandlewood, citric and a not unpleasant very mild bittering. I wouldn't suggest busting the kernels out as this will greatly increase the bitter flavour but for sure ferment with the pits but I do strain them out before charging the kettle. You will increase flavour extraction using pectinase but there may be a very slight increase in methanol doing so. Realistically that will not nearly approach anything near dangerous and in normal distillation will not be removed in your hearts cuts anyways. While we are doing wife's tales folks will say the boiling points of methanol and ethanol are to close to acturatly remove in
Normal distillation and if talking about pure compounds on their own yes that's true but when in the wash there is an admixture with methanol for the most part forming compounds with various acetoness acetats and methyl alcohols greatly reducing the boiling points so by the time you get to hearts any methanol compounds left are virtually negligible. Moving to the next fairytale, adding sure increases method in fruit washes : :laughing-rolling: ah no that would in fact be the opposite of logic so logically it is the opposite of true. Here's the rub with adding sugar to fruit: if the Brix is high enough without adding or the flavour to mild consider why you would want to add it . If the flavour is robust but the brix low why the heck wouldn't you add it. No sugar means no alcohol as yeast converts sugar to alcohol weather its naturally present or added but if ya worried just don't tell the yeast and it will never know :dance:
Edit I would like to add I have had brandy from stewed fruit and fermented raw fruit,
Personally I much prefer the flavour of the raw fruit as I find fruit steed before fermenting carries that flavour through in the wine and through distillation.

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Sun Apr 08, 2018 9:51 am
by orcy
This reminds me I have 50L of plum wash sitting in my shed that I haven't checked on in a while. I went with 25kg fruit with seeds removed. Chucked in raw with a couple of kilos of raw sugar to get it going and three sachets of ec1118. Mixed with a paint stirrer every day for a week until the fruit was all broken up and the mix kind of homgeneous and then I forgot about It. It will go through 4 plates on the bubbler and I'll cut ruthlessly. Should be interesting.

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Sun Apr 08, 2018 10:35 am
by EziTasting
Nice write-up Crow!

Logical and challenging at the same time, thank you.

Thank you, too, orcy, for reminding me that I have a mango mash still... lol fruit has not been big before, as in this is my first one, so not much on the forefront of my thoughts... :violence-smack:

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Sun Apr 08, 2018 11:59 am
by orcy
EziTasting wrote:Nice write-up Crow!

Logical and challenging at the same time, thank you.

Thank you, too, orcy, for reminding me that I have a mango mash still... lol fruit has not been big before, as in this is my first one, so not much on the forefront of my thoughts... :violence-smack:


I only did the plums because the stars aligned. I had a brand new 60L conical that needed christening and got 30kg of plums for 20 bucks at the local fruito. Even if it's u drinkable, it's a learning experience and I'm out less than 40 bucks.

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Sun Mar 03, 2019 10:35 am
by bayshine
Tis the season and i wanted to tick this one of the bucket list :handgestures-thumbupleft:
54 kg of ripe mixed plums, frozen first
32 kg white sugar
Topped up to 210 lt total
EC1118 yeast
Thawed out plums and threw them into 2x120 lt fermenters and went to town with paddle and drill , which did a great job of smashing up the all ready soft plums
Dissolved sugar and topped up fermenters to 105 lt each @ 30 deg c and piched yeast
Punched cap down about 3 times a day and hit with the drill a few more times for good measure
Fermented dry and cap sank on about tenth day and then left on the mark another 2 days
Racked off 110 lt of liquid off the top and then it was down to the mush
I threw some mesclun cloth around the inside of my fruit press and proceeded load up the jam :laughing-rolling:
This worked ok but was very slow as I couldn’t put as much pressure as I wanted as the basket is not fixed to the base and the plums would just squirt out from the bottom, will modify this next year
Any way 4 hours later I had managed another 70 lt of wash with nowhere near the amount of effort wringing out the sludge through a sheet
Ended up with 180 lt wash in total :cool: And will give it a run in a day or two :teasing-tease:

Re: Plum Brandy

PostPosted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 11:20 am
by bayshine
After running this yesterday all I can say is wow :clap:
This stuff is amazing :D
Will be doing a lot more next season