Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Well after loosing all but one little tree of plums to the birds, I thought I was out.
But I managed to score 60 litres of plums today. They don't suit all the recipies I've seen for this drink, but I made some from the same tree 2 sesons ago. It wasn't bad at all, just a little different.
These ones are smallish, pale red colour, pale flesh with a free stone, plenty of wild yeast on them that they havn't had in past years (the tree is at my mums). I'm hoping to get another bucket, possibly 2 tomorrow. This should give me enough to get a little return. I was lucky enough that the neighbors were home and put the 4 mean junk yard dogs in the house, and let me pick their side.

As these are a touch on the ripe side, the plan is to lay them out on a bit of tin and let them finnish ripening as much as they can, for a few days or maybe even a week if they are still looking good.
Then steep them for as long as it takes to go soft, mash and into the ferment, and recipie from there.
The twist might come if I manage to get some promised plums from old auntie, and if I get some from my small netted tree. These should both be dark blood plums. They will be added to the steep stage if timing works. These ones are 3 weeks away at least, so they might get done seperatly, depending on quantity.

This time it'll go through a bubbler insted of the ol' pot still :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Anyone else doing slivovitz (or what ever you want to call it) this year?

Photos! And please, ongoing progress reports.

The birds were kept off my apricots with nets but they are raping my pears:-(

Too busy & lazy to net the pear tree.

Reckon there's wild yeast on pears uncoils work with?

yep yellow fleshed plums one as slivovich one lot as brandy got about 70 or 80 ltrs of blood plums that I will most likely do as brandy (undecided) :D

I'm "plum" out of luck for making anything like that this year 8-}

Geez mac, that'd be enough to send you plum crazy.

Well, the plan has changed. I sat the buckets outside the shed, forgot about them till after tea, and the result was sun scorched plums on the top of the buckets. Realisticly, I have nowhere to put them out that wont be seen as a feast by the birds. After a pretty warm day today, they are all goings soft, so in the drum they went.
I didn't get a chance today to get some more, so hopefully there will still be some on the tree tomorrow.
I'll add them, then cover them with water.
The olive drum was going to be my big rum fermenter. Was.

When you say "was" do you mean that the plumage will taint the fermenter?

My 200L fermenter is 3/4 full of apricot wash and I plan on using that for rums sometime this year. Fingers crossed my rum won't taste of apricot.

;-)

Nahh mate, I just cant use it for rum when its full of plums

ha EG look at cuppies rum mango thread, anything is possible ;-) . I would still use the sun damaged plums, the damage will be mostly to the skin and who care what they look like. They are going to look a whole lot worst once they are in the fermenter ;-)

I found some pics of the stuff I did a while back.

From memory, the brew room smelt divine during the run.

crow wrote:ha EG look at cuppies rum mango thread, anything is possible ;-) . I would still use the sun damaged plums, the damage will be mostly to the skin and who care what they look like. They are going to look a whole lot worst once they are in the fermenter ;-)

Don't worry mate, they are in there. As are a few prune like ones, some bird pecked ones, and I guess the odd rotten one slipped through. Maybe two? Maybe more...

The bulk of them are good. I won't mention the extra nitrogen kick from the bird shitted ones.

Thumbs Up!

Great pix, my apricots resemble that sludge! Nice to see the siphon working....

That plus crow's beach towel method and I'll wring every drop out of those suckers!

;-)

WineGlass wrote:I found some pics of the stuff I did a while back.

From memory, the brew room smelt divine during the run.

Ok this is what I do : I mash the plums with a plaster mixer on a drill , I don't add water unless I have to as they tend to mash better like that . Once I'm happy with the mashed fruit then I will add water and further mix this I add to the fermenter. not 100% of the plums will be mashed and that's fine as they will float with the cap I will mash them further when punching the cap. Its my personal opinion that it wouldn't matter if I didn't as the fruit will continue to soften in the ferment until the skin ruptures anyway

Does that bust up the kernels? I halved all the apricots and kept the kernels separate until I'd pulped all the fruit. Do you keep kernels in this mash?

After their day in the sun, the skin rupture is not a prob. If I added some sugar, I reckon I would have made plum jam.
Got sticky shit everywhere plucking out the leaves, sticks and other shit I didn't want in there.

So how would you define the difference between slivovitz and brandy? How is a brandy made with plums? I might like brandy more than slivo. I am going to cover them with water as thats what old czech mate said. It worked last time.

Sliv relies 100% on the wild yeast the fruit and on the sugar in the fruit only, any deviation form this is brandy (so I'm told), I got no problem with either way and am doing both methods presently but the yield to going to be way the hell down with the sliv as is the ferment time . :)) That's why I'm only doing 25 ltrs that way

Good idea mate. A bit extra work, but it's worth it to at least have a "control" batch, then you can judge the outcomes with confidance.

But a man can only have so many buckets kicking around. I still got buckets, but I'm running out of concrete.

Fkuc, I ran out long ago, what shit am I talking. Thats why my little plumy freinds got a suntan, lack of space. :angry-banghead:

Well the big drum is ready to rack off and run. Better pull my finger out.

Heres some pics of the small drum from my own dark plums.

Both lots are just about ready to run, just gotta find the time.
I havn't rushed this lot, no good starting now.

Holy ducks butts batman that took along time to ferment out. I racked my last lot back in Feb. and put in storage containers to run when I get home

Good things come to those that wait.

It didn't take long to ferment, just a long time to clear.

This is how I like it!
I've had red wine with more sediment. Mind you, the first and last buckets didn't come out so clean. Jeez this stuff's a bitch to rack.