Plum Juice for wine

I am just starting out in this wine making endeavor and need some assistance. I have a good plum tree that produces amazing amounts of sweet fruit. This year they all became rip within three (3) days. I thought the best way to preserve the plums for use later would be to juice them and freeze the juices. After doing this, I bought a wine making kit with instructions and recipes, but they all say to use so many pounds of plums and to use the skins.

When I juiced the plums, I removed and discarded the seeds (need to remove anyway) and the skins. I now know leaving the skins and just pressing or blending would have probably made more wine than just juice alone, but I didn't then.

Can anyone tell me how to convert pounds of fruit to gallons of juice? I hope I didn't just waste all those plums and can still use them for a good tasting wine.

I know I should have done more research before I started this adventure but please help if you can!

Thanks, Tyler - Kansas

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Reply to
rancher
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Reply to
Erroll Ozgencil

How did you juice the plums?

I use a steam juicer. I weigh the fruit before juicing and calculate how much juice/# I get and go from there.

If you used steam, then you likely achieved a nearly complete extraction. I would go a bit heavy on the juice and go for it!

For example, I just juiced a bunch of blackberries. I got .42 quarts of juice per # of berries. I want the equivalent of 4# per gallon in a 3 gallon batch, so I will use 5 quarts of extracted juice for the batch.

Before I mix it up though, I'll check the TA of my juice and make sure this will get me where I want to be. In the case of blackberries, where malic is the predominate acid, I'll use 71B if the acid is too high.

It sounds complicated at first, but it's really straightforward. Use the link Errol provided to learn about your fruit. Do a bit of math and a bit of research to plan your approach.

Good luck!!!

Reply to
BobF

rancher had written this in response to

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: I used an electric juicer like a Jack Lalane style. It worked pretty good for the price.

I think I'll try playing with the recipes this weekend and see what can be done.

Thank you both for your help.

If anyone else can give me more ideas that would be greatly appreciated and I might be interested in a few more recipes for plum wine as well as peach and pear.

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Reply to
rancher

Are you using the plums to enhance a wine or making straight "plum wine?" If you hope to replicate the Serbian (much better than the Croat) Sliwovic (sp?), then use the plums whole and leave them that way in the carboy as primary fermentation carries out.

I've laways wanted to try making a plum Lambic.

Reply to
Gorio

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