Month: September 2022

This is another smaller batch of golden plum wine. The main difference between this and the previous one is that the skins were removed before fermentation and it was only sweetened about half as much.

Fun fact: the plum on the label was drawn with stable diffusion.

• 8/18
  • Started with 16 pounds of plum goop. These were rinsed, pitted, then pressed through a sieve to separate the squishy stuff from the skins.
  • Added water for a total of ~4.5 gallons
  • Added 4.5 lb sugar for a starting gravity of 1.060
  • Added sodium metabisulfite
• 8/19
  • Added yeast (Lalvin K1-V1116)
  • Added yeast nutrient
  • Added pectic enzyme
• 8/25
  • Racked
  • Gravity : 0.996
• 9/10
  • Racked again
  • Added sparkolloid to clarify
  • Gravity: 0.992
• 9/22
  • Racked yet again
  • Added potassium sorbate to stop further fermentation
  • Added 1 cup of sugar to sweeten
  • Bottled

This one turned out a little less tart than the previous batch that were fermented with the skins, and it was also far clearer and had less sediment.

This is a sort of journal for some batches of homebrew, there’s a link on the label to this page hopefully – just in case it turned out to be good and I want to repeat it. Compared to the following batch, leaving the plum skins on during the fermentation made it more difficult to clarify and seems to make it a bit more tart or whatever. I don’t know anything about wine. I was aiming for a bit lower alcohol content, but this yeast definitely will go higher if you give it enough sugar.

Fun fact: the plum on the label was drawn with stable diffusion, that’s why it looks like an ambiguous fruit.

• 8/15
  • Started with 26 pounds of golden plums after rinsing, pitting, and squishing
  • Added water to reach ~5 gallons
  • Gravity was 1.020, added 5.625 pounds of sugar for a starting gravity of 1.060
  • Added sodium metabisulfite
• 8/16
  • Added yeast nutrient, pectic enzyme, and yeast (Lalvin K1-V1116)
  • Fermentation began by the next morning
• 8/20
  • Racked, added 1/2 cup sugar and pectic enzyme
• 8/29
  • Racked again
  • Added sparkolloid to clarify
• 9/16
  • Racked yet again
  • Added 1/4 tsp metabisulfite and 2-1/2 tsp potassium sorbate to prevent further fermentation
• 9/17
  • Added 2 cups sugar to sweeten
  • Bottled, ended up with 4.5 gallons total
  • Final gravity ~0.998 for around 9% abv