Plums

[benarnold]

I found a cherry tree near our local Lidl last week and collected a couple of kilos of cherries from it. I went back yesterday to pick some more and discovered that right next to it was a massive wild plum tree that was absolutely covered in small, slightly overripe fruit. How I missed this last week I have no idea. I spent a good hour and picked nearly 8kg of plums

I made plum wine last year from Jack Keller's recipe using six punnets of reduced Co-op plums, it turned out pretty well. But I was thinking, if it was 8kg of apples I'd make cider, so I had a crazy idea... Plum Cider! However a touch of googling turned up virtually nothing, and I imagine there is a reason why. I believe that plums are very high in acid, would 100% plum juice be just too acidic?

I could just make two gallons of wine using last year's recipe, which wouldn't be a waste. I just thought that it would be interesting to try something different.

[fatbloke]

I found a cherry tree near our local Lidl last week and collected a couple of kilos of cherries from it. I went back yesterday to pick some more and discovered that right next to it was a massive wild plum tree that was absolutely covered in small, slightly overripe fruit. How I missed this last week I have no idea. I spent a good hour and picked nearly 8kg of plums

I made plum wine last year from Jack Keller's recipe using six punnets of reduced Co-op plums, it turned out pretty well. But I was thinking, if it was 8kg of apples I'd make cider, so I had a crazy idea... Plum Cider! However a touch of googling turned up virtually nothing, and I imagine there is a reason why. I believe that plums are very high in acid, would 100% plum juice be just too acidic?

I could just make two gallons of wine using last year's recipe, which wouldn't be a waste. I just thought that it would be interesting to try something different.

Well, how about making it a plummy apple cider ? i.e. it the plums are too acidic, then just use cheap apple juice to make 2 gallons but just ferment it like cider. So the juice of 4kg of plums and then topped up with cheap/sweet apple juice ?

Dunno what it'd taste like but, what the hell, if the fruit was free, then there's very little wasted or lost.....

regards

jtfb

[benarnold]

That's an interesting idea. I made a gallon of cider from some Lidl apple juice earlier this year and it was, to be frank, quite horrible. I don't yet know what the difference between using supermarket juice and home-pressed juice from local apples, as I made a gallon of that and it was delicious. Apart from the origins of the juice, the only difference was time - the cider from apples was left from November last year until a month ago; the supermarket juice cider from January to April. I am toying with the idea of making a gallon of supermarket cider and leaving it as long as the cider from picked apples, but I'm not sure what the point is.

I might keep the plums in the freezer until the autumn and use your idea but substitute the juice from freshly pressed apples for the supermarket juice.