damson de-stoning advice needed

[drmick]

Hi All

I have just picked 20lb of damsons from someones garden and am going to make some wine (surprise that this being a wine forum). I plan on doing the two recipes that are in the recipe section but need to order a few things first.

I'm going to wash the fruit and freeze it until I get everything organised and read that the stones should be easy to extract after freezing - so how do you separate the stones from the fruit after freezing is there a simple technique? Do you strain them or when you add the water do they all float to the top and can be skimmed off?

Thanks
Michael

[benarnold]

Hi Michael,

Last time I made damson wine (earlier this year in fact when we had a freezer clearout) I didn't bother de-stoning them. I just mashed them up a bit before I stuck them in the fermenter, and mashed them up a bit more every day. I found that sanitised rubber gloves were very helpful.

I did de-stone the plum wine I made a few years ago, but the damsons were so small - it would be like de-stoning sloes. Never going to happen!

(And in case you want to make any food-stuffs, I found that simmering them in a few cm of water for 20 mins allows you to push them through a sieve quite easily. All the pulp goes through leaving the skin and stones behind. Great for sauces and chutneys )

[Curt]

I do a couple of batches of plum wine each year and don't bother to de-stone them. As long as you don't crack the shell of the pit there is little chance of the seed material leaking into your wine.