A couple weeks back we started our plum wine as a way to utilize some of the plums we were overloaded with when the trees were ripe. Yesterday I started phase 2 of the process.

When we made the wine we put plums, sugar, water and yeast into a plastic carboy and sealed it with a bung and airlock to allow the air to release without letting any air or bacteria in. Not allowing air to escape basically makes your carboy into a big wine bomb… so the airlock is essential. The carboy sat in the kitchen fermenting away until yesterday, when the bubbling had ceased for a few days. I picked up some equipment from the local wine place; a second hand plastic carboy with bung and airlock for $5, a small siphon pump with hose for $10, a funnel for $2, some corks for $3 (for later) and a couple packages of yeast for $2 to make more wine in the future.

I rinsed out the carboy with boiled water and sterilized the bung and airlock. Placing the carboy with the wine in it on the counter, I used that fancy gravity thing to siphon the liquid into the second carboy, filtering out the mucky fruit. I gave it a taste and it’s definitely wine, but the taste is fairly tart so I added a whack more sugar and put the airlock back on so it can ferment some more. We will let it sit in our pantry for a few months before transferring it to wine bottles and corking it. Then we will likely let it sit again until next year.

This has been ridiculously easy and I’m excited to try it again with other fruit!

The colour is so pretty!