Nesting in a jar

I'm having some irrational nesting tendencies lately where I need to do all sorts of projects. As in immediately. I know this is completely irrational but apparently I am not stronger than oxytocin. So, I'm running with it.

This weekend, I decided to start some more projects. I'm fully aware that we already have 6+ gallons of jam in 4 varieties (strawberry, strawberry-rhubarb, blueberry and cherry). But oxytocin told me that I have not processed any figs or plums yet.

And so this post begins.

On Saturday morning, I went to Beti's house to pick 5.25 lbs of figs from her tree. Later that evening, we went to Brian & Laura for dinner and I picked 5.8 lbs of plums from their tree.

Sunday morning was cooler, so I began to process everything:

*For the figs, I washed and halved them before throwing them on the grill with balsamic vinegar and salt for ~20 min. I let them cool while we ran some errands (we needed to get shelving in the closet immediately). When we got back, I ran them through the food processor until they were almost paste-like. Without sugar, they tasted almost like olives to me (in their vinegar-y salty brine). To some of the puree, I made a strong simple syrup and cooked the figs in that until they were soft and preserve-like. I then canned a couple jars of the mixture and made fig newtons with the rest.

*For the plums, I am fufilling my dream of making Japanese plum wine, a la Caroline who introduced it to me in NY when I first started dating Ken. I went online and found a recipe for it that seemed to produce good results. The recipe is below in case the site goes down. We have a local homebrew store, so I wrote down all the ingredients I need in order to make it (~$12 to make 1 gallon of wine). They close at 5:30 so Ken's picking everything up for me today since I'm on the bus these days and can't get there in time. I called into the store and they theoretically have everything waiting for him at the counter.

Ken goes out of town starting tomorrow and I will start my plum wine the minute he leaves (gives me time to clean up any plum puree that has an excellent chance of ending up everywhere). It takes a couple of months to fully ferment. Perfect timing since Katie arrives in October.

STU'S
FORMULA FOR PRIZE WINNING PLUM WINE

This recipe can be increased or decreased proportionately starting with a recipe for 3 gallons of wine.
15 lbs. ripe plums.
3 gallons hot water. About 140 degrees.
1 ½ tbs. Yeast nutrient.
1 ½ tsp. Peptic enzyme powder.
3 Campden tablets.
1 tbs. + 1 ½ tsp. Acid blend.
1 package Cote Des Blanc yeast.
7 ½ lbs. Sugar.

For cleaning and stabilizing

3 tsp. Spakolloid.
1 ½ tsp. Sorbistat stabilizer.

Tools needed

A wine hydrometer, a thermometer and a bucket or fermenter.

Crush fruit and remove stones. The fruit should be soft enough that you can squash it with your hand. Let the juice and fruit fall in a clean bucket that holds about 5 gallons.

Put all of the ingredients except the yeast, sorbistat, sugar, and sparkolloid in the bucket which we will now call the fermenter.

Add hot water and 5 lbs. of sugar and mix until you do not feel any sugar on the bottom of the fermenter. When cooled take a reading with a hydrometer. (I will put a hydrometer correction table for temperatures at the end of this recipe.) The hydrometer should read 1.090 degrees or around 23 brix if lower add a cup of sugar and mix and check again.

When cooled to room temp. (Probably over night) sprinkle yeast on top and mix lightly cover with plastic and use a large rubber band to hold plastic on and keep bugs out before fermenting starts.

Fermentation should start in one or two days. Put fermenter in the coolest place you can find. Stir down cap in morning and evening. After three days of fermenting take a hydrometer reading everyday. When the hydrometer reads 1.020 degrees carefully remove as much of cap as possible by hand and strain the rest through a coarse strainer into a carboy and fill to about 8 inches or more from the top put a baggie over top for two days then use a airtrap.

After three weeks siphon off lees (silt on bottom) into another container and fill as high as one inch from top. You can always top off with water if necessary but remember you are diluting your wine. Rack again in three months.

Use sparkolloid to clear after another two months. When clear you can sweeten to your taste, use sugar or sweet and low. If sugar is used add sorbistat to stabilize.

Hydrometer correction table

Temperature of liquid-------------------Correction

59----------------------------------------------none
68---------------------------------------------Add 0.009
77---------------------------------------------Add 0.02
86---------------------------------------------Add 0.034
95---------------------------------------------Add 0.05
104-------------------------------------------Add 0.068