Hello all,
A while back I was speaking to a friend about homebrewing. We got to talking about bottled juices and other items and when we got to plum juice, he quickly advised me to stay away from trying it since he's tried several times and hasn't faired well.
Hearing this, and me being the try it guy, I figured why not? Worst case scenario is I have fun and I'm out $5 give or take. It turns out it was a success and my wife (who loves the plum wine down at the local sushi place) is realy enjoying it.
Here's what I did.
Took a 48oz bottle of Sunsweet Plum Smart juice, poured out a bit, added 1/4 cup of white granulated table sugar and pitched 1 teaspoon of D47 yeast. I got a starting gravity of 1.105 on 2/14/13. I racked it on 2/25/13 with a gravity of 1.030. I figured it's about ~9% so I added about 1 teaspoon of clover honey, shook the heck out of it and stashed it in the fridge.
We cracked it open last night and the results are not bad at all. I'm sure it can be improved for a better taste but for such minimal effort and very little fuss, it's surprisingly good.
Has anyone else had a similar positive experience? Or, is the majority of this group sharing the advice of my friend and saying stay away from bottled plum juice?
A while back I was speaking to a friend about homebrewing. We got to talking about bottled juices and other items and when we got to plum juice, he quickly advised me to stay away from trying it since he's tried several times and hasn't faired well.
Hearing this, and me being the try it guy, I figured why not? Worst case scenario is I have fun and I'm out $5 give or take. It turns out it was a success and my wife (who loves the plum wine down at the local sushi place) is realy enjoying it.
Here's what I did.
Took a 48oz bottle of Sunsweet Plum Smart juice, poured out a bit, added 1/4 cup of white granulated table sugar and pitched 1 teaspoon of D47 yeast. I got a starting gravity of 1.105 on 2/14/13. I racked it on 2/25/13 with a gravity of 1.030. I figured it's about ~9% so I added about 1 teaspoon of clover honey, shook the heck out of it and stashed it in the fridge.
We cracked it open last night and the results are not bad at all. I'm sure it can be improved for a better taste but for such minimal effort and very little fuss, it's surprisingly good.
Has anyone else had a similar positive experience? Or, is the majority of this group sharing the advice of my friend and saying stay away from bottled plum juice?