Plum Wine

A friend suggested I make plum wine since I have such and abundance of plums this year and I thought it's a great idea. Here is the link she sent me for a recipe: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/45021_how-to-make-homemade-plum-wine

I bought 11 gallons of distilled water today thinking the lack of impurities would make for a better wine but it turns out that tap or spring water are better because the yeast needs the minerals and other impurities to ferment more effectively.

For containers I bought a couple of 5 gallon plastic water bottles. I would love to use glass but they are near impossible to obtain before the plums would spoil. My freezer is already packed full of frozen plums that I plan on using for jam and salsa. A lot of the wine supply stores I check out online carry plastic so I'm assuming it's fine and hopefully won't alter the flavor too much.

I would love to take photos of the process but I can't find the charger for my camera and I left my cell phone at a Walmart 35 miles away this morning, so I'll just have to describe it all.

I have a 2 gallon stock pot I'm boiling the plums in now with a little water. It keeps boiling over just a little which makes my whole house smell like wonderful plums and my cook top is hot pink. To strain I put a knee high stocking over a pitcher and I'll ladle the plums into it and strain them, then I can easily pour the liquid into the water jug. Once the liquid is in the jug I'll add the sugar and yeast. Then I'll cover the opening with some cheese cloth to let it breathe, although I might look into how other people store their fermenting wine mix and see what other options there are.