Persimmon Beer Wild Ferment & A Wild & Local Chutney
So the other day you saw our post on PERSIMMONS! What are we going to do with all of those?
Persimmon Wild Beer is already bubbling away the next morning!
Well, I'll tell you! We had in mind a beer, a chutney, and frozen pulp.
Last night I pureed away (manually) using a colander, a bowl and a spoon. It was a little work on the wrist, but it went pretty quickly.
Soon enough I had 3 1/2 lbs of pureed persimmon pulp. Now usually people only use this "after the first frost"- it's like a mantra for the locals. While that is usually the case with persimmons (don't get them too early otherwise you will be sorry), these were already on the ground, and insects and deer were eating them.
Persimmons ready for pulping!
This tree was in full sun and it had ripened faster. We did check some other trees and they were not ready yet! Chalk it up (again) to microclimates! Yet another benefit of being connected you place.
All of the seeds! And 3.5 lbs of pulped persimmons!
Phase 1
The coming of Autumn is always fraught with abundance and tinged with sadness as summer comes to an end. This abundance is often a great opportunity to get create and extend the season by preserving the goods to be enjoyed throughout the winter. Not being eaters of jams, we looked at the mass of persimmon pulp and thought how well the jalapeños we harvested would compliment the sweet persimmons...
Let's be honest here, an amazing sauce makes the eating experience exponentially better. We tend to eat whole food that is pure and simple, and a bomb sauce just makes everything so much nicer.
A flavorful hot sauce can dress up an otherwise bland food. In other words, a balanced chutney can make a dish dance!
Persimmon pulp uncooked with skins mixed in.
We had fun playing with the sweet persimmon pulp and creating something a little more complex.
To the pulp we added:
- A healthy helping of garlic
- Jalapeños
- A splash of apple cider vinegar
- A touch of olive oil
- Some salt
WOW! This was certainly a good idea, this sauce blew our taste buds out of the water with how well it turned out.
Phase 2
There's so much sugar in these persimmons (apparently the sweetest fruit around), we couldn't stop ourselves from trying some wild fermented brews.
After I had pulped 3.5 lbs of persimmon and used some for chutney... we mixed the rest with water and will count on the natural yeast in the persimmon skins to start the fermentation! We also boiled some water and dissolved 1 cup of brown sugar in the water. We added this to the brew once cool (to not kill off the natural active wild yeast.)
We usually like to add a little modern cultivated yeast to the natural seasonal beers we make, but this time I wanted to try going all wild from the fruit themselves!
Time will only tell how this beer turns out- I'll keep you posted!
Phase 3
And this is only the beginning! This chutney and beer starter are only two of the things we will do with the persimmons this year. We still have more persimmons from our haul yesterday to pulp (and likely will freeze that pulp) and perhaps we'll make bread (I know @birdsinparadise would love to get her hands on some!)...
No Persimmons here... It's on my list of plants/trees to get but my little quarter acre is a little too jam packed for another tree. I have to wait until we find more space. That chutney sounds great though, I had more jalapenos then I knew what to do with!
wow! it's such a fun problem to have isn't it? we have quite a few too! thinking about smoking some and making chipotle! what are you doing with yours? and hope you find room for a persimmon soon, they're wonderful trees :)
Nice photography @mountainjewel I like step by step DIY type posts. Good content. Apparently persimmons are common in California especially SoCal but I don't see them in local farmers markets.
thanks! glad you like it. i'm sure the asian persimmons are quite common-- but you all have so many fruits, yeah, i bet they get bumped out at markets! curious what fruits you DO see a lot of at market...
Well for summer lots of berries. Blackberries, raspberries, strawberries. My favorite is golden raspberries. Then get pit fruit - cherries, plums, nectarines, peaches, pluots, apricots, aprium. Pluots are very popular. Lots of varieties. Pluots and apriums are plum/apricot crosses. And pears and apples now. Lots of varieties of apples and pears. Asian pears are very popular and there are lots of varieties. Whats nice is the length of the growing season. We get berries for almost March to September
i'd say you have a lot to choose from ;) what a feast! i'm sure there are persimmons at asian markets!
Oh my...I am really salivating now...yikes these look amazing. I wish I could get my hands on some of this pulp...your great grandmother gave me a wonderful persimmon bar recipe :) Can't wait to hear how the beer tastes, what a fun idea oxox
how can we get you some pulp?! lol! short of stashing it in a suitcase... ;) i would love to try that recipe!
update on the beer: it's good, yet sour! I don't think a lot of people would like it, but it feels nutritive. a good persimmon taste beneath the sour. Ini made some more today and boiled it briefly and added a cultivated yeast. i'm guessing it was the wild yeasts that gave it the sour flavor.
The best fermenting temp is 68 degrees, now that it is getting cooler it might help! Sounds fun! I can't wait to hear how the new batch works. I know, I wonder if you can carry persimmon pulp onboard lol. btw...you're each allowed one carry on bag and one personal item :) oxox can't wait to see you guys!
After reading your previous post about gathering persimmons, I rode my bike down road to visit a tree that is loaded with fruit. They were unripe, but there were tons of them.
I can't wait to hear about your beer experiment.
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yeah! excited to hear about your haul once it's ripe! beer full update coming soon, but we tried some yesterday and it was very good. sour, but good! (we like sour brews)
I was thinking of you all this afternoon when I went to the brewery to fill my growler.
We have a persimmon grisette on tap that I tried again for the second time. It is very light and refreshing, but I wish it had more persimmon character.
The beer everyone was raving about is a dry hopped sour called Mirage. It is a very intensely sour beer that has a great malt character, too. The hops are mostly in the aroma. We had a booth at a local beer festival yesterday and Mirage was attracting a lot of attention from the other brewers, all of whom are much better known than us. It was nice to get some recognition from knowledgeable experts in the a art.
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man.... i love persimmon everything. in california persimmon season is my favorite, i dry as many as I can usually... and they're huge!
yes!! love persimmons here too! the beer turned around really good. the yeast was very bread-y and sour.. a unique and satisfying flavor!
i have made a lot of mead but i don't think i've ever included persimmon, i don't think. i'm in virginia right now where my stash lives, i'll have to look to see if any i have made at my parents' farm contain any- there's lots of wild persimmon there.
nice! curious to hear what you find. we made another one tonight. there really (except honey) aren't any sources of wild sugar that are this potent. seems perfect for a brew since in raw forms it seems to be too much for my stomach (that and maybe the wild unfermented yeasts all over the skins?) -- we've also been making a ton of chutneys (with foraged apples) and canning them. i don't like to cook fruits if i don't have to, but i have had bad stomach reactions to raw persimmon creations twice. either cook or ferment it seems so far. i love mead and hope to be able to create more once we get an abundance of honey here.
you think it could be the tannin on the persimmon skins? the wild species in the southeast is especially tannic....
that's a good guess! i made a raw chutney with that and jalapenos and each time i ate it i didn't feel very well which is odd for me as i have a pretty "tough" or good or whatever you want to call it- stomach. possibly tannins!