Unripe Plums- Syrup

A coworker of G's was looking for an unripe plum source once upon a time. She wanted to make a Korean plum syrup and the recipe calls for unripe plums. The concept intrigued me, but since I didn't have a source, I filed the idea away until our plum trees got much bigger. 

Then, we made a plum connection through our hosting of international college students at MSU. I got a message from her saying they pruned their tree and had a bunch of unripe plums to get rid of. G swung by after work and voila! We're in business! 

First the sorting - green, half green, ripe-ish, and damaged. And compost. 

G said that washing produce in ozone water is really good for getting rid of bacteria, etc. We have an ozone generator on our washer with an external spigot, so I washed the plums downstairs. 

After that it's simple- equal weights of plums and sugar. Score the plums, then pack them together with the sugar in a jar. The sugar will cause the plums to release juices and make a syrup. Let it sit for 100 days. 

It wasn't until the next day I realized I forgot to score the plums. 🤦‍♀️ I thought about taking them out and redoing it, but the process should still work. It'll just be slower. 

I had enough plums that I could make a second batch. This time I did score the plums! I washed this second batch in vinegar water instead of ozone. And I didn't dry them off. There's so much sugar I figured it would be okay. 

So, both batches need to be kept an eye on ...

There were some riper plums I left in a bowl on the counter to finish ripening. Unfortunately, I got in my head about fruit flies and set another bowl on top to be a lid. When I checked them the next day, almost every one had mold growing. 😭 Parts of most could be salvaged, so I made a plum sauce with the rest. And Jaron ate a few of the ones that survived without mold. 

The sauce turned out great! Just plums and a little water, so it was pretty tart. Perfect over ice cream. 😋