Sodium-Reduced Umeboshi - salt

Method

• Select only the unblemished fruit from the ripe ume plums you have, and wash them in water.
• There's no need to soak the plums to remove their bitterness.
• Unripe ume plums should not be used, since they won't become soft.
• Wipe each washed plum one by one carefully using paper towels.
• Pry out the stem ends with a bamboo skewer.
• Measure the ume plums, and then measure out 8% of their weight in coarse salt.
• Put the ume plums from Step 2 into brand new poly bags, and sprinkle them with the coarse salt.
• Sprinkle in the white liquor too.
• Close up the bags with elastic bands while expressing the air out of them.
• Put the filled bags from Step 4 in a large tub (a packing box is fine).
• Put plates or pot lids on them, and add light weights (1 to 2 kg).
• Unopening salt or sugar boxes are convenient weights.
• Put the container in a place where you can take a look at it frequently until a lot of liquid (ume-su) comes out of the ume plums.
• Once the liquid comes out, lighten the weights so that the plums don't get crushed.
• When the plums are completely immersed in the liquid, you don't need to weight them down anymore.
• Leave the bags as is in the container until the rainy season has ended (after June).
• When the rainy season has ended, dry the umeboshi in a sunny place for 3 days.
• You can put the plums back in the liquid if you like, but since they are soft and juicy anyway, I just took them inside.
• Don't let the umeboshi become wet!
• Watch out for sudden rains or evening thunderstorms.
• Done!
• I used these large ziplock bags, to make 1.5 kg batches of umeboshi.
• They will exude a lot of liquid (ume-su) in 2 to 3 days.
• Line them up with the zip side up in a packing box.
• Take the weights off once the plums are immersed in liquid.