How to make rowan wine. A simple recipe for red rowan wine. Seafood, or the unusual composition of amber

Among the many berries that are widely found in Russia, one cannot fail to mention rowan. This is a very useful shrub, but its unpleasant taste prevents its use without careful processing. It’s not worth making an effort to eat healthy berries. After all, you can simply remake the raw materials beyond recognition and thus enjoy the product.

Peculiarities

Rowan wine has a tart aroma that delights connoisseurs. But for better taste, you should pick the berries only after the first frost hits. Then the characteristic bitterness will disappear, and the sugar concentration will increase. It is recommended to keep the harvest harvested before the onset of cold weather for 24 hours in a freezer. This requirement is mandatory for both wild and cultivated varieties of shrubs.

The best results are achieved when obtaining a drink from varieties such as “Burka”, “Likerny” or “Granatny”. The wine always turns out to be strong and aromatic. One liter of drink is produced from 4–4.5 kg of raw materials. Before preparing the wort, even the smallest branches are removed. In this case, washing is not necessary - in any case, the berries are doused with boiling water.

Beneficial features

The healing properties of wine drinks made from rowan berries have been known for quite some time:

they expel bile and increase sweating;
due to the diuretic effect, the release of toxins that arise from pathologies of various kinds is accelerated;
the functioning of the cardiovascular system and digestion becomes better;
the development of fungal infections slows down.

But the benefits of rowan wines are only one side of the coin. There are a number of conditions for which they should not be used. Any deviations from normal blood clotting (both strengthening and weakening) automatically prohibit the use of such drinks. It is recommended that if the condition worsens, you first consult with specialists to prevent possible negative effects from self-medication.

If there are no restrictions, you should choose aged wine, which is also much tastier than a fresh product.

Recipes

To improve the taste of rowan wines, various juices are added to them, most often cranberry and apple. But before improving the resulting product, it must first be produced - and quite different technologies can be used. The simplest option produces an orange-pink liquid. To work you will need to use:

10 kg of berries;
4 liters of water;
2 kg sugar;
150 g raisins.

Raisins can be replaced with regular grapes, and sometimes the same amount of apple juice is added to the water. Before starting work, you need to peel the berries from the stems and soak them in boiling water for 30 minutes twice. Then the concentration of tannins will be reduced, and the drink will be less tart. Having finished preparing the rowan, the berries are scrolled in a meat grinder, substituting cotton cloth or gauze folded several times for the resulting pulp. The pulp is placed in a wide-necked bottle and water heated to 70 degrees is poured on top.

The contents of the bottle should be mixed immediately and left to cool. Then rowan juice, one part of granulated sugar and unwashed grapes are added to the mixture. Washing will destroy the white coating, and the quality of fermentation largely depends on it. Now you can tie the neck with gauze and put the bottle in a warm, dark place. As the wine ferments, it will foam and give off a slightly sour aroma.

Having caught this moment, you need to filter the wort and add a new portion of sugar to the juice. This should be done in a large vessel, about a third of it should remain free. Cover the bottle with a rubber glove with a thin puncture in one finger. The gases will inflate the glove, but when fermentation is complete, it will deflate. Important: the second fermentation at home should take place for at least two weeks in a dark corner at an elevated temperature, at least 20 degrees.

If the whole process is going correctly, you will be able to see bubbles moving up and down. Their disappearance, along with the appearance of sediment at the bottom, means that it is time to pour the rowan liqueur into well-washed and sterilized bottles. In this case, it is necessary to avoid haste so that the suspension does not rise. The containers are sealed hermetically and placed in cold places where the air does not warm up to more than 15 degrees.

Direct contact with the sun's rays is unacceptable; in such conditions the wine is aged for about four months.

A new portion of sediment will appear below, the liquid is then drained again. That's it, the preparation of delicious wine is complete. It is placed in subsequent bottles and laid out in cool places. The strength of the resulting drink is 10–15 degrees. Normal storage conditions will allow you to preserve the product for the next 3–4 years.

The second version of the filling is made using:

berries (2 kg);
sugar (the same amount);
8 liters of clean water;
2.4 g of ammonium chloride for the entire mass of water (or a similar volume by conversion).

Preparing rowan involves defrosting it and keeping it in boiling water for about 30 minutes. Then the liquid is poured over with cool water, and when it drains, you need to prepare the puree in the way that is most convenient. The resulting mass is transferred to a large bottle, into which water is poured and 1 kg of sugar and ammonium are added. In the absence of ammonium, it can be replaced with raisins. The glove technique is used again - when it comes down, the missing sugar is added. Repeated fermentation also occurs for up to 4 months in a cold place. But the recipes don't end there.

There are even simpler instructions; to work you only need 2 kg of rowan, water and sugar to taste. The sweeter the wine you prefer, the more you will need. Thawed berries, as in the previous version, are poured with boiling water, crushed in a meat grinder and the juice is squeezed out. Just one fermentation is enough; when it is complete, the mixture is filtered and poured into clean bottles. The moonshine will be aromatic and moderately tart.

The original version is red rowan wine with apples. You will need 3 kg of berries, 5 liters of water, 3 liters of juice. 3 kg of sugar and 50 g of grapes or raisins will also come in handy. Start by preparing a wild yeast starter. Then the required amount of juice is prepared. The rowan berries poured into the basin are scalded and after 30 minutes the water is poured out.

The berries need to be crushed and mixed with warm (not boiling) water, half the required sugar, apple juice and sourdough. The dishes are covered with gauze and placed in a warm place for several days. The fermented syrup is drained and filtered, and the remaining sugar is added to the second vessel. Fermentation in the dark should last 14–28 days. Young wine matures for another 2–3 months.

You can prepare sourdough from:

raisins;
aqueous sugar solution;
0.1 kg of rose hips or raspberries.

A good tincture is made from rowan berries with honey. To prepare it you will need 500 g of berries, 1 liter of quality cognac, 60 g of honey and 30 g of oak bark. Washed and dried berries are placed in glass containers. There they are filled to the top with cognac, honey and crushed bark are mixed in, and the mixed composition is sealed hermetically. Exposure in the dark is standard - 3 months.

Softened berries can be used to produce wine using other technologies. Soaked rowan is freed from harmful and unpleasant tannins, so the drink will be tastier. But the relatively low concentration of sugar still has an effect. The fermentation process takes a minimum of 5–7 days, as opposed to 2–3 days when using sweeter berries. Dried berries also give relatively good results.

Drying can be done in normal or forced mode. In the first case, it will be necessary to provide intensive ventilation in a certain room. When using dryers, you just need to strictly follow the instructions.

Regardless of the specifics of the recipe, after the first fermentation the wine will inevitably be dark. Only repeated treatment over a long period of time will reliably solve this problem.

A comb with a sparse arrangement of teeth will help to simplify the separation of “unruly” stalks. By carefully moving along the branch and applying slight pressure, you can easily tear off the interfering areas. All dried or rotten fruits should be thrown away, leaving only the largest and most attractive rowan. Washing wild berries requires much more care than cultivated ones. Experts advise using the sweetest varieties of rowan to at least slightly compensate for its unpleasant aftertaste.

It is not recommended to replace homemade apple juice with store-bought apple juice. After all, it almost inevitably contains preservatives that block fermentation or radically complicate it.

During storage, rowan wines should be protected as much as possible from exposure to air; you should not even open them for consumption again. You cannot crush the berries in a blender, as breaking the seeds will increase the bitterness. Whether to remove foam that occurs during work depends solely on whether it interferes or not.

To learn how to make homemade chokeberry wine, watch the following video.

Rowan has been famous for its healing properties since ancient times. This fruit tree is distributed throughout central Russia. Jams, preserves and tinctures are prepared from rowan.

Rowan wine has many beneficial qualities for humans. It stimulates digestion, improves immunity, and helps fight depression. To prepare the drink, it is better to collect rowan berries after the first frost.

Classic recipe for rowan wine

This slightly tart drink is good as an aperitif before a meal. Wine made with your own hands from natural products will benefit your body.

Ingredients:

rowan without branches – 10 kg;
water – 4 l.;
sugar – 3 kg;
raisins – 150 gr.

Preparation:

If you picked the berries before frost, you can place them in the freezer for several hours. This will increase the sugar content of red rowan and remove bitterness from the future wine.
Look through all the berries, remove green and spoiled fruits, and pour boiling water over them. When the water has cooled, drain and repeat the procedure again. This will rid the berries of excess tannins.
Grind the berries in a meat grinder with a fine mesh, or crush it with a wooden masher.
Squeeze the juice out of the resulting berry mass through several layers of gauze.
Place the pulp in a suitable pan and add enough hot water, but not boiling water.
Let the solution cool and sit for several hours.
Add rowan juice, half the sugar according to the recipe and unwashed grapes or raisins to the pan.
Leave the solution in the dark for at least three days. Stir with a wooden stick every day.
When you see foam on the surface and feel a sour smell, you need to strain the suspension, add the rest of the granulated sugar, and pour it into a glass vessel for further fermentation.
There must be enough space in the glass container, as the solution will foam.
Close the bottle with a hydraulic seal or just a rubber glove with a small hole, and leave it in the dark for several weeks.
When the liquid becomes lighter in color and the gas stops separating through the hydraulic seal, the wine should be poured into a clean bottle, being careful not to stir up the sediment formed at the bottom.
Taste the resulting drink and add sugar syrup or alcohol to taste.
Leave the young wine to mature for several months, then strain and bottle. They should be filled to the very top and sealed tightly. It is better to store in a cool place.

Ingredients:

rowan without branches – 10 kg;
water – 10 l.;
sugar – 3.5 kg;
yeast – 20 gr.

Preparation:

Sort through the berries and chop them in any way convenient for you.
Squeeze out the juice and place the pulp in a saucepan.
Add ½ of the total volume of water and granulated sugar. Dissolve the yeast with lukewarm water and add it to the wort.
After 3-4 days, strain the wort and add the berry juice that was stored in the refrigerator and another kilogram of sugar.
Leave to ferment, sealed with a hydraulic seal or rubber glove, in a warm room for 3-4 weeks.
Strain, avoiding stirring the sediment.
Taste and add more granulated sugar if necessary. Pour into bottles right up to the neck. Store in a cold room.

A delicious amber-colored dessert wine is quite easy to prepare and can be stored for at least two years.

Rowan wine with apple juice

Sweet fruity notes of apples and the tart, bitter taste of rowan give a very balanced and pleasant taste to the alcoholic drink.

Ingredients:

rowan - 4 kg;
water – 6 l.;
freshly squeezed apple juice – 4 l.;
sugar – 3 kg;
raisins – 100 gr.

Preparation:

Sort through the berries and pour boiling water over them. After cooling, repeat the procedure.
Crush the rowan with a wooden masher, or grind it in a meat grinder.
In a saucepan, heat the water to about 30 degrees and pour it over the chopped berries, half the total sugar and raisins.
Add apple juice, stir well, and place in a suitable place, covered with a clean cloth.
After the foam appears, on about the third day, filter into a fermentation container and add the granulated sugar required by the recipe.
Close with a hydraulic seal and place in a darkened room for fermentation for 1-1.5 months.
Young wine should be filtered into a clean container and left to mature for a couple of months.
When the process is completely completed, carefully pour the finished wine, trying not to disturb the sediment.
Pour into bottles with airtight stoppers and send to the cellar for another 2-3 weeks.

Ingredients:

chokeberry – 10 kg;
water – 2 l.;
sugar – 4 kg;
raisins – 100 gr.

Preparation:

Sort out the chokeberries and, unwashed, chop them using a blender. Add 1/2 granulated sugar and water.
Cover with gauze and place in a warm place for about a week. The mixture must be stirred periodically.
Squeeze the juice from the fermented mixture, and add the second half of sugar and water to the remaining pulp.
Pour the juice into a clean bottle and install a water seal or glove.
After a few days, squeeze the juice from the second batch of wort and add it to the first batch of juice.
After about a week, pour the suspension into a clean container, being careful not to disturb the sediment, and leave for further fermentation in a cool room.
Repeat the procedure until gas bubbles stop completely escaping.
Bottle and leave the wine to mature for several months.

Chokeberry wine has a rich ruby color and a pleasant slight bitterness.

Ingredients:

chokeberry –5 kg;
vodka – 0.5 l.;
sugar – 4 kg;
cinnamon – 5 gr.

Preparation:

In an enamel bowl, thoroughly mash the berries, add granulated sugar and ground cinnamon.
Cover with a clean, thin cloth and leave in a warm place until the mixture ferments.
Stir the suspension several times a day. The process will take one week.
Squeeze the juice through a suitable filter. Pour into a glass container with a hydraulic seal for fermentation.
When the gas stops coming out, carefully pour into a clean container without touching the sediment.
Add vodka and bottle into sealed bottles.
The wine will fully ripen in six months and will look like a viscous liqueur.

This drink is easy to make - treat your loved ones and friends, and they will appreciate the dessert wine.

It’s easy to make rowan wine at home, and if you follow all the proportions and stages of fermentation, you will get an amazing, aromatic and healthy drink for the whole family during the holidays.

Rowan berries cannot be eaten in their pure form because of their strong bitterness and astringency, but they have so many healing properties.
Experienced winemakers use rowan to make healthy wine, moderate doses of which can improve metabolism, blood microcirculation, boost immunity, stimulate the heart and more. The berries have choleretic, diaphoretic and diuretic properties. Rowan wine is contraindicated for patients with hemophilia.

Need to know about berries

There are points that are useful to know for those who decide to make wine from rowan:

for wine, you can use any type of rowan - both domestic and wild, but those who want to get the most luxurious wine should choose sweetish varieties of berries - “Granatny”, “Liquorny”, “Burka”;
This berry makes the best strong and dessert wines;
You need to pick the rowan after waiting for the first light frost, or before starting to prepare the drink, put the berries in the freezer for a couple of hours. This procedure will have a positive effect on the quality of drinking;
in order to get half a liter of pure juice, you will have to process at least 2 kg of rowan, because the berries contain a small amount of pulp.

Before you start making it, you should pay attention that if you decide to experiment by creating a unique wine from bright berries at home, you will definitely have to include sugar and ammonium in the recipe (you can use raisins or fresh crushed grapes instead), otherwise you won’t succeed at all no wine. And also do not forget that the process of making homemade wine should take place almost under sterile conditions; use only clean utensils and equipment.

Basic recipe

To make wine from red rowan according to the classic recipe, you need to take:

10 kg of berries;
4 liters of water (it is possible to replace water with apple juice, but not more than 2 liters);
at least 2 kg of granulated sugar (use more if you want a sweet wine);
about 150 g of raisins (can be replaced with fresh grapes) or ammonium chloride at the rate of 0.3 g per liter of wort.

Cooking process:

Pick the berries from the bunch, rinse, and pour boiling water for 25–30 minutes. Then drain the water and repeat the procedure. This treatment will reduce the tannin content, and rowan wine will not be very tart.
Crush the berries in a way convenient for you, for example, twist them in a meat grinder.
Squeeze the juice from the rowan porridge.
Place the remaining pulp in a container with a large neck, add hot water (at least 70 °C), stir and leave to cool.
Now pour in the juice that was squeezed out earlier, half the sugar, raisins or fresh unwashed crushed grapes. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly, tie the neck of the container with gauze, then put it in a warm (at least 18 °C), preferably dark, place for several days.
When the contents begin to ferment and a sour smell, foam, etc. appear, the time has come to filter the wort.
Add the remaining portion of granulated sugar to the fermented purified juice and pour into a large container for re-fermentation, prudently leaving the third part free.
Build a water seal or replace it with a rubber glove with a punctured hole in the area of any finger.
Place the wort in a dark place with a temperature of 18–30 °C and forget about it for a couple of weeks.
When sediment forms at the bottom of the container, the liquid brightens and bubbles stop appearing, then the recipe says that the time has come to carefully pour the young red rowan wine without touching the cloudiness. This can be done using a thin tube.
Close the new container filled with young wine hermetically and then put it away for 3-4 months, allowing the new sediment to settle and the wine to “drain.” This time, choose a cool place where the temperature does not exceed 15 °C.
Re-drain the wine made at home from the sediment, then pour it into bottles, capping them tightly.

Theoretically, the yield of the finished drink is from 4 to 5 liters, the strength is 10–15 degrees. Store wine in a cool place and in a horizontal position; a cellar or refrigerator is ideal.

The wine does not deteriorate over many years, but on the contrary, it becomes tastier, because the longer the aging period, the less bitterness will remain.

Rowan in tandem with grape juice

Another simple recipe that requires grapes to make delicious wine.
Having decided to make blended homemade wine from red rowan, use recipe No. 2 for which you need to take:

3.6 liters of ready-made rowan juice;
0.9 liters of grape juice (it is better to use sweet grapes);
2.5 kg granulated sugar;
4 liters of water;
wine starter.

Step-by-step preparation:

Turn grapes and rowan into juice, or use ready-made pre-squeezed juice. Mix them together, add sugar, stir well.
Pour the resulting liquid into a glass bottle (leaving free space), pour in the wine starter and leave in a warm place, waiting for the fermentation stage to pass. This process can last from a week to two.
When fermentation is over (the wine stops bubbling), you can bottle it, but this should be done very carefully so as not to stir up the sediment. Place in storage and wait until the wine infuses.
Those who prefer to make stronger drinks at home can add vodka to red rowan wine - 1 liter per 10 liters of young wine. Stir the vodka thoroughly after pouring into bottles.

Some winemakers believe that making wine using grapes or the juice of another berry should adhere to a clear proportion of 4 to 6, that is, take 0.4 liters of rowan juice per 0.6 liters of another. Grapes or apples, namely their juice mixed with rowan wine, will not spoil or overshadow the taste of rowan.

Kagor technology

The recipe and essence of preparing wine using this method is that the remaining pulp after squeezing out the juice should be filled with water heated to 80 °C and left for a day. Then squeeze the resulting liquid from the pulp and add it to the wort filled with previously squeezed rowan juice. This procedure can be repeated several times, adding sugar at the end. Place the container with rowan wort for fermentation.
This type of wine easily clarifies on its own, becoming transparent, it has a sour, invigorating taste, there are notes of astringency and bitterness, but the aftertaste is soft and sweet.

Lovers of wine drinks will definitely appreciate and love the taste of rowan wine, and your friends will ask you to tell them the recipe for this wonderful drink!

In late autumn, with the first snows and frosts, you can notice the attractive red rowan fruits. Most people believe that they are not edible and are only for decorative purposes. In fact, rowan is very healthy and nutritious. Fruit drinks, jam and delicious homemade wine are made from it.

Useful and medicinal properties of red rowan berries

In medicine, not only the berries of the plant are considered useful, but also the leaves and bark of the plant. In order for rowan to bring maximum benefit, each type of raw material must be collected at different times. Let's say it is best to cut the bark in mid-spring, the berries after the first frost, and the leaves in the summer. Red rowan is indispensable for urolithiasis; it is an excellent hemostatic agent.

It should also be mentioned that rowan berries contain a huge amount of useful elements and vitamins, such as:

zinc, magnesium and silicon;

iodine, manganese;

folic acid;

vitamins A, B, C, E.

Thanks to this balanced composition, using red rowan you can:

restore the body after illness;

cleanse the body of waste and toxins;

increase immunity;

lower your temperature during a cold.

In addition, rowan has an excellent diuretic effect. The juice from its fruits is useful for diseases of the kidneys, liver, and hepatitis.

The benefits and harms of rowan wine, cooking at home, contraindications

Homemade rowan wine does not contain preservatives or chemicals, so it is not only safe, but even beneficial for the body. Like any other alcoholic drink, you should not get carried away with this wine, it will not do any good. The drink can be consumed by almost everyone, however, it is better not to even try it for people who suffer from poor blood clotting and hemophilia.

The drink as a whole has a pleasant, slightly tart taste with a hint of bitterness. At home, you can quickly prepare rowan wine. The benefits and harms of this drink are not known to many. Its main value lies in the regulation and restoration of the body's metabolic processes. Rowan wine is recommended to be consumed if you have:

obesity;

blood pressure;

lack of vitamins;
rapid fatigue.

Typically, housewives use the standard method to prepare rowan wine at home. A simple recipe includes heat treatment of berries. To do this, simply pour boiling water over them and leave for 20 minutes. After this, the rowan is kneaded well with your hands. The resulting pulp is placed in cheesecloth and the juice is squeezed out.

Rowan pulp is diluted with water and placed in a warm place for fermentation. Sugar is added to wine gradually. It is best to first prepare sugar syrup from it. The drink should ferment for about a month.

When to collect rowan berries for making wine drinks? Is it possible in winter?

Any housewife can prepare a pleasant tart wine from red rowan. The recipe is simple, but to prevent the drink from becoming bitter, you need to know exactly when it is best to pick the fruits. It is recommended to do this in late autumn after the first frost.

The fact is that with the arrival of frost, the amount of sugar in the berries reaches a maximum. If the berries were picked earlier, before frost, you just need to put them in the freezer for a while.

You can pick berries even in winter if they look great and have a pleasant sweet taste. If the mountain ash is preserved, why not do this in the winter months. Wine can be made from both wild rowan varieties and cultivated varieties.

How to make rowan wine with raisins without yeast - a simple, detailed step-by-step recipe

Many housewives prefer to use raisins when making red rowan wine. To do this you need to prepare:

5 kg of rowan berries;

1.5 kg of sugar or sugar syrup;

100 g raisins;

The wine is prepared as follows:

The rowan is softened in a grinder to a pulp, and the juice is squeezed out of it.

The remaining berries are poured with boiling water and cooled, then juice and raisins are added to the mixture.

The resulting substance is poured into a wide-necked bottle, covered with gauze, and left in a warm place for 3 days, stirring it constantly.

When the mixture acquires a sour smell, you need to strain it and pour it into bottles through a funnel with a filter.

You will need to put a commercial water seal or a regular rubber glove, which you can buy at a pharmacy, on the neck of each bottle.

You need to make a small puncture in the glove to allow the gas to escape.

After some time, usually 7-8 days, you will notice how the glove has sank, gas no longer comes out of the bottle, and sediment has formed at the bottom. If this happens, the wine is carefully poured into another bottle with a narrow neck, tightly capped and placed in a dark place for 3 months. After the allotted time, the wine is poured again to get rid of sediment. The result is a clean and very tasty intoxicating drink.

The best homemade drink from red rowan, chokeberry and apples with honey instead of sugar

Rowan wine with the addition of various fruits is very popular. Apples are most often used for these purposes, because they are the most accessible. As the main ingredient, you can use not only red rowan, but also chokeberry, mixing them in equal proportions.

As for the method of preparing the drink, it is practically no different from the previous recipe, except that after preparing the wort, apple juice is added to the drink along with rowan juice.

To improve the taste of the drink and make it even more healthy, natural honey is used instead of sugar. Homemade wine made from red rowan and honey is very healthy. The fact is that honey does not undergo heat treatment, which means it retains all its beneficial properties. In addition, unlike sugar, honey is better absorbed by the body and does not increase fat deposits.

How to put rowan wine with grape starter - preparation stages, proportions for 2 liters

Many people are well aware that yeast is the best assistant for making wine drinks. Housewives often pre-prepare the starter, which helps the wine ferment faster, and the process overall goes better. The main thing to remember is that the starter must be stored in the refrigerator and used no later than 10 days after preparation.

To prepare it, it is better to use homemade rather than store-bought grapes. A product from a supermarket is always processed with special means that help the fruit to be stored for a long time, but this method of processing has a negative effect on the quality and quantity of yeast.

Sourdough or wine yeast is added to the finished raw material before bottling the drink. To correctly calculate the required amount of starter, you need to determine the total volume of sugar and juice. Typically, 3% of the starter culture of the total amount of wine is added to wine. If the volume of the drink is 2 liters, then the amount of starter is approximately 60 g.

How to make a fortified drink with alcohol or vodka from rowan and apple juice with your own hands?

To make the drink stronger, you can add alcohol or vodka to it. Perhaps this is the easiest way to prepare an intoxicating drink, which is used by many beginners. Alcoholization of wine is simple.

It is necessary to add a little vodka or alcohol to the wort, which has been fermenting for several days, and put the drink back to ripening. At the same time, at the stage of preparing the wort, you can add a little apple juice to it to make the taste of the wine even more pleasant.

This red rowan wine at home has several advantages:

ease of preparation;

environmental friendliness;

low cost of ingredients;

ideal for home use.

It is worth considering that adding various alcoholic tinctures, cognacs, whiskey and brandy to the wort is unacceptable. The fact is that these strong alcoholic drinks have a certain aroma, which can change the taste of rowan wine, and sometimes even ruin it.

As you can see, making tasty and healthy wine from red rowan is not difficult. The drink, made at home, does not contain harmful substances, which means it can be served with confidence on the holiday table. Each time you can change the taste of the drink by adding different ingredients to it, such as grapes, apple juice, honey. This will only improve the taste of the alcoholic drink, and the wine will become more healthy and nutritious.

Rowan (lat. Sórbus) is credited with many beneficial properties. In traditional medicine it is used as a diuretic, multivitamin and hemostatic drug; in folklore - to lower blood pressure, as a choleretic agent, a cure for scurvy and an antiseptic. But not many people know that the almost ubiquitous rowan is an excellent raw material for making homemade wines. So, in this article you will learn how to make homemade wine from red rowan without special technical devices and other industrial things.

In its pure form, rowan is rarely used for making wine, since the berries contain a lot of tannins (0.4% or more). Because of this, the wine turns out to be very tart and with noticeable bitterness. However, long-term aging does its job - the bitterness goes away, and tannins, on the contrary, improve the quality of the wine and make it very resistant to various diseases.

The wine itself is yellow-orange in color, easy to clarify and easy to drink. The fruits of the plant are more suitable for making dessert wines (including liqueurs) and fortified ones - for table wines it is better to use special varieties of rowan, which contain a lot of sugar and less tannins. However, for beginners, we advise making any wines dessert or liqueur - this way the likelihood of spoiling the drink is minimal.

The rowan, which grows almost everywhere, even in the Far North, is less suitable for winemaking than varieties specially grown for home use (it contains 0.5% tannins, only 5% sugar, and this is the maximum). If you decide to make wine from such rowan, then the berries should first be soaked in boiling water a couple of times to partially remove the tannins. To improve the extraction of juice, rowan berries should be frozen (put in the freezer for 2-3 hours), and ideally, harvest the fruits during the first frost.

Still, it is better to use rowan with large fruits, for example, yellow-fruited or Crimean (Sorbus domestica), the fruits of which reach a diameter of 3.5 cm, and their sugar content sometimes reaches 14%.

Red rowan wine recipe

Important! First, read the cooking and wine recipes - they describe the fundamental canons of preparing fruit and berry wines. Let us recall the main stages of preparing fruit and berry wines:

Preparation of fruits and berries.
Extracting juice.
Juice research.
Flavoring, juice improvement and wort preparation.
Setting for fermentation.
Infection of wort with yeast fungi.
Violent fermentation.
First filtration and transfer.
Quiet fermentation and wort care.
Second and subsequent wine transfers.
Maturation and aging of the drink.
Cleaning, clarification and preparation for bottling.
Bottling.
Storage.
Treatment of defects and diseases of wine.

Again, as in the case of apple wine, due to the nature of rowan as a raw material, we will cover only some of these stages. So, let's go!

Preparing rowan and extracting juice from it

If you are using regular rowan and did not collect it during the first frost, put it in the freezer for 2-3 hours. Then transfer it from the freezer to a regular refrigerator. Then it needs to be treated thermally. Of course, first you need to clean the rowan from ridges, rotten and dry berries. Afterwards, pour boiling water over the fruits and leave it all for 20 minutes, then drain the water and pour boiling water again - after 30 minutes, drain again. That's it, the berries are ready to extract juice from them.

So, to get wine from red rowan, you first need to extract juice from the fruit. To do this, berries scalded with boiling water or ordinary fruits of domestic varieties need to be mashed with your hands, a wooden rolling pin (it is not advisable to use metal) or any other device, for example, you can pass the berries through a meat grinder. Then squeeze the juice out of the pulp using gauze or a fine sieve, whichever is more convenient for you.

In principle, the pulp can be poured with hot water (70-80 o C) and after a few hours mixed with the extracted juice, but we do not recommend doing this - there are a lot of polyphenolic substances and pectins in the pulp, so nothing good will come of it. However, if this does not scare you, and you use, for example, Crimean rowan, you can try diluting the pulp with water (you can find its quantity in the tables below), and then add juice to it (just let the water cool to 30 degrees), half of the required amount of sugar and yeast base (more on this in the next chapter.)

In this case, we use fermentation to more effectively separate the juice from the pulp and completely infect the wort with yeast. Place the prepared wort under cheesecloth for 2-4 days in a dark, warm place (18-25 o C) and after signs of fermentation appear (hissing, sour smell, formation of a dense cap of pulp). Afterwards, squeeze out the fermented juice and put it on quiet fermentation.

Preparation of wort, infection with yeast fungi

To the resulting rowan juice (this option is for those who decide not to use pulp), you need to add water and sugar in the amount indicated in this table:

To prepare 100 liters of wort to prepare 80 liters(120 bottles) red rowan wine

As you can see, the table shows calculations for a large amount of wine, and also the calculation is made exclusively for separated rowan juice. This is very convenient - collect any amount of rowan, squeeze the juice out of it and then simply recalculate the amount of other ingredients according to the table.

The resulting wort must be infected with yeast. You can use any yeast starter for this. The easiest way to make it is from raisins or fresh crushed grapes (just not washed). Of course, you can make sourdough from raspberries, for example, but in the fall, as you understand, it is almost impossible to get it.

To make a starter from raisins, you need to take a handful of them and rinse them with warm (not hot!) water, pour them into any container, add 1 tablespoon of sugar, ½ teaspoon of ammonia and pour warm boiled water over everything. Leave the starter in a warm place for 3-4 days and then, if fermentation has begun, add it to the prepared wort.

We would also like to remind you that the sugar content of the initial wort should not exceed 10-14%, so it is better to add sugar in portions, for example, 50 g for each liter of wort in several doses. After our wort has vigorously fermented for 3-4 days, it needs to be filtered and poured into bottles for quiet fermentation, filling them ¾ of the total volume.

Quiet fermentation of red rowan wort

After pouring, you should install a water seal on the bottle (there is a description of it and a small manual on making it yourself), you can use rubber gloves with a hole in one finger (pierce it with a needle). The bottles should be placed in a dark, warm place (18-28°C) and left alone until fermentation stops - the water seal does not release bubbles for 1-2 days, or the glove has deflated, the wine has lightened and sediment has formed.

Moreover, if the fermentation has weakened greatly, which can be monitored by the intensity of the release of bubbles in the water seal, and you decide to add sugar in portions, drain a small amount of wort from the fermentation tank, dissolve the next portion of sugar in it and pour the syrup back. Don't forget to reinstall the water seal.

Pouring and ripening of rowan wine, storage

After fermentation is complete, drain the red rowan wine from the sediment into a clean glass container using a rubber tube. The container should be tightly closed (or better yet, a water seal should be installed) or the wine should be sent to mature in a cool place (10-16°C) for 3-4 months. After the expiration date, drain the drink from the sediment again and pour it into bottles, which must then be stored in the refrigerator or basement. As practice shows, rowan wine becomes completely clear after a year of storage, and then the bitterness goes away.

More importantly, rowan is often used in tandem with other fruits to increase their strength and astringency. The most popular tandem is rowan + apples.

Red rowan and apple wine recipe

In principle, the process of preparing apple and rowan wine is no different from classical winemaking. First we compose the wort using the following tables:

To make 100 liters of must from a mixture of red rowan and apples to prepare 80 liters (120 bottles) of rose apple-rowan wine

Where, 1 – light table wine, 2 – strong table wine, 3 – strong wine, 4 – dessert wine, 5 – liqueur wine.

To make 100 liters of wort from a mixture of red rowan and apples to prepare 80 liters (120 bottles) of light apple-rowan wine

Where, 1 – light table wine, 2 – strong table wine, 3 – strong wine, 4 – dessert wine, 5 – liqueur wine.

Where to get tartaric and tannic acid is written in the recipe for making plum wine.

To make the wort: prepare rowan berries as described in the first chapters of this article, squeeze the juice out of them and add the juice from sweet and sour apples to it. Then add half the sugar, the required amount of water and other ingredients, and then everything follows the classics: vigorous fermentation for 3-4 days, pouring, quiet fermentation for about a month under a water seal with the addition of the rest of the sugar, pouring again, standing in the cold, storage .

So, now you know how homemade wine is prepared from red rowan and apples, and now you can surprise your guests with an unusual drink that they will definitely like. Let us remind you that with the help of wild yeast the wine will turn out to have a strength of no higher than 11-14%, but this is enough to get ahead. Drink in moderation and wisely!