Homemade wines can be prepared from a wide variety of fruits and berries - cherries, plums, apples, gooseberries, raspberries, cherry plums, currants, strawberries, apricots, blueberries, blackberries, pears, figs, pomegranates and, of course, grapes. You can make both varietal (only apples) and blended (for example, cherry-apple) wines.
Different fruits require different ways of handling them. Alcohol, as is known, is produced from the fruit contained Sahara under influence yeast fungi. Different fruits have different sugar content, and in the case of low sugar content, it is necessary to add beet sugar to the pre-crushed or crushed fruits, without which the fermentation process is simply impossible.
Much also depends on the acidity of the fruits you choose: for example, in apple or quince wines, in some cases the addition of citric acid is required to achieve harmonious acidity, and in order to obtain harmonious wines from high-acid currants, cherries, and cranberries, you have to add water. In addition, many fruits and berries (such as grapes) contain yeast on their skins - in this case, special addition of yeast is not required.
The process of making wine consists of the following main stages: fruit crushing, infusion of the resulting mass, its pressing and extraction of juice, its fermentation and, finally, aging of the finished wine.
It has a good effect on the taste and quality of fruit and berry wines. fermenting juice together with pulp. To do this, crushed fruits are placed in enamel, glass or wooden containers, and sugar, water and yeast are added if necessary. The dishes are filled to no more than 60-70% of the volume. Infusion with fermentation is continued for 2-4 days, periodically stirring the fermenting mass. Then her pressed.
To prepare wines with intense color, increased astringency, and a deeper, “thick” taste, the pulp is heated to a temperature of 70-80 ° C before pressing, and then kept at this temperature for 4-6 hours.
Wine fermentation after pressing is the most important stage of wine preparation. The temperature of the fermenting medium should be 18-23 ° C (neither higher nor lower: higher temperatures promote the development of bacteria, deterioration of taste and loss of aroma; lower temperatures inhibit fermentation). For fermentation, you can use wooden, enamel or glass containers.
During fermentation it is formed carbon dioxide, which should have an exit to the outside, but oxygen should not get inside the vessel with wine. Therefore, most often a pierced rubber glove(carbon dioxide leaves the vessel through the “puncture” made). Another option is to put the so-called water castle: a hole is made in the lid of the bottle, a tube is inserted into the hole, and the resulting cracks are covered with plasticine. The other end of the tube is lowered into a container of water, through which the gas will escape.
As they say, good wine makes you see things in the most pleasant light, especially when it comes to a drink prepared at home. It will delight you with its rich taste, tart aroma, and will give you a great mood. Berry wine is becoming increasingly popular among people involved in home winemaking, and you should make this wonderful drink yourself at least once in your life to gain valuable experience.
Features, benefits and harms of homemade fruit and berry wines
The main feature of high-quality wine is that various cultivated and wild fruits and berries are suitable for production. You can use your own harvest or buy products in a store, but the main thing is that the ingredients must be ripe and of good quality, without rot.
Since time immemorial, homemade wine has been famous for its medicinal properties:
Warmed wine was used for colds and cooling.
Thanks to its anti-inflammatory properties, it prevented the appearance and development of various tumors.
It helps older people with loss of strength and weakness.
Reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Has a beneficial effect on the circulatory system.
Improves appetite, helps digest food more easily, and normalizes stomach acidity. Therefore, it is customary to drink homemade wine during meals.
Removes toxins from the body faster.
Reduces blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar.
Apple wine contains a large amount of iodine, which has a beneficial effect on the thyroid gland.
Blueberry, strawberry, and raspberry wines contain iron, which is necessary for the appearance of hemoglobin.
Also, it should be remembered that wine made from berries at home has a healing effect if consumed in small quantities. Experts recommend drinking 175 ml for women and 250 ml for men per day.
Homemade wine does not contain impurities or harmful substances, since the ingredients are carefully selected, and the strength and sweetness can be adjusted.
Abuse of homemade wine has the opposite effect and harms the body.
Taking apple drink in excessive doses spoils digestion and causes ulcers or gastritis.
White wine destroys tooth enamel and promotes tooth decay.
If the recipe is not followed, it can poison the body and cause vision problems.
The most well-known effect of abuse is alcohol poisoning, which increases blood pressure and affects the nervous and cardiovascular systems, brain, liver and intestines.
Poor quality red wine can cause allergies.
Which berries make the most delicious wine drinks - review
You should always approach the process of making wine responsibly and choose certain varieties of berries in order to obtain a truly high-quality product. Then you will not have any questions about how to make wine from berries.
Rowan. Well suited for making dessert wines. It has no bitterness, is tart, densely colored, and is recommended to be mixed with red currant wine to increase acidity. Wild rowan is rarely used in winemaking.
Raspberries. Not very popular in home winemaking, but it can be used to make an aromatic, raspberry-colored drink. It has a beautiful color, a strong smell, and lightens quickly. It is not recommended to make dry wines from raspberries.
Strawberries. Suitable for making liqueur-type wine. It turns out aromatic and very tasty, takes on the color of tea during storage. Only colored varieties are used for preparation.
Plum. It makes a decent dessert wine with a mild taste. It is advisable to keep it for a long time, since the drink made from this berry is cloudy and requires clarification, but subsequently only improves its taste.
Quince. The wine prepared from this fruit has a beautiful golden hue with a harmonious taste and pleasant aroma. Dessert and liqueur wines are prepared. A quince drink can be blended with wine made from apples, gooseberries, rowan, raspberries, and strawberries.
Black currant. Liqueur wines should be prepared from it. The taste is reminiscent of grape wine after aging. It has a specific smell; to improve it, red or white currant juice is added before fermentation.
Among the best flavor combinations are:
Blueberries with black currants;
Red currant + cherry + blueberry;
Apple + cranberry + blueberry;
Rowan + apple, you can add honey;
Raspberry + red currant + apple.
How to prepare wort without yeast from fresh assorted berries at home
The success of the wine making process depends on quality fermentation. And you don't have to use the yeast method. After all, you can add strength to the drink using other ingredients:
Sugar in combination with berry juice forms alcohol; it should be added during fermentation and the effect will not be long in coming. It should be remembered that any sugar is suitable, except refined sugar.
Raisin. Contains a large amount of natural yeast, causing the wort to ferment.
A win-win option for making delicious fortified wine is adding alcohol. It should not exceed 15-20% of the total volume. As a result, the wine turns out strong and will not leave anyone indifferent.
How to make berry wine - a simple recipe
We present to you a simple recipe on how to make homemade wine from berries. For this you will need:
Red and black currants in a ratio of 2:1 – 1.6 kg;
400 g blueberries;
4 cups granulated sugar;
2 liters of water;
100 grams of raisins.
Wine from assorted berries at home - a simple recipe
To begin with, you should choose first-class berries. Then rinse well, discard the rotten fruits and place in a clean pan. Afterwards, the berries need to be crushed to obtain pulp. To obtain the maximum amount of juice, heat the pan to 70 degrees and, stirring constantly, simmer the pulp for 30 minutes. The next step is to press the pulp; it is placed in a bag, sent under a homemade or purchased press, then the resulting juice is filtered using gauze or a funnel with a filter. Next, it should be poured into a glass container and left in a warm place for 3 days, adding water, sugar and raisins for fermentation. After about 10 days, the drink should be bottled or bottled with a narrow neck. The maturation process lasts about one month. As a result, the finished product is dark red in color with a characteristic taste.
How to make wine from different frozen berries - steps
Of course, you can make wine from frozen berries, but they must meet certain criteria:
The process of freezing berries must be correct - without water.
To preserve the integrity of the raw material and its beneficial qualities, you should defrost the berries in the refrigerator.
There is no need to mix berries that are not suitable for making wine, since after defrosting they ferment at different rates.
Important: It is better to use berries purchased fresh or picked yourself.
Ingredients needed to make wine from frozen berries at home:
120 g raisins;
5 kilograms of cherries;
2 kg sugar;
5 liters of water.
Homemade berry wine - recipe
After removing the seeds, chop the cherries well in a blender or chopper. Then heat to 40 degrees in a saucepan and transfer to a glass bottle with a wide neck. Pour water, add raisins and sugar. Remove the container to a warm place. Wait 15 days until the mass ferments. Then filter through a filtration unit and bottle, put in a cool place. After making sure that fermentation has completely stopped, use a portable corker to seal the wine with corks.
The result is a ruby-colored wine with a great aroma.
How much water and sugar to add so that the drink does not spoil
Winemakers have no problems with the substances involved in fermentation; some use special yeast, nutritious salt for it, while others add water and sugar. It is important to know how much to add so as not to ferment the future wine.
Water is necessary for cooking to reduce the acidity of the final product. Each variety of berries used in cooking has a different acidity level, which should be found out before starting the process. The formula for calculating the amount of water is simple: Amount of water = (acidity of juice / acidity of wine).
It should be remembered that if the acidity of the must drops to 0.6%, the wine will deteriorate and will resemble acid.
Sugar should be added before the first fermentation, on the fifth or tenth day of fermentation, and at the end of the process. In order not to overdo it, follow the rule: for every liter of wort, add 20 g of sugar, which will increase the strength by 1 degree.
Winemakers also calibrated the proportions to obtain a specific wine:
100-160 g sugar / 1 l. It turns out to be a dessert wine.
50 g sugar / 1 l. The result is a semi-sweet wine.
Is it possible to make wine drinks from fermented berries?
Many fruits tend to turn sour, and many have probably encountered fermented berries. But there is no need to throw them away; they can make decent homemade wine. You should know that if the berries are already covered with mold, you will have to get rid of them.
The technology for preparing homemade wine from fermented berries is no different from the standard process of preparing the drink.
Haven't you tried making your own homemade wine from berries yet? Know that no expensive drink can compare with a natural one you prepare yourself. Experiment, learn new cooking methods, and then you will get your own perfect recipe that your friends and family will appreciate! Happy cooking!
It is no secret that good and tasty wine is easy to obtain at home, because to do this you only need to adopt a few simple rules. Thus, various fruits and berries can be used as raw materials - apples, rowan berries, cherries, raspberries, gooseberries, currants, etc. But for these purposes, it is undesirable to take pears, cherries, plums, apricots, strawberries, sweet varieties of apples, as well as fruits with green skin (the wine from them turns out colorless). The fruits must be ripe and not spoiled. To prepare wine, it is better to use enamel, glass, wood or any acid-resistant dishes. You can use any sugar except refined sugar, as it contains ultramarine, which slows down the fermentation process. The container for making wine is filled with must (a mixture of juice with water and sugar) only three-quarters of the volume, otherwise, during active fermentation, the must may leak out. Also, the container with the wort should not be tightly closed, because carbon dioxide is formed during fermentation, and if it is not allowed to escape, it can rupture the container.
ALCOHOL UNIT
After the second filling of the wort with sugar, a fermentation tongue is inserted into the bottle. It is done very simply: you need to scald a clean cork with boiling water and drill a hole in it with a diameter corresponding to the diameter of a rubber or glass U-shaped tube. Then a tube is inserted into this hole, the junction of the tube and the stopper is filled with wax, the bottle is sealed, and the end of the tube that remains outside is lowered into a jar of water. The tongue and groove is ready.
IDEAL ATMOSPHERE
Wine ripens better at a temperature of 15-20 C. Under normal conditions, the wort ferments vigorously for 10-15 days, then the fermentation process slows down and continues for another 14-20 days. Sometimes, with very slow fermentation, it stretches for 1.5-2 months. You can speed it up by adding a special starter made from wine or fruit yeast to the wine.
When the juice acquires the required strength, that is, when 14-17 degrees of alcohol has accumulated in it, fermentation stops, and yeast and other impurities precipitate. At this time, the wine begins to lighten, and the sediment becomes denser and denser. After complete clarification, the wine must be filtered immediately, otherwise the sediment will begin to decompose and can spoil the taste of the drink.
The finished wine is bottled, corked and stored in a dark room at a temperature not lower than 15 C and not higher than 30 C.
PRACTICUM
Wine yeast "Izyuminka"
Cuisine: Russian
Ingredients
White raisins – 200 g
Sugar - 60 g
Cooking method
Place the raisins in a bottle, add sugar and fill three-quarters of the volume with water. Then we plug the bottle with a loose, old cork and put it in a warm place for 3-4 days. Pour the finished starter into the wort.
Wine yeast consumption: 150 ml per 10 liters of wort.
Grape wine “Karpaty”
Cuisine: Ukrainian
Ingredients
Grapes – 9 kg
Sugar - 400 g
Cooking method
We sort the grapes, crush them, add sugar (250 g) and put them in a cold place for a month. When the first signs of fermentation appear, insert a fermentation tongue into the wine. After two weeks, mix the wort and add 100 g of sugar. After the wort has stood for a month, add another 50 g of sugar and leave it in a warm place for 3 days. Then we filter the wine, throw away the pulp and sediment, add sugar to the liquid to taste, insert a fermentation tongue into the bottle and put it in the basement for a month. After a month, separate the wine from the sediment and leave it in the bottle until the fermentation process completely stops.
Liquor “Drunken Cherry”
Cuisine: Ukrainian
Ingredients
(for a 3 liter cylinder)
Cherry (ripe) – 2.2 kg
Sugar - 800 g
Cooking method
We sort through the cherries, discarding rotten and moldy berries, remove the stems and wash them. Then we let the water drain, put it in a bottle, add sugar, tie the neck of the bottle with gauze and leave it for 2-4 days in a warm place. At the first signs of the fermentation process, remove the gauze, install a fermentation tongue and leave until fermentation stops completely. Afterwards, we place gauze and cotton wool in a funnel or colander, filter the liqueur, pour it into bottles and seal with corks.
Blackberry wine “Heritage”
Cuisine: Russian ancient
Ingredients
Blackberries – 5 kg
Water - 10 l
Sugar - 3 kg
Honey - 500 g
Cooking method
Place the blackberries in a wooden vessel, mash them, fill them with 6 liters of water and leave them in a cool place for 4 days. Then filter through a sieve. We knead the berries that remain after straining with our hands, pour in 4 liters of water and leave for 6 hours, and then filter the wine again, squeezing well. Mix both resulting liquids, add sugar, honey, pour into a small barrel, close and place in a cool place.
Melissa tincture
Cuisine: Russian
Ingredients
Dry lemon balm - 20 g
Water - 2 glasses
Sugar - 150 g
Vodka - 1 l
Cooking method
Bring the water to a boil and brew the lemon balm. Place in a water bath and leave for 15-20 minutes. Then add sugar, strain, cool and combine with vodka. We insist for 2-3 days. Store the finished tincture in a cool place.
Vitamin nectar from rosehip
Cuisine: Ukrainian
Ingredients
Fresh rosehips – 1 kg
Sugar - 500 g
Water - 7 l
Citric acid - 1 teaspoon
Baker's yeast - 10 g
Cooking method
Fill the rose hips with water, add sugar, citric acid and bring to a boil. Boil a little (10-15 minutes), then cool to a temperature of 20 C and add yeast. Pour the syrup into a bottle and leave to infuse at room temperature for 4-6 days. We check the readiness of the nectar by taste - it should be pleasant and slightly tart. When the nectar reaches the desired condition, pour it into bottles, seal it tightly and store it in a cool place.
Almost all berries and fruits are suitable for making homemade fruit wine. However, the quality of the fruit must meet certain standards. They must be mature without rot or mold. Overripe berries and fruits, despite the abundance of juice in them, are not suitable for homemade wine. The fact is that when overripe fruits are used, an excessive amount of methyl alcohol is formed in the wine, and it is very harmful to health. In this article we want to introduce you to how to cook homemade berry wine and fruits.
Winemaking at home
Apple wine
To prepare homemade apple wine, you need to prepare 2.5 cups of sugar, 2 liters of water and one tablespoon of cinnamon per two kilograms of apples.
Apples should be washed well and cut into slices or cubes. Then add water and cinnamon to them and cook in an enamel pan until the fruits become soft. Then you need to rub the apples through a sieve, pour sugar into them and leave them in this form for fermentation. When fermentation has completely stopped, the wine needs to be filtered and bottled. Store apple wine in a cool and dark place.
Wine made from strawberries, blueberries, red currants, gooseberries or raspberries
For three kilograms of berries, you should prepare three liters of water and two kilograms of sugar.
The berries must be thoroughly washed and sorted, removing all rotten fruits. Then they need to be twisted in a meat grinder and poured into a glass bottle. Pour the prepared syrup on top and mix the berry mass. Leave the bottle for a week to ferment at room temperature. At the same time, in order to avoid the appearance of mold and souring of the mass, the contents must be mixed every day. An important condition for this is the presence in the bottle of free space in the amount of at least a tenth of the volume of the container.
After one week, you need to very carefully drain the liquid from the bottle so that the sediment does not spill out of it. The liquid must be poured into another bottle and left again for further fermentation. For the process to proceed normally, the neck of the bottle must be closed with a nylon cap with a hole. Run a rubber hose into this hole, the other end of which is lowered into water. The process is considered complete when no air bubbles appear from the hose and the contents of the bottle become transparent. After this, the wine is bottled, tightly corked and left for two months in a cool place. After this period, the product is completely ready for use.
Redcurrant wine
Homemade redcurrant wine is prepared in the proportion of two glasses of juice, two glasses of sugar and four glasses of water.
Red currant berries are thoroughly washed and separated from the branches. Then they are ground in a deep bowl, using a large wooden spoon, and the juice is squeezed out of the resulting mass. Pure currant juice is mixed with water and sugar and left in a glass jar for a month. During this period, the contents of the jar must be mixed several times. After a month, the wine is filtered through thick cloth, poured into bottles and sealed tightly with corks.
Blackcurrant wine
To make homemade blackcurrant wine, you need to prepare three kilograms of berries, three liters of water and one kilogram of sugar.
The process of preparing berries is very tedious because it is necessary to remove the seeds.
The berries, freed from seeds and branches, must be crushed and placed in a glass bottle with a volume of at least eight liters. Then the berries are poured with pre-prepared syrup. The presence of sugar sediment in the syrup is not permissible, and the syrup itself must be at room temperature before use. After five to six days, that is, after the wine stops fermenting, it must be strained through a thick cloth and then filtered through a layer of cotton wool. The clean, transparent drink must then be poured into bottles and sealed. Wine should be stored in a cool, dark place.
Cherry wine
Homemade cherry wine is prepared using yeast. To do this, you need to take one tablespoon per three kilograms of berries, four liters of water and one and a half kilograms of sugar.
The berries need to be sorted, the stems torn off and washed thoroughly. Next, the berries will need to be poured with boiling water and left under oppression for four days. Then they should be filtered, and yeast, sugar and a little lemon juice should be added to the resulting liquid. After mixing all the ingredients well, leave the future wine for fermentation. This process lasts about two to three weeks. When fermentation is over, the wine must be thoroughly mixed and left in the bottle for about five months. During this time, all suspensions will fall to the bottom, and the wine will become transparent. Only after this can it be bottled and sealed.
Wine from serviceberry
To prepare this very tasty homemade wine, you need to take one liter of serviceberry juice, two liters of water and one kilogram of sugar.
The syrup for this wine is prepared in a special way, namely, sugar is added little by little to boiling water until it is completely dissolved, and the syrup itself is constantly stirred over low heat for ten to fifteen minutes. After this, it must cool in natural conditions.
When the syrup has cooled, pour the squeezed irgi juice into it and mix thoroughly. The composition is poured into a glass bottle with a nylon cap. A hole is made in the lid into which a rubber hose is inserted. The second end of the hose must be placed in water. After the release of air bubbles from the hose stops and the contents of the bottle become transparent, the wine must be poured into another bottle and tightly closed with a lid. After three months it can be bottled and corked. Bottles of wine from the game should be stored in a lying position with a slope towards the neck of the bottle.
Old-fashioned lemon nectar
D 
To prepare this ancient drink, you need to take four Ranet apples, three lemons, a little cinnamon, four hundred grams of sugar and one bottle of dry wine.
Peel the lemon, cut into thin slices and place at the bottom of the jar. Peel the apples too, chop finely and sprinkle on top of the lemon slices. Then add cinnamon, sugar to the jar and pour in the wine. All this needs to be mixed thoroughly and left to settle for a day. Finally, after 24 hours, the wine can be filtered and bottled.
Homemade peach wine
Making homemade wine from peaches requires several more ingredients than wine from other berries. For the calculation of three kilograms of fruit, you need to prepare three liters of water, a liter of medical alcohol, one and a half kilograms of sugar, ten grams of nutmeg, a little honey and five grams of vanillin.
Peaches need to be washed well, pitted, grated, poured into the bottom of a glass bottle, add a little honey on top and add water. In this state, the bottle should be left alone for two to three weeks until fermentation is complete. After this, the liquid from the bottle must be filtered and poured into another bottle, adding alcohol and spices. Close the bottle and leave for three weeks to infuse the wine. After this, it can be bottled and sealed. In two months you will be able to drink this delicious wine.
Fig wine
To make homemade fig wine, you need to take one and a half kilograms of dried fruits, one kilogram of sugar, four liters of water and ten grams of wine yeast.
The fruits should be finely chopped and poured into an eight-liter glass bottle. The syrup should be prepared separately, cool it, pour wine yeast into it, and pour it into the bottle on top of the figs. The dish should be covered with parchment paper and several holes should be pierced in it to allow gas to escape. The wine must ferment for at least one month at a constant ambient temperature. The readiness of the vein is determined by the complete precipitation of the figs. When this happens, the wine can be filtered and bottled for long-term storage.
Homemade grape wine
To prepare such a homemade vein, you need to take five kilograms of grapes, three kilograms of sugar and twelve liters of boiled water.
It is better to take dark grape varieties such as Isabella. The berries must be removed from the bunches, sorted and washed thoroughly. Next, you need to crush them with your hands or a wooden masher. After this, add water to the pulp, add sugar and stir well. After a week, you need to filter the wine from sediment and bottle it.
Homemade berry wine is the name given to many low-alcohol drinks that are made at home or in production, but using simple traditional wines based on a wide variety of berries. Of course, grape-based drinks are more common, but in our harsh middle zone it is quite difficult to grow this fastidious and heat-loving plant on your own. How to make wine from berries that are available in any garden plot or store? We offer recipes for homemade berry wine.
In the article:
Homemade berry wine
The basis of any wine is based on three irreplaceable components. This is freshly squeezed juice, clean drinking water and sugar. To obtain the first ingredient, it is enough to use a special press or a simple juicer, which many people have.
The entire process of preparing a homemade low-alcohol drink can be divided into several key stages. In general, the process is similar to manufacturing, but has a number of features.
Stage one. Working with berries
First, thoroughly rinse and crush the existing berries. If they are hard, just rinse everything immediately under the tap without removing it from the bowl. If you are using soft berries such as strawberries, strawberries or raspberries, it is better to first transfer them to a sieve or sieve and rinse them out of the shower.
Next, we transfer the clean berries into a saucepan (it can be made of any material except iron) and crush them using a pestle or any other device suitable for these purposes. As a result, we should get the so-called pulp.
Please note that before crushing hard berries such as plums, cherries, lingonberries and the like, you need to free them from the seeds. A meat grinder (not an iron grinder) is best suited for kneading them. In any case, the berries should not be mashed too finely, otherwise extracting the juice from them will be much more difficult.
For those who are thinking about how to make wine from lingonberries, plums, currants or gooseberries, there is one secret that will help you get the maximum volume of juice. The pulp from them must be preheated by placing it in water (about fifteen percent of the total volume of berries), at a temperature of sixty to seventy degrees for thirty minutes. The pulp must be stirred constantly.
Another option for the same purposes is to infuse or ferment the berry mass at room temperature, which lasts two to three days.
Stage two. Juice
From one kilogram of raw materials you will get about six hundred milliliters of fresh juice. Prepare a device such as a press, or its alternative. To make the process easier and cleaner, we recommend using a canvas bag. Next we proceed according to the scheme:
- Place the pulp in a bag, tie it up and put it under the press.
- Slowly increase the screw pressure until all the juice comes out.
- Then unscrew the screw and transfer the pulp into an enamel container.
- Add hot water, let it brew for a couple of hours and repeat the pattern.
Small particles of pulp will inevitably remain in the juice, so it must also be filtered using gauze or a woolen bag.
Stage three. Improvement
Whatever berry you use as a basis, the juice from it will be highly acidic. It must be reduced with water. In addition, it is important to increase the sugar content, since natural glucose will not be enough for a sweet alcoholic drink. You can use any type of sugar.
It is important not to overdo it with sugar, otherwise there will not be enough fermentation. We recommend that you use the following proportions:
If we have not given the proportions for the berry you plan to use, proceed by analogy or according to taste.
Sweet wort is a mixture of juice, water and sugar.
Stage four. Fermentation
This is one of the main points in the recipe for homemade berry wine. If you want to make real wine, it is recommended to use wine yeast or yeast, which is sold at the winery. If this is not possible, you can also leave wild yeast, which remains on the skin if you do not wash it after collection. By combining with the wort, they independently begin to create the fermentation effect.
If you are not sure about the capabilities of natural yeast, you can use raisins. A handful of this dried fruit is enough to provide additional fermentation to the process, as well as to make the taste of the finished drink more noble.
In the case when wild yeast of neither the berries themselves nor the raisins does not produce sufficient fermentation, a few days after making the wort, add bread yeast to it. Otherwise, it may sour or, conversely, lose acidity completely.
But it is not recommended to use brewer’s yeast at all, since it is not able to withstand an increase in concentration in alcohol and stops fermenting earlier than necessary.
To ferment the wort, you will need a ten to fifteen liter container, preferably a special container, which needs to be filled two-thirds with the prepared liquid. We plug the neck of the container with any stopper that can allow air to pass through, for example, cotton wool. We leave the cylinder in a place where there is no direct sunlight, but not completely darkened. After a couple of days you will notice active fermentation.
The period of full fermentation is about twenty days, after which about two more weeks will be spent on clarification. Sugar at this time is converted into alcohol itself (about fourteen percent).
Stage five. Lightening.
It consists of separating the light fermented part from the sediment accumulated in it, that is, filtration. You need to act very carefully, otherwise the sediment remaining in the wine can ruin everything.
Homemade wine varieties
Depending on the method of preparation, there are two types of wine made from berries:
- Species (made from one berry and/or with the addition of others, but not more than twenty percent);
- Blended (different juices are used for preparation).
Types of wines are also divided according to the ratio of alcohol and sugar.
Frozen berry wine
Of course, not only freshly harvested raw materials are suitable for making homemade wine. However, a number of rules must be followed here:
- Proper freezing. Whole and dry berries are sent to the freezer. This is the only way they can retain all their beneficial properties.
- Proper defrosting. Berries should be thawed in the refrigerator. The reason is the same - preservation of the necessary properties and benefits.
- The right raw materials. Even if you decide to make a blended wine, it is important to know what goes well with what. For example, you cannot make wine from cherries with the addition of plums.
Experienced winemakers recommend using berries from your own plot or store-bought ones as raw materials, but fresh ones, since those sold frozen in supermarkets are pre-doused with water, which reduces their quality and do not always retain their integrity.
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