Champagne at home. Champagne and “fruit water” at home. Champagne made from grape leaves

For any family’s budget, it will be much more efficient to make homemade champagne yourself rather than purchase it in a store. In addition, this eliminates the possibility of getting a fake and low-quality product for your money. If you completely follow the cooking recipe and use high-quality products, you will get a version of champagne that is no worse than a good vintage one.

How to make homemade champagne

You can make this fizzy wine drink at home from many fruits, from apples and cherries to standard grape varieties. And having prepared and tasted it, from now on a person will give preference to homemade drinks. Preparation recipes may be different, but the foaming of champagne (its effervescence itself) in all cases occurs due to the formation of a large amount of carbon dioxide in the wine drink. When you open the bottle, the process of intense release begins, due to which hissing is formed.

Cooking technology

To create good champagne at home, winemakers advise using recipes that include three grape varieties:

Chardonnay;
Pinot Meunier;
Pinot Noir.

You can use other varieties to create your own sparkling wine recipes. You only need to pick the berries to turn them into a noble drink with your hands. Next you need to squeeze them out a little. The preparation process takes place in the traditional way or, as winemakers call it, “the bottle fermentation method.”

Of course, the process of making an effervescent drink requires financial expenses that are somewhat larger than the simplest option, but the result obtained justifies all the funds spent. It is this technology that makes up the recipes for premium champagne.

Cooking steps

First, wine is created from the juice formed during the pressing process. It should be extremely dry, as it will have high acidity and low alcohol content.
If you plan to use several wines to prepare champagne, then they must be mixed in the right proportions, obtaining the most pleasant bouquet. But you can make a drink from one variety, in which case this step is skipped.
Now pour the mixture into a large bottle with thick walls. We also pour in the “circulation liqueur” (it includes sweet and concentrated grape syrup, sugar and yeast). After this, you can either close the bottle and put it on the shelf in a horizontal position, or mix everything inside and pour it into suitable bottles (preferably they are champagne, due to the fact that they have thick walls and high pressure is formed inside) close and Leave them in the same position in the cellar.

Soaking and sediment removal

Inside these containers, the fermentation process will take place due to the batch liquor and, accordingly, carbon dioxide will be released in large quantities. Due to its inability to escape, high pressure will form inside, which will allow the wine to be saturated with this component.

You can determine that the fermentation process has completed by the presence of sediment, which appears as a result of the settling of yeast. The drink should remain in this position for a very long time. The fact is that it is during “aging on the lees” that the champagne becomes saturated with various shades, which is so valued by most people.

After completing this process, the resulting sediment must be removed from the bottles. This stage will take about a week, due to the fact that the process of turning the bottles over takes place in several steps. First, if there is no prepared rack, the containers are stuck neck down into a box of sand. Throughout the week, tapping the bottles with a special wooden spatula will move the sediment onto the lid. Eventually the wine should clear, after which it is placed in cold water to cool it. This is necessary to reduce carbon dioxide losses during opening.

Strapping and storage

Further actions are carried out by at least two people. One holds the bottle, neck down, over the basin and removes the tie on the cork. She flies out, followed by the sediment and part of the champagne itself. Now this bottle is turned over and the second person must quickly pour about 100-150 grams inside. wine (depending on the loss upon opening), after which it is corked and a piping is created.

After clearing of sediment, the bottles are placed back in the room, where they will remain in a horizontal position for about another month and a half. Only after this, homemade champagne will be ready and can be consumed.

This advice is unlikely to interest everyone, but gourmets will definitely like it, just like lovers of unusual alcoholic solutions who are not without a craving for amateur performances. The New Year has passed and we are all pretty fed up with store-bought shampoo. It's time to try making champagne at home! Who knows, the main thing is patience and careful adherence to the instructions. You definitely haven't tried such a drink.

Homemade champagne recipe

For convenience and order, the entire process is divided into several stages. Read and remember, and most importantly, don’t forget to look at the manual over time. After all, the process is long.

Filling bottles with wine

It is best to use homemade wine, because it contains fewer preservatives and other junk. Wine made from grapes (SUDDENLY!), as well as apples, berries and other fruits is suitable. If you don’t have access to homemade liquor, then go to the store and buy regular wine in a bottle, or even better, on tap.

Pour the wine into champagne bottles (they are thick and can withstand pressure well, logical), add a spoonful of sugar and a couple of raisins to each bottle (to create a fermentation effect). Processtake place in a cool room. After this, seal with classic corks. Additionally, tie it with wire, well, you understand. I almost forgot, you need to fill the bottles up to the neck.

Storing drink containers

Bottles of wine should be stored in a cool place for 3 months, always in a lying position. Otherwise, trouble with badabum is possible. During the last two weeks of storage, the bottles are placed with their necks down and slowly rotated every day. This is done so that the yeast lags behind the walls and gradually accumulates at the neck.

Disgorgement or sediment removal

The most difficult stage of making homemade champagne, this is where you will need dexterity or the help of your friends. I advise you to prepare new plugs and wire for dressing in advance. The procedure must be performed in the same room where the drink was stored.

The essence of disgorgement is that you need the yeast and other fermentation products that have accumulated near the cork. To do this, you will have to open the bottles, quickly drain the sediment, add some fresh wine, and then cork them back.

The procedure is performed by two people in the following order: the first carefully opens the bottle without changing its original position, drains the sediment (small losses of champagne are inevitable), closes the neck with a finger, and passes the bottle to his partner. The second one grabs the neck with his finger, turns it over and opens the bottle, pours wine into it, tightly caps the cork and pulls the wire.

Then you should fill the plug with sealing wax or other similar stuff. Otherwise, the gas pressure may cause the plug to fly out.

Excerpt

After all this bacchanalia, the bottles need to be stored in a cool room (temperature: 8-10 degrees above zero). Leave them there for 2-3 months - the longer the better.

Of course, the process requires hellish patience and endurance (so eager to open and drink a couple of bottles in a month!), but it’s so interesting to show off a bottle of homemade natural champagne in front of your guests. This is not “Sovetskoe” for you to drink on the doorsteps!

You can actually make a sparkling drink (champagne) at home! This does not require rare ingredients or high costs.

As a result, you will receive champagne that is no different from those that are on store shelves. In some cases, it will be even better, because it is prepared without the addition of preservatives and chemicals.

Ingredients for homemade champagne

Sparkling wine is made in two ways.

In the first, they buy store-bought wine, pour it into a siphon and fill it with carbon dioxide. Such champagne quickly fizzles out and does not have the subtle, refined taste inherent in drinks that are naturally enriched with bubbles.
In the second, homemade wine is left to ferment in tightly closed bottles for a certain amount of time and then purified.

To make delicious champagne at home , you will need:

Wine made from grapes or any other fruit. Suitable currants, cherries, apples, gooseberries. You can choose fruits for every taste.
Sugar and raisins, which are necessary for the fermentation of wine.

Good champagne is good for the body. In small doses, it lowers blood cholesterol, improves digestion and improves mood. Therefore, it will not be superfluous to master the technology of its manufacture.

Classic technology for making champagne at home

Wine made at home or bought in a store is suitable for preparation. If you purchase a drink, choose a good quality product. Cheap wine is full of preservatives and this makes it ferment poorly.

Pour the wine into dark thick glass bottles with a capacity of 0.75 liters. Add a tablespoon of sugar, 3-5 raisins and close tightly. If there are no high-quality plugs, fill the hole with wax or sealing wax.

Take the bottles for storage to a cool place and lay them there on their sides. The room temperature should be stable and fluctuate between 18-25°C. Leave the champagne you are preparing to ferment for three months.

When 2-3 weeks remain until the end of the specified period, turn the bottles upside down and slowly rotate them clockwise several times a day. This is necessary so that the yeast gradually accumulates at the neck. This will make them easier to retrieve in the future.

The most difficult thing to remove from champagne is sediment. For this important moment, prepare new corks in advance to immediately close the cleaned bottles. Do not carry containers to avoid shaking them.

Uncork the hole and quickly drain the cloudy sediment from it. Some sparkling wine will be lost. Try, as soon as all the excess has poured out, close the bottle with your finger, turn it over and top up the container with fresh wine. After this, immediately close with a new stopper.

Place the bottles in the basement and store the champagne at 8-10°C for three months. After this, the drink will be ready and you can uncork it and try it. But you can withstand more; three months is the minimum period.

Homemade Champagne Recipes

You can make sparkling wine in another way. When using this method, the cooking time will be slightly reduced without compromising the quality of the product.

Try making wine not only from grapes, but also from other seasonal fruits collected from your garden. You will have wonderful homemade champagne!

Recipes for this amazing drink are presented below.

Birch champagne

Ingredients:

birch sap, 12 l;
vodka, 1 l;
sugar, 3 kg;
a kilogram of lemons, this is about 4-5 pieces;
fresh yeast, 200 g.

Preparation:

Pour the juice into a large saucepan, place on the heat and bring to a boil. Add sugar to the boiling liquid and cook over low heat, stirring constantly for several hours.
When the contents have boiled by a third, remove the pan from the stove. Cool slightly and pass the juice through several layers of gauze.
When the liquid becomes slightly warm, pour it into a glass or wooden barrel, dissolve the yeast in it and pour in vodka.
Finely chop the lemons, remove the seeds and add to the juice.
Place the container in a warm place for 10-12 hours. During this time, the components will ferment and the glassware with wine can be transferred to a cool room.
Close the barrel tightly. After 7 weeks, strain the drink through cheesecloth with a piece of cotton wool, pour it into dark glass bottles, and seal the neck with sealing wax.
Store in the basement on its side.

Raspberry champagne

Ingredients:

raspberries, 2.5 kg;
vodka, 1 liter;
sugar 2.5 kg.

Preparation:

Fill an 8 liter bottle with water, dissolve sugar in it and pour in vodka.
Wash, de-stem the raspberries and add to the water.
Cover the bottle with a clean cloth and take it to a dark, warm place for 14 days and stir constantly.
When the raspberries begin to rise to the neck of the container and fall down, filter the liquid through a cloth and pour into a clean bottle.
Place the dishes in the cold and keep them there for 3 days.
Strain again and pour into glass champagne bottles. Cover the neck with wax and take it to the basement for storage.
After 3 months, homemade raspberry champagne can be served.

Modern private garden winemakers and farmers are able to make their own sparkling wine using recipes. This process can be carried out in the classical way, that is, preparing wine from any grape variety by fermenting prepared batch mixtures in bottles. To get a wine with an ideal rich taste, in order to prevent injuries during its preparation, you should carefully follow the calculations, recipes and modes described below.

Making wine from any grape variety requires special materials on hand:

Special dry wine materials - berries and fruits;
All sweet materials with exactly the right amount of sugar;
Bottles for making wine at home should be new or used, but well washed;
Cork or polyethylene plugs - new and used ones are also suitable;
Special wire bridles and devices that are designed to effectively secure the plugs to the very rim of the neck.

Making wine from any grape variety at home involves several basic processes. First of all, a blend of the main wine materials is compiled, its processing is carried out, all the necessary sweet components are prepared, that is, mass-produced and expeditionary liqueur. In addition, a bentoin 10% suspension is prepared.

After this, wine is prepared from any grape variety with pure yeast, a batch mixture is compiled and bottled. The containers, as the recipe says, are placed for fermentation. The bottles are periodically rearranged with simultaneous shaking. After this, the sediment is reduced to a plug and is completely discharged from the container, that is, disgorged.

Dosage of the main sweet components of the expedition liqueur used. Bottles after complete removal of sediment to the desired level and amount of sugar in ready-made form. Not only is it important to prepare wine from any grape variety, the finished wine must be aged to determine the overall level of stability.

How to make a blend correctly

Making wine from any grape variety involves using different types of wine materials. They can be pear, apple and grape. Before making a blend, the wine materials must be treated with bentonite. Approximately two weeks after the treatment, the wine materials are completely removed from the sediment and then used to make a blend.

As sweet ingredients in a process such as preparing sparkling wine from any grape variety, the recipe allows the use of syrups, simple and alcoholic juices, and liqueurs. For example, to get a mass-produced liqueur with 60% sugar content, it will be enough to simply take two parts of sugar and one part of wine itself.

Features of preparing yeast pitch

It is the cultivation of yeast that is an important point in such a matter as making wine from any variety of sparkling grapes. This composition usually has special requirements. First of all, it must be as active as possible, resistant to high alcohol content, which is slightly higher than 11%. To obtain high-quality sparkling wine, you will need to carry out the following steps based on the recipe:

The juice is boiled, then cooled to a calmer room temperature. After this, a stick of one of the purest yeast cultures made on a wort basis is added to it.
A blend is made from pre-prepared wine materials, as well as sterile juice. The ratio of these components will be strictly 1:1. Then the actively fermenting fermentation of the primary stage will be added to the resulting composition.
Sugar is added to the prepared wine material, preferably at a rate of approximately 70-100 grams per liter of composition. A special active fermenting wiring is added to the resulting composition, but of the second stage.

Proper preparation of the batch mixture

Every winemaker knows that the basis of a future high-quality sparkling wine is the batch mixture, which is why it is so important to do it very correctly. It is prepared by mixing the main elements. Wine material is added to the prepared blend. The quantity should be 20 ml per liter of bentonite suspension used. The recipe requires 30 ml of yeast mixture and sweet ingredients used.

The basis of high-quality sparkling wine is a batch mixture

In the process of making sparkling wine using the most common classical method, it is important to carry out the most accurate dosage. If the total amount of sugar in the overall batch mixture is slightly lower than the 22 grams per liter as stated in the recipe, the sparkling qualities of the drink will be quite vibrant. As soon as the dose of sugar in the prepared batch mixture is increased more than in the recipe, the danger of a serious explosion of the bottles during natural fermentation automatically increases. This in turn can lead to serious physical damage that usually accompanies the preparation of wine from any grape variety.

Pouring edition

The circulation mixture, if constantly stirred, is bottled into special bottles with a volume of 0.75 and 0.8 liters. They are known for being able to withstand pressure of 12 atmospheres. The containers are filled to a level of approximately 60 mm, that is, slightly below the top edge of the bottle neck.

Carefully sealed bottles are securely sealed with special expedition or circulation stoppers made of polyethylene. To achieve optimal results, the corks must be secured to the lip of the bottle. Strong fastening can be achieved using metal brackets or bridles.

How to properly stack fermentation bottles

Mandatory secondary fermentation should be carried out strictly at low temperatures. It is best to carry out this process in basements, where the temperature ranges from about 10 to 12 degrees above zero. Bottles must be stacked strictly horizontally, in special stacks where laying boards were used. It is desirable that their thickness be from 5 to 8 mm. Similar boards will separate the stacked layers from each other. This arrangement of containers with wine makes the stacks as resistant to possible destruction as possible, even if a large number of bottles in one stack rupture.

Removing wine sediment through cork

Immediately after the end of the secondary fermentation, sediment appears in the wine containers. It consists of elements that were previously suspended in the drink before its immediate bottling; it also includes substances that arise during fermentation processes.

Important! To transfer the sediment to the cork, it is imperative to make sure that the sugar, which can decompose into alcohol, as well as carbon dioxide, has been completely used by the yeast.

To carry out remuage, the wine drink from the built stacks is transferred to special machines, which are known to winemakers as music stands. In such a design, the bottles are simply inserted into the holes of the music stands or into special sockets and strictly with the neck down. The overall degree of retraction does not matter, since the bottles can take a wide variety of tilt positions. It can be horizontal as well as vertical. Such an important process as remuage should be carried out at a temperature of approximately 13 degrees. In this mode, the process lasts approximately 25 days.

You can remove sediment from the cork using a simpler method. To do this you will need to do the following:

Bottles of wine that have already fermented are shaken vigorously.
Then all containers with already fermented wine are shaken very well and placed in special boxes with the neck down.

All boxes of wine should be placed on special devices. They should provide the opportunity to shake the boxes from time to time and thereby improve the quality of the wine.

Important! In the process of reducing sediment to the cork, it is necessary to ensure that no smears of sediment remain on the walls of the bottles.

An important process is disgorgement.

Disgorgement is carried out with the aim of throwing pre-collected sediment from the container onto the plug. This process is carried out simultaneously with the cork, since the pressure of carbon dioxide is quite strong, and, as is known, it is collected in the gas chamber of the bottle itself.

Before disgorgement, bottles filled with wine must be cooled to a temperature range from plus 5 to two degrees above zero.

During the collection of sediment, a normal loss of wine is observed, it amounts to 40 ml. The different amount of possible losses may be associated with the overall qualification of a standard working or temperature wine. In addition, the level of carbon dioxide that is present in the bottle, the gas absorption capacity of the wine and the level of smoothness, as well as optimal cleanliness of the bottles, also matter.

As a result of disgorgement, sparkling quality wines can be obtained. With sugar it will be a sweet sparkling wine; without it, you can get a brut. To obtain wine with different levels of sweetness, expeditionary liqueurs are added to brut sparkling wine. This process is carried out almost immediately after disgorgement. There are also a few more basic rules for carrying out this process:

Such liqueurs must contain no less than 600 grams of sugar per liter of composition.
In the process of dosing liqueur into wine, its overall temperature should be exactly the same or slightly lower than in the same brut.
If expeditionary liqueurs are used, it is worth adding rectified alcohol to them, and cognac is also suitable.
The alcohol must be added to the liqueur to the level found in brut sparkling wine. This makes it possible, in the process of adding liqueur, not to change the amount of alcohol contained in the finished wine with different conditions in terms of the level and amount of sugar.

During the preparation of sparkling wine, bottles must be placed in special stacks. The holding time should be 20 days, and the temperature should be approximately 20 degrees.

It is much more economical and profitable from the point of view of the family budget to make champagne at home, on your own, and you will also avoid the risk of paying a lot of money for a low-quality drink. Meanwhile, homemade champagne, made in strict accordance with the recipe, will turn out no worse than ordinary store-bought champagne, and you will be confident in the quality of the products used for the drink and will be free from the risk of getting an undesirable result, which, unfortunately, is not so rare.

Making homemade champagne (fizzy wine) is not that difficult. In addition, you have the right to make apple or currant, cherry or strawberry, sparkling or any other. It is likely that later you will always prefer homemade champagne.

Strong foaming of any champagne (fizzyness) occurs due to the fact that in wine prepared not in the usual, but in a special way, the content of carbon dioxide is very high, which, when the wine is opened, is quickly released from it and thereby produces effervescence and forms foam.

Homemade champagne is prepared in two different ways, each of which has its own pros and cons. The first method (it can be called natural): young wine is forced to ferment in sealed bottles. In the second (conventionally called artificial), carbon dioxide is produced artificially and then pumped in some way into bottles of wine. The difference between them is colossal. Wines prepared in a natural way have a delicate and fresh taste; they foam much longer (as they say, “foam”), since carbon dioxide is not released immediately, but gradually, in small bubbles. This champagne is very aromatic and pleasant to the taste. Well, champagne prepared with the artificial addition of carbon dioxide does not have such a pleasant and refreshing taste, is not so aromatic, foams very quickly and, therefore, quickly runs out of gas, since the gas is released much more intensely.

Therefore, the first, natural way of preparing champagne can be considered the most suitable if you want to get high-quality, tasty wine. If the most important thing for you is saving time and effort, you can pour the finished homemade wine into a siphon, use purchased cans of gas (carbon dioxide) - and homemade champagne is ready to drink.

Any homemade champagne (fizzy drink) can be made using the following system:

preparing new wine;

fermentation of young wine in a bottle;

removal of sediment (disgorgement of wine);

topping up and flavoring;

bottle capping;

aging wine.

So, first of all, you must prepare new wine. For any “pop”, you need to extract the juice from ripe, clean berries or fruits, therefore, first chop the fruits (apples, pears) or remove the seeds (cherries), stalks (raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, currants, blueberries). Berries or fruits must be clean, sorted, preferably free of worms. Make sure that neither the dishes nor the juicer are made of iron (or with iron parts), since oxidation of the juice is unacceptable: the wine will have an unpleasant taste or it will spoil. The best option is wooden utensils. It is advisable to chop apples or pears with steel knives.

Place crushed fruits or berries in a clean bowl and crush with wooden pestles. Leave this mass for a day at a temperature of about 15–20 degrees. The mass will ferment. This juice is much better for wine. If the mass turns out to be too thick (this applies to apple or pear wine), before it ferments for a day in an open vessel, add a little water to it, but do not forget to take this water into account later when you make the wort.

After a day, squeeze out the juice. One of the simplest and most convenient ways is to squeeze juice from a mass located in a bag made of simple, not very thick and dense white canvas. Rinse the bag well in warm water first. It doesn't have to be big. Lightly moisten it, fill one third with apple mixture and twist it together, squeezing out the juice.

After this, add sugar and water depending on the amount of juice. The water should be soft (not calcareous), preferably well or spring, this affects the quality of the future champagne, granulated sugar or refined sugar. Dissolve sugar in water, stir well and pour into juice. Also stir the resulting wort and strain through a fine hair sieve, then pour it into the fermentation vessel.

The liquid should ferment in a glass or wooden container (for beginners, glass is better, but for the quality of wine, wooden containers are more suitable). The simplest fermentation apparatus is a glass or metal tube bent in an arc.

The wort should not completely fill the fermenter; you should leave some free space. Cover the hole with a clean cloth or cork and leave it in this form for a day in a room with a temperature of 18–25 degrees. If fermentation does not develop (after 24 hours there is no slight noise or gas release), you can add 120 grams. pure raisins for each bucket of apple wort.

After this, securely close the hole with a stopper with a tube threaded through it, the second tip of which is inserted into a vessel (small jar) with water. Place this jar nearby on the floor. Fill the cork of a vessel with wine with sealing wax, wax or paraffin so that air does not penetrate into it. It is preferable to use sealing wax.

By the way the air passes through the tube into the container with water, you will know whether the stopper is sealed. If fermentation processes occur in the wort, and air does not escape through the tube, check the tightness and seal the cracks.

The wort should ferment at a temperature of 18–25 degrees in a dry and clean room. At first, the fermentation will be violent, the contents will become very agitated, it will seem as if it is boiling from the bubbles that are released. Then it slows down. There will be significantly fewer gas bubbles, your young wine will become lighter, and a thick sediment will appear at the bottom of the container. Eventually fermentation will stop completely. Violent fermentation at 18–25 degrees usually lasts about four weeks. After five days it will slow down somewhat. And in the next three weeks, slow fermentation continues. The time it takes for fermentation - rapid or slow - is individual and depends on the temperature in the room, as well as on what the wine is made from and what its strength is.

If you see that the release of gas bubbles has decreased, slowed down, the young wine has brightened and sediment has collected at the bottom, you can assume that the first stage of fermentation, and therefore the first stage of preparing homemade champagne, is completed.

The second stage is the second period of fermentation of young wine. When the first period ends (you can even do it a little earlier), pour the wine into bottles as completely as possible, pour a teaspoon of granulated sugar into each. In some wines it is useful to add two or three grapes or even raisins - this will serve to stimulate fermentation. Seal the bottles with good thick corks and tie each cork and neck of the bottle with twine to prevent fermentation from popping out and causing the wine to leak. It is advisable to bottle the sparkling wine in a cool room and as quickly as possible in order to protect the wine from a large release of carbon dioxide.

The best bottles are those that previously contained champagne, as they are quite strong and durable, which reduces the risk of their rupture due to increased internal pressure and the pressure of the resulting gases.

Place all prepared and tightly closed bottles in a warm room. They should definitely lie down and not stand. Keep the wine in this position for at least three months so that it ferments well. If the bottles cannot hold up and begin to burst, cool the room where they are located. This will slow down the fermentation somewhat and, therefore, reduce the pressure, but in this case the fermentation time of the champagne should be increased.

After three months, when the fermentation of the wine in the bottles is not so noticeable, place them in an inclined position in a room where the temperature should be maintained at about 13–15 degrees, and keep them in this way for another two weeks. After this time, place them with their necks down on a specially designed machine in the form of a ladder. They should be rotated daily so that the yeast gradually leaves the walls and accumulates at the neck. If all these conditions are met, within two weeks the yeast will accumulate on the inner surface of the cork in the form of a dense mass, and the wine will become light.

The next operation is disgorging the wine - removing the sediment remaining after fermentation. This procedure is quite complex; it requires experience and speed of execution. If you do it right, homemade champagne will be a success. The effervescence and purity of the future wine depend on the results of disgorgement.

Be sure to carry out the procedure in the same room where the wine was previously fermented and where the bottles are located, but the temperature must be lowered to 8–10 degrees. This is very important, since the cooler the room is, the less carbon dioxide will be lost from the wine (at low temperatures, the wine’s ability to dissolve carbon dioxide increases).

Prepare in advance the required number of corks to seal the bottles and twine (wire frame) to secure the corks. Also keep liquor or wine nearby, that is, what you will use to top up the bottles.

Yeast should be removed over a clean vessel so that the wine that spills out when opening the bottle can then be separated from the yeast. Do this by straining the resulting yeast mass.

Proceed to disgorgement in this way: first, carefully, without shaking and trying not to shake, take a bottle of “fizzy drink” from the shelf and, without changing its original position, that is, without turning it over, carefully cut the string holding the cap and neck together, easily, in a smooth motion pull out the cork if it immediately yields to hand pressure (if not, pull it out with a corkscrew, but again gently, trying not to shake or shake the bottle). You should know that the cork always flies out of the neck, and with it the yeast, that is, the very sediment that should be removed. This operation requires special attention, speed and dexterity. Only in this case the sediment (yeast) is not agitated, and therefore the wine turns out to be quite pure. Speed is necessary to prevent too much wine from spilling out (small losses are inevitable). After removing all the yeast, immediately close the opening of the bottle with your finger.

The next step involves topping up and flavoring the homemade champagne. This procedure is best done together. If the first person removes the yeast and immediately closes the bottle with his finger, the second immediately takes it from the hands of the first, turns it over and quickly pours the wine or liqueur into it, open and standing next to it. It is better to pour wine or liqueur through a straw, funnel, or from a vessel with a narrow and long spout. Seal as soon as possible. This procedure requires special attention and speed, since it is at this moment that carbon dioxide leaks most often occur. After clogging, the cork must be carefully and securely tied to the neck with string so that it does not fly out due to gas pressure. After this, be sure to fill the cork and neck of the bottle with sealing wax.

The next stage implies that the wine will be aged for a certain time. Place the bottles treated as described above in the same cool room at a temperature of 8–10 degrees for further aging. The length of the aging period will affect the quality of your wine.

Homemade champagne will be ready in at least three months. This is the minimum period. It is advisable to age it for at least five months: the longer the age, the better the quality of the wine.

Homemade champagne that is too strong loses quality, taste, and aroma. In short, the amount of alcohol in it should not be more than 9%. Therefore, when preparing wine, you should be guided by the recipes below, choosing the ratio of sugar and water.

A special condition when preparing champagne is the raw materials. The most delicious, aromatic and refreshing are the “pops” made from white currants, strawberries and Siberian (“paradise”) apples. But, of course, this is a matter of taste.