4 simple recipes for making wine from berries at home
Almost all owners of summer cottages or backyards make wine from grapes at home, as well as from berries and fruits. The most popular, of course, is grape, but berry and fruit are not inferior to him, if prepared correctly. The finished wine retains the bouquet of taste and aroma of the berries and fruits used, reminiscent of sunny, bright, warm summer and golden autumn.
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Features, benefits and harms of berry wines
Homemade berry wines are distinguished by the fact that they can be prepared not only from one type of fruit, but also from a mixture of several representatives of these cultures. The finished product compares favorably with store-bought alcoholic beverages.
At home, the best berry and grape wines are obtained, which are mainly prepared from horticultural crops grown in a backyard or summer cottage, sometimes bought on the market. In any case, the drink is prepared from natural raw materials, without chemical additives and dyes.
For the preparation of wine, ripe fruits not damaged by rot are chosen. Along with horticultural crops, wild berries such as wild strawberries, blueberries and others are excellent drinks.
Small amounts of homemade wines are good for your health. For example, raspberry wine will help with colds, blackcurrant wine will strengthen the walls of blood vessels, cherry wine contains a female health vitamin.
Excessive consumption of an alcoholic drink, and also if the technology of its preparation is violated, can harm health.
How to select raw materials
To obtain an aromatic, pleasant-tasting wine, you need to choose the right variety of fresh berries.
- To make the perfect dessert wine, rowan berries, currants, strawberries are used for its production.
- Dry wine is made from sour varieties of berries, such as gooseberries.
- Berry platter is selected for blended wine.
Also, the selected berries should not be green, rotten or dry.
How to make an assorted wine from berries at home
Winemakers most often make wine from grapes, but they also use strawberries, raspberries, currants and other garden and forest berries for preparation. From a large number of existing recipes, you can choose the one that is more acceptable for cooking from a certain type of berries.
Simple recipe
For making wine according to this recipe, you can use garden or forest berries.
Components:
- 3 kilograms of grapes;
- 300 grams of sugar.
To make wine, mash unwashed berries with your hands, transfer to a bulk container, add sugar, stir. Put the future wine in a warm place, covered with a lid or gauze.
For a week, the juice with the pulp must be stirred daily.
After seven days, squeeze the wort, add 2 glasses of sugar per 2 liters of liquid to the wine product. Pour the juice into a bottle, put on a medical glove on the neck, pre-piercing several fingers with a needle. The contents should not occupy the entire volume of the vessel. Three quarters, or even half a can, is enough for the resulting carbon dioxide to have time to escape, and the foam that appears does not come out.
With a glove, a bottle costs three weeks. Then the wine is poured into a glass container without touching the sediment. Close with a lid, put it in the basement for storage.
Yeast free
Making wine without yeast follows the same principle as in a simple recipe. If it was decided to put wine from different berries, for example, currants, blackberries, strawberries, then for better fermentation it is necessary to add a handful of unwashed raisins. Wine made from grapes does not need additional yeast.
From frozen berries
A step-by-step recipe will help budding winemakers make an aromatic drink.
Needed products:
- 200 grams of raisins;
- 2 kilograms of sugar;
- 3 kilograms of various frozen berries;
- 2 liters of water.
Before using the berries, they must be thawed on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. After the fruit, knead with a pestle until gruel is formed. Pour sugar into the berry mass, heat on the stove until the crystals dissolve.
Place the cooled mixture in a glass container. For active fermentation, add raisins. After three weeks, pour the wine into a clean bottle without touching the pulp. Let the drink stand for several days. If desired, add 0.5 glasses of alcohol to increase the strength.
Fortified wine
There is no special technology for making fortified wine. The peculiarity lies in the addition of alcohol to the finished drink.
Required components:
- 4 kilograms of berries;
- 2 kilograms of sugar;
- 4 liters of water;
- 2 tablespoons of vodka for 500 ml of wine.
Mash the berries into a gruel, transfer to a suitable container, add sugar, add water. In one container, the liquid should be less than six centimeters from the edge. Place the workpiece in a warm place with a water seal on top.
After twenty days, separate the wine from the pulp, mix with 250 grams of sugar, pour into a clean bottle, install a water seal. After two weeks, carefully drain the wine without touching the sediment, add vodka, mix. Pour the drink into a glass container, close tightly, lower it into the basement for further storage.
Can you make wine drinks from fermented berries?
Berries that are fermented but not moldy are good for making wine. The product can be fresh, in the form of jam or canned compote. The cooking technique does not differ from the one where freshly picked berries are used as raw materials.
Helpful tips from winemakers
Before you start making wine for the first time, you should heed the advice of winemakers.
- One of the main nuances in making wine is the correct choice of the main ingredient. Since the degrees in the drink directly depend on the amount of sugar, which is divided into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation, the berries must be chosen from sweet varieties.
- To prevent the drink from spoiling, there should be no rotten, green berries in the future wort.
- It is necessary to process the fruits unwashed, as there is wild yeast on their surface. No additional yeast is used in homemade wine.
- At the time of fermentation, you need to monitor the temperature in the room, it should not fall below 20 and exceed 25 degrees.
To obtain a quality wine, it is necessary to carry out a clarification procedure.The finished drink is poured into cans, covered with a lid, and taken to the basement. After a month, a sediment will appear at the bottom of the container, consisting of particles of wine material and yeast. The wine must be poured through cheesecloth into a clean, dry bottle, taking care to prevent sediment from entering.
Drink storage rules
Homemade wine, like any other alcoholic beverage, cannot be stored in plastic containers, as over time the container begins to release harmful substances that change the aroma and taste of the wine. It is better to give preference to glass bottles, jars, which will be closed with nylon or glass lids with a seal.
The ideal storage space is in the basement, where the temperature is kept within six degrees, where the sun's rays cannot penetrate. The shelf life of wine at home reaches three years.
