How to make chokeberry wine - step by step instructions for beginners
Blackberry is more popular with herbalists, who use it to prepare medicinal tinctures. However, dark berries with an original tart taste are also useful for winemakers. There is nothing complicated in how to make wine from chokeberry. The technology is similar to making wine from grapes. As there, in the case of mountain ash, the most important thing is quality raw materials. That is, the berries must first be sorted out so that not a single green, and especially rotten, is caught. Such instances will spoil the taste of the drink, and it will also be possible to argue about its usefulness.
But you do not need to wash the blackberry. As well as on grapes, live yeast lives on rowan berries, thanks to which “natural” fermentation takes place. If you wash them off, then the workpiece itself will not ferment. And you will have to add store yeast, which, of course, will distort the taste of the wine.
How to make wine from chokeberry - step by step instructions
So, let us briefly recall the sequence of the "wine-making procedure":
- wort preparation;
- juice department;
- fermentation;
- maturation.
Now about the ingredients: for 5 kg of berries you need 1 kg of sugar. If desired, you can also use the pulp to obtain a secondary portion of juice. In this case, an additional 1 liter of water will be needed. The sugar should then be divided into two equal portions. Add half to the berries, the second to the pulp.
Cooking wort from berries and sugar
Mash the sorted berries well with your hands or a crush so that everything is crushed. Pour the resulting mass into a large container, preferably glass or enamel. Add sugar (all or half, depending on whether the pulp will be reused later). Stir and cover with a clean cloth to prevent insects from getting inside. Soak for about a week in a warm place with a temperature of at least 20 ° C heat to activate the fermentation process. Stir a couple of times a day.
Metal containers for wine should not be used to prevent oxidation.
Separating the juice
When the berries pop up and a characteristic foam appears, you can squeeze them out. It is better to squeeze out the juice with your hands, choosing the pulp, or using a press. Then strain it and pour into bottles, filling them a little less than half.
If it was planned to use pomace, then they must be poured with warm water (1 l). And add the second half of the total sugar (500 g) left in advance. Then keep warm for 5-7 days, strain and combine with pure mountain ash juice.
We send the workpiece for fermentation
Banks with strained juice must be closed with a special lid (water seal). Or put on a medical glove, puncturing a hole in it for gas to escape.Wine should ferment at a temperature of 18 ° C in a dark place for about 1-1.5 months. As soon as the glove deflates and the gas ceases to evolve, young wine must be removed from the sediment and poured into bottles.
If desired, you can add a little more sugar if the drink is very sour. Or fix the wine by adding a little vodka, but not more than 15% of the total. This will extend the shelf life, but the wine will become harsher.
The last stage is the ripening of mountain ash wine
Young, fermented wine has a very pungent taste, so it still needs to mature. Ripening takes place in a cool place, for example, in a cellar, and takes from 3 to 4 months in time. Every month, it is advisable to remove the wine from the lees so that it turns out clean and beautiful.
Rowan wine is stored for a long time, up to 5 years in a cool place, and at the exit has a strength of about 10%. If you add vodka, you get an even stronger drink.