Homemade chokeberry wine. Homemade chokeberry wine with yeast

A healthy drink without alcohol and with a minimum of sugar, just to be tasty.
In the first stages, the process is for the patient and strong. But it's worth it. On average, after two to three months, the reward will be a pleasant chokeberry wine with a bunch of useful substances and microelements.
Stage 1. Pluck rowan from the branches. Yeast bacteria live on the surface of the skin. They will ensure the fermentation of the future wort, so we take care of them. We do not freeze or wash the rowan. How to eat dirty food: crush it so that the juice drains out more easily. If you have strong men's hands, then you can press with them. They may not be enough for a large volume of berries. I used a masher.

Time passed, it began to get dark, but there was still plenty of work to do. I took an immersion blender. She quickly crushed the remains of the chokeberry. In general, there was a full enamel bucket of berries.

Stage 2. Mix the crushed mass with sugar. Carefully until it is completely dissolved. With a rolling pin - a stick, better with your hands. How much granulated sugar to add depends on the desired final taste. You can't do without sugar completely. Fermentation will be too slow. Mold may appear and then we will get several liters of vinegar. The wine will be too dry and therefore sour. A lot of sweetness, more than a glass of sand per kilo of crushed berries, will make it dessert. The optimal proportion is considered to be: 150g. sugar for every kilogram of rowan. For starters. In the process we will equalize the taste according to sweetness.

All that remains is to cover with a lid and leave to ferment in a warm place. Here it is important to ensure that the mass does not sour and flies do not appear on it. Be sure to stir once a day and tie the top with gauze. In this form, the chokeberry will last for at least a week, or even more. Depends on temperature and amount of sugar. Readiness can be seen by the berries accumulated on the top and foam when stirring.

Stage 3. Squeezing fermented juice. You will have to work manually. Place a colander or sieve on a deep vessel. The gauze is lined with a double layer. We select a portion of berries with our hands, squeeze them lightly and place them in cheesecloth. We collect it in a bag and carefully squeeze out the juice.

Place the remaining pulp in a separate bowl. She will still be needed.

Pour the collected juice into glassware, where it will be transformed into wine. A large bottle is best, but several three-liter cans will do. It is important to pour only two-thirds of the container's volume.

Carbon dioxide accumulates in the resulting space. The juice will not be perfectly clear. Pieces of pulp will slip through. Let them remain and stimulate fermentation. With subsequent filtration, the wine will be cleared of all foreign matter.

Now the fermenting juice must be hermetically sealed so that air does not enter and carbon dioxide comes out. The easiest way is to pull a medical glove over the neck. Pierce holes in your fingers. The carbon dioxide released during fermentation will inflate the glove. If it settles, then fermentation has stopped.

It would be more correct, in my opinion, to make a simple water seal. You will need any hose and cap. Make a hole in it with the diameter for the hose. I burned through my nylon with a hot awl to exactly the size. Metal can be pierced with a nail or drilled. Insert the end of the tube. Place the other end in a jar of water, which is placed next to the future wine. If the edges of the hole are not tightly adjacent to the hose, fill them with paraffin from a candle. The tightness must be one hundred percent.

Carbon dioxide comes out under pressure through a hose. Fermentation is ongoing and the wort will not suffocate. What often happens when using gloves.

The juice was allowed to ferment. Let's deal with the pulp. There's still a lot of juice in it. Let's draw it out with water and sugar. Still no water in cooking chokeberry wine can't get by. IN pure form the juice is too thick and tart to make a palatable wine. Water and sugar are needed to equalize the acidity and consistency of the drink. In berry wines and liqueurs, this is the only way to regulate taste.

Place all the pulp in a container from under the fermented berries (I use a bucket) and lightly crush it. Pour raw cold water with top. A separate requirement for water. Tap water is no good. We take bottled or spring water. You will need about a glass of sugar if the pulp takes up a third of the bucket's volume. The proportions change. Pharmacy precision is of no use here. The main thing is that the pulp ferments quickly.

Mix everything well, tie it with gauze to prevent midges and put it in a warm place for several days. Mold forms on the pulp very quickly. Don't forget to stir every day.

The main stage of juice fermentation chokeberry falls at the end of August - September, when there is no heating yet and the weather is cold. Therefore, you have to constantly monitor the wort. But not by outside observers! If you think the wine doesn’t have enough heat, place it closer to the stove or heater. We babysit him like a little one. If only it wandered. Prosperity is indicated by foam on the surface of the wort and strings of bubbles running to the surface.

Stage 4. The first week of fermentation of the wort and pulp has passed. Squeeze the juice out of the pulp. Pour the wort through a fine sieve into another bowl. We try not to disturb the precipitate that has fallen. It consists of outdated yeast bacteria and is no longer needed for wine. The same cannot be said about juice from pulp. We pour it into the filtered wort and it comes to life and begins to play. Place it under the water seal again and ripen in a dark, not cold place. We will allot 10 days for this.

Stage 5. Everything essential for the future wine has been done. All that remains is to filter the wine once a week, each time getting rid of sediment. After two weeks, we will replace the simple overflow through a sieve with drainage through a hose. Place the container with wine on the table. Empty - on the floor. Dip the end of the hose into the wine so that it does not touch the sediment. From the other end, pull up the wort with your mouth and quickly lower it into the bowl. The wine will flow out in a smooth stream. It is better to reduce the intensity. Let the wine “breathe” - it will be filled with air. Air baths prevent young wine from going rancid. Not every time, but after 3 weeks it is necessary to arrange a “long” drain.

It is clear that sediment should not get into the wine. Gradually there will be less and less of it. The wine will begin to lighten. It won't be as thick. A characteristic aroma will appear. Two months from the date of installation, the juice can be tasted. Of course, it is not prohibited to try before. It's just pointless. Now we are young homemade wine from chokeberry and it’s time to make adjustments to its final version.

It tastes a little sour. This is fine. It’s worse when you smell sugar, which means fermentation is already complete and the strength of the wine will be lower. You can try to correct the situation - ventilate the wine through a hose a couple of times.

Wine that is too sour needs to be sweetened. There is a special procedure for this. Sugar is taken at the rate of 1 tbsp. per liter of wine. Place on a piece of gauze or white cotton fabric. Tie it with a bag with a long tail. Hang it so that only the bottom drowns in wine. The sugar should melt gradually. Press down the end of the strap with a lid with a water seal. Usually it takes a week for sugar to completely dissolve, i.e. During the next filtration you can check the wine for sweetness. The bag is removed or sweetening is repeated for another week.

Stage 6. The wine is ready. Bottle it. You shouldn’t clog it too much at first. Young wine may play slightly. The accumulated gas will easily smash the bottle into smithereens.

We taste and finally close the lids only when all signs of fermentation have passed. Homemade chokeberry wine will become ripe after a few months of storage in a cool place. But even when it’s young, it doesn’t lose out either in bouquet or aftertaste. and nice wine at the same time.

PS: I’ll tell you separately about the strength of the wine. Without any special actions, the wine has 2-3 degrees. I'm quite happy with it. The strength can be increased. After a month of fermentation, ammonia (ammonium chloride) should be added to the wort. One drop for every liter is enough. The growth of alcohol-containing yeast bacteria will increase.
The brutal way is to pour good vodka into it (50g per 1 liter) before bottling the young wine. The strength will increase, fermentation will stop.

Chokeberry is known in folk medicine thanks to its ability to fight high blood pressure, although this is not its only property. The product is used in different ways - for example, by preparing wine. What benefits and harms chokeberry wine brings to the body will be discussed further.

The benefits of wine

Chokeberry products, including wine, can be recommended to patients with many diseases. These include:

• weak immunity and vitamin deficiency;
• slagging of the body;
• radiation sickness;
• rheumatism;
• disturbances in the functioning of the endocrine system and thyroid gland;
• diseases of the gastrointestinal tract associated with insufficient acid production and smooth muscle spasms;
• high blood pressure;
• overweight;
• nervous excitability.

Chokeberry increases the activity of the stomach glands, relieves spasms of smooth muscles, and has a choleretic effect. It is included in the diet of cancer patients because it contains anthocyanins. And berries also reduce the risk of cancer. The fruits of the tree increase the body's resistance to viruses and infections, stimulate appetite, and reduce cholesterol levels. Chokeberry removes excess fluid, dilates blood vessels, promotes hematopoiesis, and, thanks to its astringent properties, eliminates bleeding gums.

Wine takes on many beneficial properties of the fruit. The pectins it contains help remove toxins, heavy metal salts, and radionuclides from the body.

Harm

Whatever beneficial properties no matter what chokeberry has, it should be remembered that wine made from it is contraindicated for people with alcohol addiction, like other alcohol-containing drinks. Caution should be exercised when administering this medication to patients diabetes mellitus in whom such foods cause fluctuations in glucose levels. It should not be given to children, pregnant or nursing mothers.

Wine contains many allergenic substances - yeast, pollen, histamines. In people prone to migraines, this product may cause an exacerbation of the disease.

When treating hypertension, you should be careful when drinking wine and not exceed the dosage prescribed by your doctor.

Contraindications

Chokeberry wine is not for everyone. It is not recommended for use for the following diseases and conditions:

• peptic ulcer of the stomach and duodenum, gastritis with high acidity;
• low blood pressure;
• increased blood clotting, thrombophlebitis;
• varicose veins;
• constipation.

It will be necessary to postpone treatment for the period of exacerbation of hypertension and angina pectoris.

How to cook?

To prepare chokeberry wine (6–7 l), take:

• chokeberry berries - 10 kg;
• sugar - from 5 glasses.

To reduce the harm from chokeberry wine for people with low blood pressure, hibiscus leaves are added to the recipe (about 50 g per 9–10 kg).

You cannot wash the berries, because yeast bacteria live on their skins, which also die when frozen and at low temperatures. By last reason The berries are picked during their ripening season and frozen raw materials are not used to prepare the drink.

Wine is prepared in several stages:

1. The berries are placed in stainless steel, enameled steel or glass dishes. The raw materials are crushed (preferably by hand), sugar is added, and mixed. The mass is left to ferment for 7–12 days in a covered container, stirring occasionally.
2. When the swollen berries float to the surface and foam appears on the surface, the pulp is removed by squeezing the juice out of it. The pulp is placed in a separate bowl and sent for re-fermentation, adding one glass of sugar and a liter of water (bottled, but not tap). The pulp is left to ferment for a week, making sure that no mold appears on the surface. The strained juice is poured into jars with a water seal and sent to a dark place with a temperature no higher than 18 °C.
3. After 7–12 days, the pulp is filtered out again and the cake is thrown away. The juice from the first portion is uncorked, the foam is removed from the surface, mixed with fresh juice, and closed again with a water seal.
4. The first month after this, foam is regularly removed from the surface, the liquid is filtered to remove sediment, which in the final stages can worsen the taste of the finished product. The clearer the wine becomes, the closer it is to the final stage of preparation.
5. In order to prevent the fermentation process from dying down, ammonia is added once every two weeks after the end of the period of active bubbling (one drop per 1 liter of wine).
6. When the wine becomes clear and sufficiently acidic, and there is only a light coating at the bottom, it is sweetened to taste. To get dessert wine, add 1 tablespoon of sugar to each liter of raw material. Sugar is placed in a bag made of natural fabric and lowered completely into the jar on a cord, but as close as possible to the surface of the liquid. Dissolution takes approximately a week. Then the bag is removed.

It is important to prevent the appearance of mold, which will spoil the taste of the wine.

When the wine is ready, it is bottled and corked, but not hermetically sealed. At first it may “play”, and then the dishes will not withstand the gas pressure on the walls.

Berry composition

The calorie content of wine depends on the type. Dry varieties - 65–80 kcal, dessert - 140 kcal.

How to store?

For a drink made from chokeberry, the same storage rules apply as for other wines:

• temperature - 10–15 °C;
• humidity - 60–80 °C;
• lighting - dark place.

The refrigerator is considered a suitable place for this.

How to choose in the store?

You can choose wine according to the same rules as grape products:

• They don’t buy semi-sweet varieties, because they are usually made from waste and low-quality materials, and they contain more preservatives.
• The label indicates the manufacturer and year of harvest.
• The drink must be packaged in a glass container or barrel; products in plastic bags are only suitable for preparing other dishes.
• If after uncorking a musty smell is heard on the cork, then it is better to refuse to drink the drink.
• A natural product is never cheap, so wine costs at least 350 rubles.

When choosing wine as a folk remedy for treating hypertension or another disease, it is important to remember that it is, first and foremost, an alcoholic drink. It is necessary to take into account its possible negative impact on the body. The dose should be checked with your doctor, who will also determine how folk remedy combined with traditional medicines. The permissible daily dose of the drink is no more than 50 g.

Chokeberry is a berry that many consider useless for preparations, except for adding color to compote and piquancy to apple jam.

However, homemade wine made from chokeberry or chokeberry, as this berry is otherwise called, is very tasty if prepared correctly.

We will tell you how to make chokeberry wine at home without yeast.

You will need 10-12 kg of berries for 6-7 liters of the finished drink. And the first question that arises if you decide to put on wine: do you need to wash the chokeberry berries?

Washing will remove very important yeast bacteria from the surface that are involved in the fermentation process. And if there is any dust on the berries, it will fall into the sediment and will be filtered out.

By the way, frozen berries are not suitable for making homemade wine, because these bacteria die at low temperatures.

As a container, it is best to choose a large glass bottle, or, in extreme cases, a container made of food grade stainless steel or enameled without a single chip.

Recipe for making homemade black rowan wine

1. Mash each berry. Can in a modern way- in a meat grinder. But best wine Chokeberry is obtained, of course, by contact with your hands. Do this in old, “working” clothes, the juice will get very dirty.

2. Add sugar at the rate of 0.5 cups per 1 kg of berry mass to get a delicious dessert wine. Black rowan has little sugar, and dry wine without it will turn out very sour. If you add more it will be very sweet.

3. Mix well until all the sugar is dissolved.

4. Cover the dish and place in a warm place, but not higher than 25 degrees, let the mixture ferment for about a week or more. At this time, you need to mix the juice and pulp, otherwise mold may appear and your homemade chokeberry wine will be spoiled.

5. After all this time, the berries will float up and swell, and if you plunge your hand inside, foam will appear. This means that the juice has fermented. Squeeze the pulp from the juice with your hands. If you have a press, you can use it, but not a juicer, the pulp will clog it.

6. Set aside the pulp and filter the juice through a colander. Small particles will be filtered out later.

Wine made from pure chokeberry juice turns out to be very thick and does not get the aroma and benefits from the berries, and will also be very sour. The remaining pulp should be allowed to ferment again, adding sugar and water, so that this mixture can then be added to the juice.

7. Add a glass of sugar and 1.2 liters of cold bottled water to it. Mix thoroughly, press down so that the pulp settles down, cover with a lid and leave for about a week to ferment. You need to stir it well every day to prevent it from molding.

8. Pour the strained juice into a glass container of suitable volume. For the specified quantity, 2 five-liter jars are enough.

All dishes that contain wine must be washed clean with soda and dried well.

8. For home winemaking, you need a device such as a water seal, which removes gases from the container with wine through water. It’s better to buy ready-made, or you can make it yourself:

• in the center of the lid of the jar where you poured the juice, punch or drill a hole equal to the diameter of the outlet tube (hose)
• insert the tube and gently heat it where it touches the lid, for example, on a candle, so that the diameter increases and it sits tightly in the lid for minimal contact of the wine with the air outside
• Place the other end of the tube in a jar of water

Order an energy saver and forget about the previous huge expenses for electricity

9. Place the jar, sealed with a water seal, in a cool, dark place (but with a temperature not lower than 18 degrees) so that the juice begins to ferment.

10. After a week, squeeze out the pulp, but not too much. Strain the secondary juice through a sieve several times.

11. From a jar of pure first juice, remove the foam from the surface.

12. Mix both juices, pour into jars, and seal with water seals. Place in a dark place with a temperature of 22-25 degrees.

13. Once a week for a month, remove foam and film from the surface and filter the wine to reduce sediment. This is done by pouring the wine into another container, each time it becomes more difficult, then you can use the drain hose. In the second month, you can filter the wine once every two weeks.

The stream of the poured drink must be thin and long in order to “ventilate” the wine, improving its quality and preventing spoilage. Be aware that sediment is dead bacteria that can affect the taste of the wine.

14. At least once every two weeks after a month of fermentation, it is recommended to feed them with ammonia to stimulate the growth of alcoholic yeast. You only need a drop per liter of wine. This is necessary to enhance the activity of bacteria in order to increase the alcoholic strength of the wine.

15. After 1.5-2 months, the wine becomes transparent, if, of course, you correctly understood how to prepare wine from black rowan. You can already taste it and adjust the taste; the fermentation process is still underway. It is sour, not sweet, but the sweetness should be felt in it. If it is too sweet, then try to “ventilate” it several times, pouring it in a thin stream. If nothing comes of this, it means that the strength of the wine will be less than necessary, and the fermentation process is complete.

About 2 months after you start preparing homemade chokeberry wine, it will become transparent when held up to the light, and only a light coating will remain at the bottom of the container. This means you can sweeten it.

16. To turn a sour-tasting young wine into a dessert wine, you need to take about a tablespoon per liter of drink. The sugar is placed in a cotton bag on a string and, like a tea bag, is immersed in the wine to such a depth that the sugar is just covered with it.

17. Secure the thread in this position on the jar and place a water seal until the sugar dissolves, about a week.

Pour young homemade chokeberry wine into clean bottles and do not close tightly, because it may still ferment and explode the bottle. When you are completely sure that carbon dioxide is no longer released, you can seal with stoppers.

Now you know how to make black rowan wine correctly. Be sure to try this recipe.

Chokeberry (chokeberry) is rich in many useful substances - vitamins C, P, B1, B2, E, K, B6, beta-carotene, macro- and microelements (iron, copper, boron, manganese, molybdenum, fluorine), sugars ( glucose, sucrose, fructose), as well as tannins and pectin.

Chokeberry has many medicinal properties, it lowers blood cholesterol levels, normalizes blood pressure, treats hypertension, helps strengthen the walls of blood vessels, improves their elasticity and firmness.

I found it very detailed description making wine from chokeberries. I once tried this with my relatives, but didn’t get the recipe. because they make wines from everything and by “eye”. And the drink was really excellent.

How many of us dear friends, have you paid attention to such an inconspicuous and seemingly useless berry as chokeberry, the ripening season of which begins in September? Frankly, I, too, was once indifferent to it, since “chokeberry” preserves or jams never interested me. But one day at the dacha, looking at a bunch of these berries and remembering the amazing property of chokeberry to lower blood pressure, I started thinking.

Winemaking, due to the fact that my childhood was spent in areas rich not only in wine, but table (which is also good) grape varieties, was familiar to me from now on. Try making wine from chokeberry according to the grape principle? Why not? And several years ago I made wine from chokeberry, which in itself is very interesting in taste and for some reason especially attractive to women. Since then, every year I make several liters of chokeberry wine, as well as from black currants. I advise you to do the same when the next harvest ripens.

First 7-12 days

Do you have a desire? Then, during the chokeberry ripening season, we bring home ten to twelve kilograms of berries.

Washing them, as is sometimes advised, is not only useless, but also harmful. In addition, if anyone is not aware of wine processes, all the “dirt” will, in any case, subsequently precipitate and be removed in the process of several filtrations.

NB! Let's remember: washing berries is almost guaranteed to wash away yeast bacteria from their surface - the main ones " characters" in making wine. For the same reason that these bacteria, as a rule, die at low temperatures, frozen (and subsequently thawed) berries are not suitable for winemaking.

We start by selecting a suitable container in which the berries and juice will ferment at the first stage. This container should be made of either food-grade stainless steel, an enamel-lined and intact coating, or glass.

NB! Plastic, especially aluminum or copper utensils are absolutely not suitable for winemaking.

We will not touch utensils made of wood. This special story, which needs to be described separately and is of no use to us.

So, having selected the dishes, conscientiously, kneading each berry, we will crush our “prey”. I prefer to do this by hand, but it is absolutely not forbidden to crush the berries using kitchen tools, such as an electric meat grinder or processor.

We crush the berries carefully so as not to splash juice all over the apartment. While juice can be removed from skin and hard objects without problems, clothes, for example, can suffer irreparable damage.

After crushing the berries, add sugar to them - at the rate of about half a glass per kilogram. These proportions can be reduced or increased, depending on what kind of wine we want to get. Absolutely dry wine, without sugar, made from chokeberry is unimportant - sour and tart, since the fruits themselves have little sugar. In addition, the fermentation process without the presence of “sweet death” is very slow. From large quantity Adding sugar makes a sweet wine - also not for everyone. The proportions I propose are aimed at dessert wine - in my opinion and taste, it’s just what you need.

NB! In any case, it’s better not to joke with sugar proportions. Yeast bacteria will still not be able to process its excess into alcohol, and the sugar will precipitate, despite the fact that nothing can correct the excess “sweetness” of the wine. The wine is sweetened, if necessary, using a special procedure at the final stage of preparation, which I will discuss below.

Mix the poured sugar thoroughly, not disdaining to plunge your hand deeper into the juice. Future wine loves the touch of human, and especially male, palms.

This completes the first stage. All that remains is to close the dishes with a lid, place them in a relatively warm place (but not higher than 25 degrees) and let the mixture ferment for about a week, remembering to stir the juice and pulp from time to time so that, God forbid, mold does not appear.

NB! Mold can irreparably spoil the taste of future wine.

Second 7-12 days

After a week (sometimes more, which is not something to be afraid of), the berries will float up and swell, and if you plunge your hand into the pulp, foam characteristic of fermented juice will appear.

Well, now you need to work a little with both hands, selecting the pulp from the juice and squeezing it as hard as you can. I don’t recommend using juicers and other devices other than a press, which you don’t have. The juicer will clog after the second handful, and the juice yield will be insignificant.

We put the squeezed pulp into a separate bowl, since we will need the pulp later. Filter the juice through a regular colander. The fines that slip through the holes will only stimulate the process of further ripening of the wine and, in the end, will still be removed from there.

Pour the strained juice into a suitable glass container. Since we took 10-12 kg of berries as a starting point, two five-liter jars will be enough for us.

Now is the time to deal with the squeezed pulp. Here, my friends, there are two options. You can simply throw it away, being left without unenriched wine and chemically mix it with water paired with the originally squeezed juice. Or - reuse the pulp. The fact is that wine from pure chokeberry juice turns out to be extremely thick, firstly. Secondly, it, at a minimum, lacks a number of useful and tasty things from berries. That is why the remaining pulp should be allowed to ferment one more time, but with the addition of sugar and water, so that later, by adding a “repeated” portion of juice to the initial one, we can make our wine more airy and more saturated with chokeberry “ingredients”.

NB! In the preparation of fruit and berry wines, water, in addition to what has already been mentioned, plays another important role - only with its help can you adjust the acidity of the future drink - so that it does not make your cheekbones ache from excess sour. This parameter of fruit wine is not regulated by anything else.

So, add about a glass of sugar to the resulting amount of pulp and pour in a little more than a liter of water (based on the initial 10-12 kilograms of berries). The quality of water must be approached selectively: tap water is not suitable for these purposes. It is better to use proven bottled water or well water. And, of course, cold.

Mix the resulting mass thoroughly, press it so that the moisture rises above the pulp, close it with a lid and put it away again for at least a week for subsequent fermentation.

Now we need to “equip” the fermented juice obtained after the first pressing of the pulp - for further fermentation, since leaving it in open jar, in direct contact with atmospheric air is undesirable.

Of course, at first, while active fermentation is in progress, you can get by with temporary devices, like a rubber glove in which holes are poked with a needle, but later, one way or another, such “devices” will have to be abandoned in favor of a water seal, because so far there is nothing better or effective for home winemaking has not been invented.

The simplest water seal can be made, for example, like this. In the center of the lid, which can then be used to tightly close the jar of fermented juice, a hole is drilled (or punched) equal in diameter to the cross-section of the outlet tube (hose).

The tube itself should then be pulled through the hole in the lid and the tip of the tube should be heated with something suitable, thus increasing its diameter so that it fits tightly in the hole.

That's all, actually. Place the lid on the jar, and the other end of the tube into any suitable vessel with water. Thus, the contact of the future wine with the atmosphere will be minimal, the road is open to excess gas pressure, and there is no risk that the wine will “suffocate” from the same gases, which often happens when using a “hello to Gorbachev” - a rubber glove.

We put the jar with the future wine, closed with a water seal, in a dark, cool (but not lower than 18 degrees) place for further full fermentation of the juice.

In the meantime, over the next few days we carefully monitor the condition of the pulp that we mixed with water, under no circumstances preventing mold from appearing on the surface! In other words, we monitor the pulp not as passive observers, but by stirring it daily and drowning the floating berries.

After a week or two of fermentation, without squeezing the pulp too hard, let it release a new portion of juice.

Pour the juice into an empty container through a colander or strainer in several stages, as before, not particularly worrying about the fact that a large fraction of the pulp will slip through the mesh (this will not harm the future wine).

Now we take out the jar where the first portion of juice played (and continues to play), release the jar from the water seal and use a suitable spoon or strainer to remove the rising foam from the surface of the wine.

The second portion of juice, which we squeezed out of the pulp, is, of course, mixed with the first portion of juice, poured into jars, sealed with a water seal and put in a dark, but not the coolest, place to continue the process.

Third 7-12 days

At first (within a month), once a week you will need to remove the foam and film from the surface and filter the wine so that the sediment decreases each time after filtration. At first, this can be done by simply pouring the wine into another vessel, without shaking the wine itself and trying not to drain the sediment after the wine. But after two weeks you will have to resort to finer filtration, for which you will need a small and thin hose, with which, without lowering it to the bottom, you will simply need to drain the wine from container to container.

NB! At the same time, it is very useful (for the wine itself) for the stream of the poured drink to be thin and, as they say, “long”. In this way, the wine is ventilated, which corrects its quality in better side and helps avoid possible illnesses or spoilage of wine. This procedure does not have to be carried out with every filtration, but it is highly advisable to resort to it at least once a month.

Another highly desirable procedure is periodic (at least once every two weeks after a month of vigorous fermentation) stimulation of further growth of alcoholic yeast with nitrogen-containing “bait”. To do this, winemaking usually uses an aqueous solution of ammonium chloride (sold in pharmacies as “ammonia”) - literally a drop per liter of wine, followed by stirring the wine itself. This procedure helps to enhance the vital activity of the bacteria we need, thereby preventing fermentation from dying out and, as a result, affecting the alcohol strength required for wine.

After the first month of fermentation of the wine, its periodic filtration can be increased to “every two weeks”, each time skimming and removing the sediment.

NB! Let us remember that sediment at this stage of fermentation is not as harmless “dirt” as it might seem. Basically, it is a cemetery for bacteria that have done their job and died, and can seriously affect the taste of the future wine.

As the sediment decreases (that is, after one and a half to two months from the moment we started preparing chokeberry wine), the wine itself will become transparent. Provided that all procedures were followed correctly. That is, the wine fermented under a water seal, its filtration, ventilation and feeding of wine bacteria were carried out in a timely manner, and, importantly, “wine hygiene” was observed - dishes for reuse and equipment were thoroughly washed using baking soda and dried, and all necessary manipulations were carried out cleanly.

Transparency or, more correctly, clarification of wine is a sign that it is approaching the stage of a young, but ready-made drink. At this stage, you can safely conduct its first tasting in order to understand how correctly the wine was formed, whether any adjustments need to be made while the fermentation process is still underway, albeit imperceptibly, and so on.

NB! The taste of a proper young wine is usually more sour than sweet, although sweet notes should be felt in it. If sugar predominates in the taste, you should correct this deficiency by aerating the wine several times as described above. If the taste of the wine does not improve, then you need to reassure yourself that nothing bad happened - just its final strength will be slightly lower than it could be, and the fermentation process has actually ended.

Sweetening the wine (about 2 months after starting to make it)

After the wine has completely fermented - that is, it becomes transparent to the light, and at the same time only a light coating will form at the bottom of the dish, you can begin to sweeten it, focusing on your own perception of sweetness. In order to sweeten a sour-tasting young wine to the “standard” of a dessert wine, a tablespoon of sugar per liter of drink is usually enough. The proportion of sugar can be reduced or increased - accordingly, the drink will turn out more or less sweet.

Sugar should never be mixed into wine in the same way as sweetening tea or coffee. This is done differently. A measured portion of sugar is placed either in a cotton bag or on a cotton cloth.

A bag of sugar (or fabric collected in a bag) should be tied at the neck with a suitable twine and lowered into a container of wine so that the bag is completely immersed in the wine, while remaining as close as possible to the surface of the wine itself. You will need to secure the twine and place the container with wine under the water seal until the sugar is completely dissolved. This usually takes about a week, after which all that remains is to make sure that the sugar has dissolved and remove the impromptu bag from the wine.

The young drink can either be bottled or left in the same container where the sugar was dissolved, covering the wine with a suitable lid (or cork) so as not to close it tightly. Usually, newly brewed drinks tend to undergo further fermentation with a barely noticeable release of carbon dioxide. Tightly closed, but not fermented wine can sometimes not only squeeze out the lid, but also smash the bottle to pieces. In a word, at first you need to exercise caution and prudence, and begin to tightly seal containers with wine only when you are convinced that it has completely fermented. Well, taste it, of course. Even in such an unripe form, chokeberry wine is a wonderful thing! And the yield from 10-12 kilograms of chokeberry is not bad - 6-7 liters of drink.

Also called chokeberry, it is a branched bush no more than two and a half meters high with white or light pink inflorescences that bear fruit in September. Its berries have a unique composition, which is why it is used in folk medicine and cooking: for example, at home it can be both a treat and a medicine. This drink is prepared from ripe, prepared berries, and is based on alcohol or high-quality vodka.

alcohol tincture

As already mentioned, the tincture can be used both as a medicinal product and as an alcoholic drink. It is especially useful for hypertensive patients and people suffering from To prepare this universal remedy, you will need berries that have reached the peak of ripening. This is important, since chokeberry fruits are not rich in juice, and unripe ones do not have it at all. For our recipe, 1 kilogram of berries is enough. It is better to take high-quality vodka as a basis, which is made from the highest grade alcohol (0.5 liters is enough). You will also need 0.5 kg of sugar, cherry leaves and cloves. Chokeberry tincture at home takes a long time to prepare, although the process itself is quite simple.

Most of the time is spent defending it. So, washed and dried berries need to be placed in a pre-prepared (sterilized) bottle of 3-5 liters and crushed thoroughly by pouring in a glass of water. Liquid is added to obtain juice, and so that the tincture itself is not too thick. Then add sugar and mix again. The result should be a homogeneous, juicy mixture of a beautiful color. We tie the neck of the bottle with gauze folded in 2-3 layers and leave it for two days at room temperature. The next step is adding vodka. After pouring it in, the mixture must be mixed thoroughly so that the remaining sugar dissolves, close the lid and leave for 60 days in a dark place, for example, a pantry or basement. After two months, it will be ready at home: this is evidenced by its color and consistency. It will be transparent, rich amber color. It is bottled and stored in the refrigerator.

Homemade chokeberry wine

For lovers of less strong alcoholic drinks there is simple recipe tasty and healthy If you strictly adhere to the preparation technology and proportions, then within a couple of months after picking the ripe fruits you will delight yourself and your guests with an aromatic and pleasant-tasting drink. To make wine you will need 5 kg of berries.

It is important not to wash them before use, as there are bacteria on the skin that promote fermentation, and not to use metal containers. The berries must be thoroughly kneaded with your hands until a homogeneous mass is obtained. For every kilogram of berries you need to add half a glass of sugar. For lovers of sweet wines, this is not the norm, that is, you can add more. For better fermentation, you can add a handful of raisins to this mass. Mix the entire composition thoroughly, put it in a 10-liter container with a wide neck, close it and leave it for 7-10 days in a warm place. All this time, once a day you need to stir the pulp so that it does not become moldy. If foam appears when you dip your hand into the mixture, it's time to start squeezing the juice. To do this, the pulp is collected by hand and thoroughly squeezed. The pulp is folded separately, it will come in handy, and the resulting juice is filtered through a colander and poured into a five-liter bottle. Mix the collected and squeezed pulp with sugar in a 1:1 ratio, press it by hand and leave it to ferment for another 5-7 days, and then squeeze it out and drain it. Thus, we have two types of juice, which we mix, install a water seal on the bottle and leave. Every 2 days you need to do filtration: remove the formed foam and pour the drink into another container using a hose, without touching the sediment. When the liquid does not appear at the bottom, and the liquid itself becomes transparent, your wine is ready. It is bottled. Both wine and chokeberry tincture are stored at home in a cool place, such as a refrigerator or basement.