Content of the article:
Apple wine at the counter with alcoholic beverages is the cheapest, but this is not related to product quality. The fact is that the cooking technology is quite easy, and the raw materials are cheap and very common. Due to these factors, almost any person can make an apple wine at home, even if he has no experience in moonsharing and winemaking.
What do you need for making apple wine?
The list of ingredients for wine is very short, because a beginner winemaker will need only:
- apples;
- sugar.
Apples can be used in the same variety, but a much more pleasant aroma of the wine is obtained by mixing different types of apples. For the wine fit even unripe and sour fruits. Ideally, use the harvest from your own plot. When buying it is worth paying attention only to local varieties, especially if they look unpresentable: small, unevenly colored and so on. The reason is that the wine will require wild yeast from the peel, and imported and beautiful apples are often waxed, so they are useless for making alcoholic beverages.
Instead of apples, you can use ready-made juice. But packaged juice from stores will not work, you need a completely natural product without additives.
The amount of sugar for wine is calculated based on the amount of juice obtained and the desired result. For example, for a typical dry one, only about 200 g of sugar per 1 l of juice is required, and for a sweet, the dose of sugar will need to be doubled.
Sometimes the recipe for apple wine at home involves diluting the juice with water. Such a move is permissible when using a large number of unripe or sour fruits. If the juice tastes too sour or gives bitterness, it is permissible to pour 100 ml of water for each liter of flavored liquid.
Spices will help make the wine more piquant. Often, cinnamon, star anise or cardamom are added to apple wine at the final stage of preparation.
Winemaking stages
After harvesting apples, squeeze the juice out of them. Before this procedure, the fruit can not be washed, but if they are in the sand or earth, you can wipe them with a dry cloth. The central part of the apple with pits for juice is not needed, as it gives extra bitterness. If there is no juicer, you can grate the raw materials on a grated to a puree, and then squeeze the slurry through gauze.
Juice is poured into a container with a wide neck, which must be tied with gauze to prevent dust and debris from entering the liquid. Juice should fill the container no more than 2/3.Next, the container is placed in a dark and warm place for 2-3 days. The temperature of the room should be from 18 to 25 degrees. The warmer it is, the faster the product will ferment. In many recipes for wine from apples, it is recommended at the first stage to mix the wort several times a day. By the end of this stage, the juice acquires a characteristic sour-alcoholic smell.
Next, the fermented, dense pulp is removed from the surface of the future apple wine, so that only liquid remains in the container. Sugar is poured into it. Sugar can be poured immediately in full or in parts. Half to establish a water seal, and the other half in 5-10 days.
After adding sugar, the container with wine from apples is tightly closed with a lid, in the center of which you need to cut a small hole with a diameter of tube width. One end of the tube is lowered into a container with juice so as not to touch the liquid, the other end is lowered into a glass of water. This design - water trap. It will help get rid of excess gas, which is formed during fermentation. You can replace the water seal with a medical glove with a puncture in one of the fingers.
Wine wanders 30-60 days. The end of the process can be seen by the fact that the water stops bubbling or the glove is deflated. After that, the wine is filtered through cheesecloth in bottles, spices are added, and the home winemaking product matures for another 2-4 months. Stored homemade wine from apples 3 years in a cool dark place.
