Content
Cranberry wine, due to the high content of vitamins, organic acids, microelements, is not only tasty, but also beneficial for human health. It will be difficult for beginners to prepare a drink. This forest berry is picky and requires certain skills. But if you strictly follow the stages of making cranberry wine, after a while you can enjoy a delicious drink.
It will not work to make wine with pure juice from fresh berries - you have to dilute it with water and add sugar, because cranberries have a high level of acidity and a minimum of glucose. Additional ingredients will help the wort ferment faster.
Classic cranberry wine
This cranberry wine recipe is considered to be the simplest and most delicious. You will need the following components:
- 7 liters of water;
- 3 kg of sugar;
- 1 kg of cranberries.
Stages of making cranberry wine:
- Initially, you need to prepare a wine leaven. For this, the berries are carefully sorted out, selecting the spoiled ones. It is the crushed and stained fruits that fall asleep 2 tbsp. sugar, insist for 10 days at room temperature.
- Now it's time to make dessert wine. Sorted out cranberries are poured into a spacious container, crushed.
- Then add the rest of granulated sugar, pour in water.
- The first 4 hours after combining the ingredients, the product is periodically stirred, ensuring that the sugar is completely dissolved.
- Pour the resulting mass into the finished starter culture, put a glove on the neck, after making several holes. Take out to a dark warm place, leave for 30-60 days.
- After the gas formation ends, pour the wine through a rubber tube into the bottles, close tightly, leave for 3-4 months.
After that, the cranberry wine is considered fully ripe - you can drink it.
Cranberry wine without sourdough
To make delicious wine, berries are harvested after the first frost. It is at this time that the sugar content is highest. All fruits are carefully sorted out, even the slightest stain can lead to mold on the surface of the wine. The containers for preparing the drink must be ideally washed and wiped dry (sterilization can be carried out).
Products:
- 5 kg of cranberries;
- 5 liters of water;
- 5 kg of sugar.
The stages of preparing a drink according to this recipe:
- The washed and dried berries are thoroughly ground to obtain a homogeneous gruel. Wild yeast lives on the surface of the fruit, helping the drink to ferment quickly. If you wash them off, the required process will not happen.
- Pour the resulting mass into a spacious container, add some sugar (0.5 kg), pour in water, mix.
- Tie the neck of the container with gauze, leave for 5 days. The ideal temperature for fermentation is 18-25 ° C.
- For the first three days, the wort should be regularly mixed with a wooden spatula. After 5 days, cranberry pulp will appear - it must be carefully removed.
- Strain the wort, pour into a fermentation vessel. A container with a narrow neck is suitable, as our ancestors still used to make wine. Fill it up by 2/3.
- Squeeze the pulp removed from the surface of the drink, pour the liquid into a container with future wine, and the pulp is no longer required.
- Introduce another part of the sugar - 2 kg.
- The neck is closed with a rubber medical glove, after making a hole, you can use a water seal. All joints should be properly sealed.
- Put the drink to ferment in a dark place, ambient temperature 18-25 ° C.
- After 4 days, add another part of granulated sugar - 1.5 kg. Open the container, pour out part of the drink, dilute the sugar and return everything to the container again. Fit the glove.
- After another 3 days, repeat the manipulation, adding the rest of the sugar. Leave the wine to ferment - this can take from 25 to 60 days. The duration of the procedure is determined by the air temperature in the room used for cooking.Advice! If fermentation continues for more than 50 days from the moment the glove is installed, then part of the wort should be drained into another container. After that, it is necessary to put the wine to mature further. If the drink is infused for a long time, then bitterness will appear.
- You can determine the end of fermentation by the sediment, the light color of the wine, by the deflated glove. When finished, drain the contents through a tube into another container, being careful not to touch the sediment.
- After the drink is tasted, sugar is added. If you wish, you can fix it with vodka or alcohol. Fortified wine has a longer shelf life, but the taste is not as mild.
- You need to store the drink in containers with a tightly closed lid for 3-6 months at a temperature of 5-16 ° C. Filter every 20 days when a precipitate appears. You can drink the drink after the sediment no longer appears.
Dried cranberry wine
If you could not find fresh or frozen cranberries, then you can make wine from dried fruits without any problems.
To prepare a drink, you will need the following components:
- 0.5 kg of dry cranberries;
- 4 tbsp. granulated sugar;
- 4 liters of water;
- wine yeast - 1 packet;
- 1 tsp pectin enzyme;
- 1 tsp yeast feeding;
- 1 Campden tablet.
This amount of ingredients is enough to make 24 liters of cranberry wine. Stages:
- Grind the cranberries with a meat grinder, transfer to a container and pour 2 tbsp. water. Add crushed tablets, leave for 12 hours.
- After adding the pectin enzyme, leave for 10 hours.
- Prepare sugar syrup, cool. Then add cranberries to the berries, add the remaining ingredients. Cover the container with gauze, leave for a week, stirring several times daily.
- After the vigorous fermentation is complete, drain the wine carefully, so as not to touch the sediment, into a bottle with a narrow neck, install a glove or a water seal.
- In a dark place, the wine should ferment for 30-60 days. And then pour into bottles and store in a cool place for up to 6 months.
Fortified cranberry wine
The quickest way to make homemade cranberry wine is to use vodka with wild berries. Although some housewives call this drink a tincture, and its taste will differ in astringency. To make a quick fortified wine, you need the following ingredients:
- 1.5 kg of cranberries;
- 6 tbsp. 96% alcohol;
- 5 tbsp. granulated sugar;
- 6 tbsp. water.
Step by step preparation of homemade wine:
- Sort the cranberries, rinse under running water, grind in a blender. Transfer the homogeneous mass to a glass container, leave for 7 days in a dark place. Wait until fermentation starts.
- After 7 days, alcohol should be added to the berry mass, again leave to infuse for a week.Advice! The container with the berry mixture must be tightly closed with a lid.
- After two weeks, heat the water, dilute the granulated sugar, cool, add the syrup to the berries, mix.
- The resulting mass must be put on fire, heated, but not allowed to boil, otherwise all the alcohol will evaporate. Then cool.
- Strain through several layers of cheesecloth.
- Healthy cranberry wine is ready. Now you need to bottle it, send it to the refrigerator. You can drink after 24 hours.
How to properly prepare cranberry wine is shown in the video:
Conclusion
Cranberry wine is made from freshly picked berries or frozen. If you let it stand after preparation for six months, you can please your loved ones with a more saturated aromatic drink.Wine is an excellent tool that helps to normalize the digestive processes, increases the tone of the body, activates the immune system.
