Homemade cherry cider is remembered for its rich berry flavor and aroma. Due to the low strength (4-6 degrees), an excellent summer soft drink is obtained. The recipe is similar to making wine, only there will be carbonation instead of aging.
We need ripe sweet and sour cherries without rot, blackened parts and mold, the juicier the berries, the better. The sort doesn’t matter. Cider can be fermented with wild yeast (they live on the surface of the fruit), in which case the cherries cannot be harvested immediately after rain and washed. It is preferable to use wine yeast (optimal for red grape varieties) or 3-4 days before working with the must, make a starter from raisins or other berries. If you take baker’s or alcohol yeast, then instead of cider you get mash with characteristic alcohol tones.
In order not to bring mold and other pathogenic microorganisms into the wort, you need to work with raw materials with well-washed hands, and pre-sterilize all tools and containers with boiling water.
Separately, you will need plastic bottles for carbonation and storage of cider.
Cherry cider recipe
Ingredients:
- cherry berries – 5 kg;
- water – 3 l;
- sugar – 800 g + 20 g per 1 liter of cider for carbonation;
- wine yeast or sourdough – for 8 liters of must (optional).
Technology of preparation
1. Sort the berries, remove spoiled, rotten and moldy, as well as leaves and twigs. If sourdough or wine yeast is used, the fruits can be washed.
2. Crush the cherries with your hands or otherwise, without damaging the pits, otherwise the cherry cider will be bitter.
3. Fold the pulp (possibly with the seeds) into an enameled or plastic container with a wide neck – a bucket or a saucepan. Add half the sugar and all the water, stir until the sugar dissolves. Add sourdough or wine yeast (optional).
4. Cover the container with gauze (to protect against insects), transfer to a dark place with a temperature of 20-28 °C. Leave for 3 days. Once every 8-12 hours, stir with your hand or a wooden stick, drowning the floating pulp and skin in the juice. Without stirring, the wort can turn sour.
On the first day, signs of fermentation should appear: foam, hiss and a slight sour smell, which means that everything is going fine.
5. Strain the resulting fermented juice through 2-3 layers of gauze and pour into a fermentation container, squeeze the pulp to dryness (no longer needed).
6. Add the second half of the sugar, stir until it is completely dissolved. You can fill the fermentation tank to a maximum of 75% of the volume, so that there is room for foam and carbon dioxide. Install a water seal of any design on the neck.
7. Transfer the wort to a dark room at room temperature. Leave until the end of fermentation. Usually cherry cider ferments for 15-20 days, the end of the process is indicated by the absence of gas from the water seal (deflated glove) and a layer of sediment at the bottom.
8. Pour the fermented cider through a straw into another container, without touching the sediment at the bottom. In fact, this is a low-alcohol young cherry wine that can be hermetically sealed and left in the refrigerator or cellar for 3-4 months to age, but in this recipe we are making cherry cider, so instead of aging we will carbonate the drink.
9. Wash plastic bottles well, pour 20 g of sugar per 1 liter of cider into the bottom of each. Pour the drink itself, leaving a free space of 5-6 cm to the neck of the bottle. Seal tightly and shake several times.
10. Transfer the bottles to a dark place with a temperature of 18-25 ° C, leave for 10 days. Re-fermentation will release carbon dioxide, which will carbonate the cider.
Attention! Once a day, be sure to check the gas pressure in the bottles, if they become too hard and inflated too much, bleed off the excess, otherwise the excess pressure may break the bottles.
11. Transfer the drink to the refrigerator or cellar, leave for 3-4 days to stabilize the taste.
The shelf life of homemade cherry cider away from direct sunlight at a temperature of +2-8 ° C is up to 6 months, the strength is 4-6% vol.
