Carrot wine at home – 4 recipes from professionals

Winter vegetables are a somewhat controversial object of wine experiments, but if you put aside the prevailing stereotypes and trust your instincts, then something really tasty and necessarily healthy can come out of it. You can spin this topic indefinitely, but, of course, you should start with carrots. Here is a modern and not so modern look at carrot wine, the preparation and taste of which should change the “fruit wine” paradigm once and for all.

Winter is near! Now the winemaker is calm – the grape season is in full swing, there are abnormally many apples this year, and since the summer there is still a stock of seasonal fruit and berry wines on the secondary market or already in ready-made form. But it is not for us to tell you how quickly this strategic reserve can melt. What happened next? Of course, we debunked the myth that the winemaker is out of work in winter: you can make wines from coffee, dried fruits, jam, bananas, oranges and much, much more. All this, of course, is interesting, useful and informative, but an inquisitive mind always requires something new. It’s time to debunk myths about vegetables.

And there’s really nothing to debunk here. In any case, letters. You just need to trust your instincts and cook. We, in turn, can only help with working recipes, detailed technology and good advice. There is only one thing that begs to be written: a well-balanced and aged carrot wine is a multifaceted and complex drink that can surprise the taste buds with the most unexpected shades (for example, sherry and bourbon). But only those who are not alien to endurance, literally and figuratively, can enjoy it. A year of aging for such wines is considered a mandatory minimum!

Parsnips can be used instead of carrots in all recipes.

Carrot wine according to the classical scheme

Simple, elegant and easy to understand recipe. Carrots for flavor, sugar for alcohol, raisins for body, acid and tannin for strength, pectin for clarity and a flawless amber color, and a yeast nutrient for quick and efficient fermentation. After a year of aging, a pleasant surprise awaits you!

¹ – for 10 liters of wine 3-4 tsp. unflavored black tea brewed in 100-200 ml of water.

Wash the carrots thoroughly and, without peeling, cut into small cubes. Place the crushed fruits in a saucepan with water, bring to a boil and cook over low heat for 20 minutes. Place chopped raisins and sugar into the primary fermenter, then pour hot carrot broth on top, mix thoroughly and leave to cool. After cooling, add tannin or a glass of strong black tea, yeast nutrition and pectin enzyme. Cover the fermenter with a lid and leave overnight. Add yeast, cover the fermentation container with a clean cloth and leave to ferment in a dark, warm place for 7-10 days. The wort must be stirred daily.

For winemaking, it is better to give preference to late varieties of carrots, which should spend as much time in the ground as possible. Root crops collected in October-November concentrate the maximum amount of sugar and flavoring substances.

After 7-10 days, when the violent fermentation subsides, remove the wine from the sediment into a clean fermentation tank right down to the throat (if necessary, you can add water up to 10 liters of total volume), straining it from the raisins. Install a water seal and leave for quiet fermentation in a dark, cool place. Once every 3-4 weeks, remove the wine from the resulting sediment until completely clarified. The finished drink, if desired, is stabilized with sulfur dioxide, bottled, corked and sent for aging. The minimum aging period is 1 year, after which you can start tasting.

Wine from carrots with bananas

Interpretation of the previous recipe. Banana for an even tighter body, orange and lemon for a “100% organic” source of acids, yeast nutrition and a subtle citrus motif. The pectin enzyme is very important here – it will not only help to achieve the perfect “clarity” of the wine, but also improve the extraction and increase the yield of the drink.

Wash the carrots thoroughly and cut into cubes or circles. Place the chopped carrots in a saucepan with 6 liters of water, bring to a boil and boil over low heat for 20 minutes. Strain the broth into a fermentation container, squeeze the carrots. Dissolve sugar in a still warm broth, then add the juice of oranges and lemons, chopped raisins and finely chopped bananas. Add yeast nutrition, a glass of black tea and 2 liters of cold water. Let the wort cool down to +25^оC, then add pectin enzyme to it and add yeast. Cover the fermenter with a clean cloth and leave to ferment in a dark, warm place for 5 days. Every day the contents must be mixed.

After 5 days, strain the wine into a clean fermenter, squeeze the raisins and bananas, install a water seal and leave to ferment at room temperature. When the visible fermentation is over (the water seal stops gurgling, and a dense yeast sediment collects at the bottom of the fermentation tank), remove the wine from the sediment and pour it into a clean fermenter under the water seal. In this form, it must be sent for fermentation and clarification in a cool place for 2-3 months. Once every 3-4 weeks, the wine must be removed from the sediment. After clarification, it can be stabilized with sulfur metabisulphite, allowed to age for a couple more weeks, and bottled. The recommended aging period for such a drink is 18 months after bottling.

Wine “Carrot whiskey” №1

The name is not due to the taste of whiskey, although wheat and barley wines can have noble distillate motifs, but because of its rich, complex and multifaceted taste, as well as the amber color typical of whiskey. This drink even has a history. A study of the literature showed that this recipe was first published in the 1940s by Noel Whitcomb in the British tabloid London Daily Mirror. At one time it was cult and tested by hundreds of Western winemakers. All sources emphasize that the drink must mature for at least 1 year before it can be drunk in the proper atmosphere.

Wash the carrots thoroughly and grate on a coarse grater without peeling. Then place in a large pot with 8 liters of water, bring to a boil and simmer for 25-30 minutes. At the same time, pour 1,75 kg of sugar into the primary fermenter, add oranges and lemons cut into thin slices. When the carrots are cooked, pour the broth into the fermenter, carefully squeezing out the solid residue through several layers of gauze. Stir the contents until the sugar is completely dissolved and cool to +25..+30^оC. Add chopped raisins and wheat, then add the yeast prepared according to the instructions on the package.

Cover the fermenter with a clean cloth and leave in a dark, warm place, stirring the contents a couple of times a day every day. After 6 days, add half (0,875 kg) of the remaining sugar and mix well. Let the must ferment for another 8 days, stir daily. Add the remaining sugar and let ferment for another 10 days, stirring daily. Strain the liquid into the secondary fermenter under the very neck, straining out the solid residue, install a water seal and put it in a dark, cool place for quiet fermentation. Remove from the sediment after 30 days and repeat the procedure after another 30 days. Bottled and aged for at least 1 year before tasting, more is better.

Wine “Carrot whiskey” №2

One of the interpretations of “whiskey”, proposed by the New Zealand winemaker Jeremy Daniel Meadows. In this case, the author of the recipe focuses on strength, and therefore suggested using two strains of wine yeast at once. A strange story, but it seems that this approach works and justifies itself.

Bring 2 liters of water to a boil, add sugar, raisins, acids, yeast nutrition and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring constantly. Pour the cooled syrup into a fermentation tank, add freshly squeezed carrot juice, another 1 liter of water and a crushed Campden tablet (for must disinfection, optional). Cover the container with a clean cloth and leave for 24 hours in a cool place. Add chopped ascorbic acid, grated ginger root, pectin enzyme to the wort and add yeast. Cover the fermenter with a clean cloth.

Rinse the barley with warm water and leave in a cool place overnight, then mix with the remaining water according to the recipe and add to the fermenter. Leave to ferment in a warm place for 48 hours, stir vigorously twice a day, and then strain the wort into the secondary fermenter, filling it as completely as possible and installing a water seal. For secondary fermentation, the fermenter should be moved to a cool place (+10..+15^оWITH). Remove from sediment after 2 weeks.

If for some reason you do not add pectin enzyme, the wine may take a long time to clear or not clear at all. In this case, we recommend pasting it with one of the methods suitable for this, because the appearance of the drink is just as important as its taste. And the appearance of carrot wine is doubly important – there are few wines that have such a rich, appetizing amber hue.

3 weeks after adding the yeast, dissolve 200 g of sugar in 250 ml of water and add to the must. After another 2 weeks, add 400 g of sugar dissolved in 250 ml of water. Let the must ferment dry. Once every 3-4 weeks, remove from the sediment until it is completely clarified. Pour into bottles and age as long as possible. Six months is a minimum, 1-2 years is ideal. Over time, the characteristic carrot aroma will go away, and it will be replaced by a mixture of dark rum, sherry and bourbon smells.

Good luck!