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Making chacha at home in the historical homeland of this drink (ethnic Western Georgia with adjacent Abkhazia and Adzharia) is a more than common phenomenon.
At the same time, if you want to make homemade chacha, and not, say, grappa, rakia or artsakh, which is often called “Armenian chacha” in the post-Soviet space, you need to keep in mind a few points.
Tips before starting
Stop using sugar and cultivated yeast
Of course, because of this, the preparation time for the mash can span from one to three months, and the amount of the resulting drink will be relatively small; but at the end you will get a real Georgian chacha with its characteristic rich taste and inimitable fruity aroma.
By the way, when preparing raw materials for mash, in no case should it be washed. Otherwise, you will destroy the very wild yeast that is responsible for fermentation.
If the grapes available to you or other suitable gifts from the gardens do not have sufficient natural sugar content, you better abandon the idea of uXNUMXbuXNUMXbmaking Georgian pomace brandy, and instead try to make a semblance of grappa or some other similar drink that allows the use of sugar and cultivated yeast.
The main raw material for the drink should be grape or fruit pomace obtained after squeezing the juice.
An obligatory addition to it are unripe grapes or unripe fruits corresponding to oilcake.
In addition to grapes, fruits typical of Transcaucasia can serve as a classic raw material for the pomace brandy we are interested in: persimmons, peaches, apricots, pomegranates, cherry plums, tangerines, etc.
Accordingly, such concepts as “chacha from apples” or “chacha from plums” should be regarded as nonsense, since the mentioned fruits are distributed somewhat to the north. But from them you can make an excellent likeness of Norman Calvados or Balkan plum brandy. In turn, such a drink as dogwood chacha, by and large, also does not exist.
Dogwood distillate, by the way, more traditional for neighboring Armenia, is made not from cake, but from full-fledged berries.
Use white grapes
If you decide to make a canonical native Georgian drink, you should use ordinary white grape varieties, ideally Rkatsiteli.
If you want to get Adjarian or Abkhazian chacha, use the cake obtained after processing the more fragrant Isabella.
Refrain from separating the resulting product into fractions
Transcaucasian masters use the double distillation method, as well as a variety of ways to purify the resulting drink.
Do not dilute chacha below 45 degrees
When wondering how to dilute chacha to 45 degrees, first of all, it should be borne in mind that this is the minimum that it is highly not recommended to break.
If you dilute chacha with water up to 40 or even 43 revolutions, the drink will lose its saturation, and besides, it will become cloudy. Based on the same considerations, it is also not recommended to increase the strength of this brandy by adding the primary product to an already diluted drink.
A few words about aging chacha
The variety of brandy we are interested in can be refined by aging in a wooden barrel or on wood chips.
At the same time, in both the first and second cases, it is necessary to use oak. It is this feature that distinguishes chacha from the Armenian Artsakh, aged in mulberry wood barrels.
Some craftsmen claim that they are able to make cognac from chacha on oak chips, but as you yourself understand, such statements are very far from the truth.
Chacha recipe at home
We’ll start by talking about how to make the most common version of Georgian pomace brandy.
List of ingredients
Grape cake and bunches – 25 kg;
Cold boiled water – 50 liters.
Method of preparation
Grape bunches are separated from branches and leaves, after which, carefully knead them. Mix the resulting mass in a fermentation tank with cake and dilute with water. Mix the resulting substance with a wooden spatula and leave in a warm, dark place under a water seal. During the fermentation period, the contents of the container should be stirred every two to three days to prevent the formation of mold.
At the end of fermentation, you need to prepare for distillation. To do this, you can strain the resulting mash, or you can leave everything as it is.
In the first case, the separated cake should be tied in gauze and hung in the upper part of the distillation cube before distillation, so that the future drink turns out to be quite fragrant.
In the second case, the bottom of the distiller should be lined with straw so that the cake does not burn during distillation.
To eliminate a specific unpleasant odor, grape mash should be subjected to double distillation.
After the first call, alcohol should be diluted with water in a ratio of 1: 1. after the second distillation – clean from fusel oils and dilute again with cold boiled water: already to the desired strength.
After bottling, brandy must stand for at least a month and a half in a cellar or refrigerator.
Recipe for chachi on tarragon
If you do not know how to soften chacha, we recommend that you insist it on tarragon. To do this, fresh washed tarragon leaves should be poured with a ready-made drink in the proportion of 100 g per 1 liter and let the liquid brew for three months. It is highly desirable that the future tincture be in an oak barrel.
At the end of the specified period, the finished drink must be filtered and bottled.
Chacha from tangerines at home
As we have already said, Transcaucasian pomace brandy is made not only from grapes, but also from local fruits. Including citrus fruits. At the same time, this recipe will be relevant for all varieties of the drink we are interested in, made from fruits with juicy pulp.
List of ingredients
Tangerine cake and peeled tangerines – 10 kg;
Cold boiled water – 5 liters.
Method of preparation
The principle of preparing a drink is similar to the method outlined in the first recipe.
Chacha from a grenade
Pomegranate distillate is most typical for Turkey, but in Georgia they also do not disdain this raw material.
List of ingredients
Pomegranate cake – 10 kg;
Peeled pomegranate seeds – 1 kg;
Cold boiled water – 20 liters.
Method of preparation
Prepare mash from cake and water according to the classic recipe.
Distill the resulting substance once. Dilute the distillate to a strength of 30 degrees, pour it with pomegranate seeds and send for 5 days in a cool dark place.
Then, overtake the tincture along with the grains, clean it, bottle it and return it to a dark, cool room to achieve full readiness for a month and a half.
Feijoa chacha recipe
This somewhat unusual drink is more typical for the Abkhaz than for the Georgian distilling practice.
List of ingredients
Feijoa cake – 10 kg;
Frozen pulp of feijoa fruits – 250 g;
Cold boiled water – 20 liters.
Method of preparation
A distinctive feature of the preparation of this type of drink, which somewhat complicates the basic recipe, is the need for additional flavoring.
For this purpose, it is recommended to use a distiller with a dry steamer, in which, before re-distillation, the frozen pulp of feijoa fruits should be placed ahead of time.
If there is no steamer in your unit, the frozen pulp can be placed in gauze and hung at the top of the distillation cube.
How to clean chacha from the smell of acetone
In order to purify Georgian pomace brandy from harmful impurities, it is best to use products of organic origin.
Unlike inorganics: potassium permanganate, activated carbon, soda, etc., products of organic origin will not adversely affect the taste and smell of the drink.
Skimmed milk
To achieve the desired result, grape alcohol diluted to a strength of 45-55 degrees is mixed with skim milk at the rate of 10 liters per 200 ml. Further, the distillate must be kept for a week in a dry, dark place, stirring it daily with a wooden spatula in the morning and evening. After a white precipitate falls on the bottom of the container, the purified product should be filtered through a gauze-cotton filter, diluted with water and bottled.
Chacha cleaning with pine nuts
To do this, 5 handfuls of shelled nuts are thrown into a five-liter container filled with brandy. Then, the drink rests for two weeks in a dark place, after which it is filtered, diluted and bottled.
If you use the aforementioned cleaning methods, your distillate will not only get rid of an unpleasant odor while maintaining its positive organoleptic qualities, but will also become much less hazardous to health.
Relevance: 25.02.2017
Tags: Brandy and Cognac, Brandy Recipes