Cranberry wine – cooking recipes

Cranberry wine, due to the high content of vitamins, organic acids, microelements, is not only tasty, but also beneficial to human health. For beginners, making a drink will be difficult. This wild berry is finicky and requires certain skills. But if you strictly follow the steps of making wine from cranberries, after a while you can enjoy a delicious drink.

It will not work to make wine using pure juice from fresh berries – you will 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 recipe for cranberry wine is considered the easiest and most delicious. The following components will be required:

• 7 L of water;
• 3 kg of sugar;
• 1 kg of cranberries.

Steps for making cranberry wine:

1. Initially, you need to prepare wine sourdough. To do this, carefully sort out the berries, selecting spoiled ones. It is the crushed and stained fruits that fall asleep 2 tbsp. sugar, insist 10 days at room temperature.
2. Now it’s time to make dessert wine. The sorted cranberries are poured into a spacious container, crushed.
3. Next, add the rest of the granulated sugar, pour in the water.
4. The first 4 hours after combining the ingredients, the product is periodically stirred, ensuring that the sugar is completely dissolved.
5. Pour the resulting mass into the finished sourdough, put on a glove on the neck, having previously made several holes. Take out to a dark warm place, leave for 30-60 days.
6. After the gas formation is over, pour the wine through a rubber tube into bottles, close tightly, leave for 3-4 months.

After that, cranberry wine is already considered fully ripe – you can drink it.

Cranberry wine without sourdough

To make delicious wine, the berries are harvested after the first frost. This is when the sugar content is highest. All fruits are carefully sorted, even the slightest stain can lead to mold on the surface of the wine. Containers for preparing a drink should be perfectly washed and wiped dry (sterilization can be carried out).

Products:

• 5 kg of cranberries;
• 5 L of water;
• 5 kg of sugar.

Steps for making this drink:

1. 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 ferment quickly. If they are washed off, then the required process will not occur.
2. Pour the resulting mass into a spacious container, pour in part of the sugar (0,5 kg), pour in water, mix.
3. Bandage the neck of the container with gauze, leave for 5 days. The ideal temperature for fermentation is 18–25 °C.
4. The first three days the wort should be regularly stirred with a wooden spatula. After 5 days, cranberry pulp will appear – it must be carefully removed.
5. Strain the wort, pour into a container for fermentation. A container with a narrow neck is suitable, such as our ancestors used to make wine. Fill it up 2/3.
6. 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.
7. Introduce another part of sugar – 2 kg.
8. The neck is closed with a rubber medical glove, after making a hole, you can use a water seal. All connections must be properly sealed.
9. Put the drink to ferment in a dark place, ambient temperature 18–25 °C.
10. 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. Install glove.
11. After another 3 days, repeat the manipulation by 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, you need to put the wine to mature further. If the drink is infused for a long time, bitterness will appear.
12. 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 the tube into another container, being careful not to touch the sediment.
13. After the drink is tasted, sugar is added. If you wish, you can fix it with vodka or alcohol. Fortified wine keeps longer, but the taste is not as mild.
14. 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 if 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 st. granulated sugar;
• 4 L of water;
• wine yeast – 1 package;
• 1 tsp pectin enzyme;
• 1 tsp yeast nutrition;
• 1 Campden tablet.

This amount of ingredients is enough to make 24 liters of cranberry wine. Stages:

1. Grind cranberries with a meat grinder, transfer to a container and pour 2 tbsp. water. Add crushed tablets, leave for 12 hours.
2. After introducing pectin enzyme, leave for 10 hours.
3. Prepare sugar syrup, cool. Next, add cranberries to the berries, add the remaining ingredients. Cover the container with gauze, leave for a week, stirring several times daily.
4. After rapid fermentation is completed, drain the wine carefully so as not to touch the sediment into a bottle with a narrow neck, install a glove or water seal.
5. In a dark place, the wine should ferment for 30-60 days. And then drain into bottles and store in a cool place for up to 6 months.

Fortified cranberry wine

The fastest way to get homemade cranberry wine is to use vodka along with wild berries. Although some housewives call this drink tincture, and its taste will be tart. To make a quick fortified wine, you will need the following ingredients:

• 1,5 kg of cranberries;
• 6 art. 96% alcohol;
• 5 st. granulated sugar;
• 6 tbsp. water.

Step-by-step preparation of homemade wine:

1. Sort the cranberries, rinse under running water, chop in a blender. Transfer the homogeneous mass into a glass container, leave for 7 days in a dark place. Wait for fermentation to start.
2. After 7 days, alcohol must be added to the berry mass, again left to infuse for a week.
   Advice! Be sure to close the container with the berry mixture tightly with a lid.
3. After two weeks, heat the water, dilute the sugar, cool, pour the syrup into the berries, mix.
4. The resulting mass must be put on fire, heated, but not allowed to boil, otherwise all the alcohol will evaporate. Further cool down.
5. Strain through several layers of cheesecloth.
6. Healthy cranberry wine is ready. Now you need to bottle it, send it to the refrigerator. You can drink after 24 hours.

How to make cranberry wine is shown in the video:

Conclusion

Cranberry wine is made from freshly picked or frozen berries. If you let it stand for six months after preparation, you can please your loved ones with a richer aromatic drink. Wine is an excellent tool that helps to normalize the processes of digestion, increases the tone of the body, activates the immune system.