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Everyone drinks vodka with orange juice, or you can make delicious orange wine. Find out how
Dandelion wine is the talk of die-hard teetotalers (thank you, Bradbury!), but what about orange wine?
I want to tell you about my recipe for this wonderful aperitif – who knows, maybe one of the readers will try, be inspired and write a new bestseller?
The story was shared by my subscriber Nikita.
What you need for cooking
In general, nothing super complicated, everything can be bought at the nearest store.
- 8-10 kilograms of fresh oranges;
- 150 grams of refined sugar per liter of juice (about two and a half kilograms of citrus fruits);
clean drinking water;
- wine yeast;
- containers for storing orange must – a five-liter jar will do for our volumes;
medical gloves – budgetary water seal;
- 10-20 grams of dextrose – for dessert wine.
The cooking process
1) First you need to wash our oranges and peel them – it still does not contain the yeast necessary for fermentation (which is the trick of making orange wine!)
2) Next, squeeze the juice from the peeled fruits. From eight kilograms comes out from three to four liters of juice.
3) In a vessel, mix the juice with water (100 ml per liter of juice) and orange pomace. Add 75 grams of sugar and 10-20 grams of yeast (25-30 grams if you are going to make dessert orange wine) for each liter of juice.
4) Mix everything thoroughly. Then we cover our jar with a medical glove, making a hole in one of the fingers, and put it in a dark place with a temperature not higher than 25 degrees. Stir the wort daily with a wooden stick.
5) After 3-4 days, orange pomace will float to the top, and the must itself will acquire a sour smell – fermentation has begun! Now we need to strain our already almost wine from the pulp. We filter it through three layers of gauze.
6) Add another 25 grams of sugar / liter of juice to the wort, mix and leave in the same place without access to light and at room temperature.
7) After three days, add a new portion of 25 g/l, repeating the previous step.
8) After another three days, add the last 25 grams to the wort. A long fermentation phase begins.
9) This stage lasts from 45 to 60 days, its completion will be reported to us by the sediment at the bottom and the clarification of the wort.
10) The most important moment of home winemaking comes: it is necessary to drain the resulting wine into another container without touching the sediment (unless, of course, we want to spoil the taste of the wine). Pour with a siphon or a thin tube.
11) For a dessert variation, dextrose will need to be added to our freshly obtained wine.
12) Bottled, stored in the refrigerator or basement. Shelf life – three years!
What will be the result
What is the result? Orange-colored liquid with a delicate, unobtrusive aroma and a bright citrus aftertaste. The strength of the non-dextrose version is 10-12 degrees, the dessert version is at least fifteen.
The shades are different, from dark orange to light yellow, everything will depend on how carefully you salt the sediment, how long you keep the wine in a dark place.
Remember that when brewing wine in direct sunlight, the shade can change dramatically, as well as the quality of the drink!
The smell always remains bright, sweet enough, but in the wine itself, if you cook without adding additional sugar, there is not much sweetness, rather, there is a slight acidity characteristic of citruses.
How to serve and with what to use
Orange wine is served cold. It goes well with pork and seafood, it is often served with meat, in my experience it goes well with dinner – it is quite light and does not hit your head like other alcohol, and a light aftertaste does not interfere with enjoying the tastes of dishes.
When serving wine, a slice of fruit (for example, an orange) or a sprig of mint is lowered into it. You can add an ice cube to cool it down, but don’t overdo it – the water can severely weaken the drink.
Sometimes the rims of the glass are rubbed with mint or lemon, as this trick adds a subtle aroma and a subtle aftertaste that surprises with its unexpectedness, but does not last long enough to significantly change the taste.
How much money will we spend on production
One three-liter jar of orange wine in monetary terms takes:
- 8 kilograms of oranges – 800 rubles;
- Briquette 500 grams of refined sugar – 27,50 rubles;
- Wine yeast 2-4 packs of 8 g each – from 340 to 600 rubles;
- Dextrose 1 kg – 150 rubles *
Total: 1150-1450 rubles / 3 liters of wine (400-500 rubles / liter)
Do you know of any detail that can be added to a fruit wine to bring out its merits? Share in the comments!