Wine made from green walnuts is remembered for its rich black color, characteristic nutty aroma and tart taste with well-perceived tannic notes, reminiscent of aging in barrels.
For cooking, you need young walnuts that have not yet formed a hard shell (can be pierced with a needle and relatively easy to cut with a knife), but which have already appeared grains (white and very soft). If harvested too early, the drink will turn out to be watery; if it is too late, it will be too tannic.
To prevent contamination of wine with mold and other pathogenic microorganisms, all used containers and tools must be sterilized with boiling water and wiped dry with a clean, dry cloth. Handle the must only with well-washed hands.
Ingredients:
- green walnuts – 50 pieces;
- water – 15 liters;
- sugar – 3 kg (plus to taste);
- wine yeast or sourdough – per 20 liters of must.
Attention! You can not add ordinary bakery pressed or dry yeast, otherwise, instead of wine, you will get mash with characteristic alcohol tones.
walnut wine recipe
1. Wash the nuts, cut each into 6 parts, then put the slices in a deep enameled pan or bucket. Work with green nuts only with gloves, otherwise your hands will turn into hard-to-wash nut juice.
2. Add 1 kg of sugar (one third) and all the water to the nuts. Stir until sugar dissolves, then add wine yeast or sourdough.
3. Cover the mouth of the container with gauze or cloth to protect against insects. Transfer to a dark place at room temperature. Leave for 4 days. Every 8-12 hours, stir the wort with your hand or a wooden stick, drowning the particles of nuts that have floated to the surface. Without stirring, the wort can turn sour.
In a normal situation, signs of fermentation (foam, hiss, slight sour smell) should appear after 4-18 hours.
4. After 4 days, strain the wort through 2-3 layers of gauze. The nut pulp is well squeezed out, it is no longer needed.
5. Add the second portion of sugar to the liquid part – 1 kg (third). Mix.
6. Pour the wort into a fermentation tank. Fill to a maximum of 75-80% to leave room for another serving of sugar, foam and carbon dioxide. Install a water seal on the neck, you can use a clean medical glove, in one of the fingers of which make a puncture with a needle. The main thing is to hermetically fix the glove on the neck.
7. Transfer the container with the future nut wine to a dark room (or cover with a thick cloth) with a stable temperature of 18-25 °C.
8. After 5 days from the date of installation of the water seal, add the remaining sugar – 1 kg. To do this, pour 250-300 ml of fermenting wort into a separate container, dilute sugar in it, then pour the resulting syrup back and close it with a water seal.
The fermentation period of homemade walnut wine is 40-55 days. The end of the process is indicated by the absence of bubbles from the water seal (deflated glove), a layer of sediment at the bottom and a noticeable clarification of the wine.
Attention! If fermentation does not stop after 50 days from the date of installation of the water seal, in order to avoid strong bitterness, the wine must be drained from the sediment into another container and allowed to ferment at the same temperature (under a water seal or a glove).
9. Pour the fermented young wine from green walnuts through a straw into another container, trying not to touch the sediment at the bottom. Taste a drink (it will be a little sharp, exposure is required). Sweeten with sugar to taste. If desired, fix with vodka or alcohol – 2-15% of the volume. Fortified wine keeps better, but is tougher.
10. Pour the drink into holding containers, trying to fill them up to the neck so that there is no contact with oxygen. Close hermetically. If sugar was added at the previous stage, it is better to keep the first 7-10 days under a water seal in case of repeated fermentation.
11. Move the vessels with wine to a dark room with a temperature of +2-16 °C (cellar or refrigerator). Leave for at least 5-7 months for aging, which will noticeably round out the taste.
When a precipitate appears with a layer of 2-4 cm, filter the drink by pouring it through a straw.
12. Walnut wine is considered ready if the sediment does not appear for several months, then it can be bottled for storage and hermetically sealed.
If stored in a refrigerator or cellar, the shelf life of green walnut wine is up to 3 years. Fortress – 9-12% vol.
