Homemade cherry wine

Due to the ubiquitous availability of cherries, cherries are often used in amateur winemaking, and very successfully. I will tell you how to make cherry wine at home using the right technology. The recipe is very simple, and the resulting drink will delight you with excellent taste for a whole year. Rare ingredients are not required for cooking, as long as there is a sufficient amount of fruits.

Dark sour cherries are ideal, but if this variety is not available, take any ripe berries. First, they need to be carefully sorted out, removing spoiled, rotten and moldy. Even one bad berry can spoil the whole wine. The containers should be washed with boiling water and wiped with a dry, clean cloth.

The pits of cherries contain a lot of tannins, so only pulp and juice are needed for the recipe. But lovers of a light tart taste can crush a few seeds and add them to the must (cherry juice before fermentation) in the second stage.

Ingredients:

ripe cherries – 3 kg;
water – 4 liters;
sugar – 1,5 kg.

Attention! For normal fermentation, it is advisable not to wash the cherries so as not to remove wild yeast from the skin.

cherry wine recipe

1. Sort the berries, remove the stalks. Squeeze out the bones, trying not to splash the juice, it should remain in the same container as the pulp.

2. Heat water to 25-29°C (not higher, so as not to kill the yeast) and pour over the processed cherries. Add 500 grams of sugar. Mix. Tie the neck of the container with gauze (to protect against flies), then put the wort for 3-4 days in a dark, warm place (18-27 ° C).

After a day (often earlier), signs of fermentation should appear: hissing, foam, sour smell. This means that everything is going well. It is necessary to mix the wort 2-3 times a day with a clean wooden stick or hand, drowning in the juice the pulp that has floated to the surface – a “cap” of particles of skin and pulp.

3. Strain the juice through cheesecloth or a fine strainer to filter out any remaining cherries. Press the cake well, it is no longer needed.

4. Add 0,5 kg of sugar to the future cherry wine. Stir until dissolved.

5. Pour the juice into a fermentation container. Fill to a maximum of 75% of the volume to leave room for foam, carbon dioxide and fresh sugar. Install a water seal or a glove with a hole in the finger (pierce with a needle). Leave the vessel in a dark, warm (18-25 °C) room.

After 4-5 days, add the next portion of sugar (250 grams): remove the water seal, pour 150-200 ml of juice into another container, dilute sugar in it, pour the resulting syrup back and close it again with a water seal. After another 5 days, add the remaining sugar (250 grams) according to the described technology.

Depending on temperature and yeast activity, homemade cherry wine fermentation lasts 25-60 days.

If the process lasts longer than 55 days, the wine must be carefully drained from the sediment through a straw into another container, then put under a water seal to ferment, otherwise a bitter aftertaste may appear.

6. After the end of fermentation (the drink has become lighter, the water seal does not blow bubbles for several days or the glove has deflated, sediment has appeared at the bottom), drain the wine from the cherries through a straw without touching the sediment.

To taste. If desired, sweeten with sugar or fix with vodka (alcohol) in an amount of 2-15% by volume. The addition of hard liquor aids storage, but changes the aroma and makes the taste harsher.

Fill the storage container with wine, preferably up to the neck, so that there is no contact with oxygen. Close hermetically.

7. Transfer the vessel to a dark room with a temperature of 6-16°C and leave for 6-12 months for maturation, which will significantly improve the taste.

As sediment accumulates (2-4 cm), first every 15-20 days, then less often filter the wine by pouring (always through a straw). The finished drink can be bottled and tightly corked.

The output is cherry wine with a strength of 11-13%. The shelf life in the refrigerator or basement is 5-6 years.