To make wine, you need ripe white currants of any variety, but the berries do not always ripen evenly, and green fruits may still remain on the clusters. To solve this problem, it is enough to spread the collected berries in the sun and leave for 2-3 days. Rotten or moldy currants should be avoided. All containers used must be perfectly clean, I advise sterilization with boiling water.
Remove leaves and twigs, otherwise the wine will have an unpleasant tart aftertaste. It is better not to wash the berries so that wild yeast remains on them, thanks to which the must will ferment.
Ingredients:
- white currant berries – 2 kg;
- water – 3 liters;
- sugar – 1 kg.
whitecurrant wine recipe
1. Crush unwashed berries, peeled from stalks, leaves and twigs with your hands or a wooden rolling pin.
2. Add 1 liter of water and 400 grams of sugar, mix well.
3. Bandage the neck of the container with gauze, then place in a dark place with a temperature of 18-25°C. Stir with your hands every 9-12 hours, drowning the floating pulp in the juice.
4. After 1-2 days, signs of fermentation will appear: hissing, foam and a slight sour smell. It’s time to strain the juice through a couple of layers of gauze and squeeze it well with your hands.
5. Pour the juice into a fermentation tank.
6. Heat the remaining 2 liters of water to 70-90°C, add to the pomace, mix.
7. Cool the mixture to room temperature, then squeeze through gauze. Mix the liquid part with the juice obtained in the 5th step. Squeezes are no longer needed.
8. Install a water seal or a medical glove with a small hole in one of the fingers on a container filled with a maximum of 75%. Check the tightness of the connections, air must not get inside. Transfer the container to a warm (18-25°C) dark place.
9. After 4 days, remove the water seal, drain 0,5 liters of must, dissolve 300 grams of sugar in it. Pour the resulting syrup back and reinstall the water seal.
10. After another 4 days, add the remaining sugar (300 grams) according to the technology described in the previous paragraph.
11. Fermentation lasts 25-60 days, its completion is evidenced by the cessation of gas release from the water seal (deflated glove), a layer of sediment at the bottom and clarification of the wine. Drain young currant wine into another clean container through a tube, for example, from a dropper, without touching the sediment.
If fermentation does not stop after 50 days from the start of preparation, so that bitterness does not appear, you need to pour the wine into another container without sediment and leave it to ferment under a water lock.
12. Taste the drink, if desired, add sugar to taste or fix with alcohol vodka 2-15% of the volume. Fill the storage container to the top (recommended to avoid contact with oxygen), close it hermetically (put under a water seal) and place for 60-120 days in a refrigerator or cellar with a temperature of 5-16°C.
13. Every 20-30 days, when a sediment appears in a layer of 2-5 cm, drain the wine through a straw into another container, without touching the sediment.
14. After aging, pour the finished homemade whitecurrant wine into bottles for storage and seal it tightly with corks. It turns out a drink of a golden hue with a light pleasant taste, reminiscent of some varieties of white grape wines. When stored in a refrigerator or cellar, the shelf life is 3-5 years. Fortress – 11-12%.
