Strawberries have been grown in Europe since the XNUMXth century. For several centuries, it has become one of the favorite berries of summer residents, which is eaten raw, jam and compotes are made. I will tell you how to make strawberry wine at home according to a simple recipe. After aging, you will get a delicious aromatic drink.
The main difficulty in making strawberry wine is getting the juice. Strawberries are very reluctant to give it away, so you can’t do without adding water and sugar. Another important point is that if for most fruit wines the fruits are not washed so that natural yeast remains on the skin, then the strawberries must be washed, otherwise an unpleasant earthy aftertaste will appear in the wine. For normal fermentation, add raisins.
Before working with berries, all containers should be washed with boiling water and wiped dry with a clean cloth. I do not advise using vessels in which milk was previously stored.
Ingredients:
- strawberries – 3 kg;
- sugar – 2 kg;
- water – 3 liters;
- raisins – 100 grams (optional).
Strawberry Wine Recipe
1. Remove stems and leaves from strawberries. Wash the berries thoroughly (literally to a shine), then mash with your hands or a wooden rolling pin to make a homogeneous puree, each strawberry should be crushed.
2. Heat water to 30°C, add 1 kg of sugar, stir.
3. Place the resulting strawberry pulp in a container with a wide neck – an enamel pan, a plastic bowl or a bucket. Add sugar syrup. I also advise you to throw in a handful of unwashed raisins. Mix. Raisins contain natural wine yeast that promotes fermentation. You can do without them, but then there is no guarantee that the strawberry slurry will ferment.
Fill the container no more than ¾ of the volume, otherwise the wort may overflow during fermentation.
4. Bandage the neck with gauze or cover to protect against flies, put the container for 5-7 days in a dark place with a temperature of 18-28°C. To avoid the appearance of mold and souring of the juice, I advise you to mix the must 2-3 times a day with a wooden stick or a clean hand, knocking down the pulp from the surface and drowning in the juice – the floating layer of pulp.
After a couple of hours, a maximum of a day, signs of active fermentation will appear (foaming, hissing, a slight smell of mash), which means that everything is going fine.
5. Filter the juice through gauze, squeeze the cake well (not used further).
6. Pour pure juice into a fermentation tank, add 500 grams of sugar, mix. There should be at least 25% free space for new portions of sugar and foam.
To seal and remove carbon dioxide, install a water seal of any design, you can put on a medical glove with a hole in your finger (pierce with a needle).
7. Move the container to a dark warm (18-28°C) place. After 5 days, add 250 grams of sugar. To do this, drain separately 200 ml of must, dilute sugar in it, then add the resulting syrup to wine and close with a water seal. After another 5 days, repeat the procedure according to the described technology, adding the remaining sugar – 250 grams.
8. After 30-60 days, fermentation will end: the water seal will stop bubbling, sediment will appear at the bottom of the tank, the must will brighten.
Attention! If fermentation lasts longer than 50 days, so that bitterness does not appear, the wine must be carefully drained from the sediment and again put under a water seal to ferment.
Drain the fermented young strawberry wine from the sediment through a thin tube, for example, from a dropper. Taste, if desired, add more sugar for sweetness or fix with vodka (alcohol) in an amount of 2-15% of the volume. Fortification makes the taste harsher, and the smell is not so refined, but contributes to the preservation of the wine.
It is advisable to fill the containers for storing the drink to the top so that there is no contact with oxygen, and close it hermetically. If sugar was added at the previous stage, it is better to leave a water seal during the first 7-10 days of aging.
9. Move the wine to a cellar or refrigerator with a temperature of 5-16°C for maturation. Aging homemade strawberry wine for at least 65 days, preferably 90-100 days, then the taste will noticeably improve.
As sediment accumulates at the bottom with a thickness of 2-5 cm (at first every 20-30 days, then less often), filter by pouring into another container. The wine is considered ready if the sediment no longer appears, then the drink can be bottled and corked.
The result is homemade strawberry wine with a strength of 10-12%. When stored in a refrigerator or cellar, the shelf life is up to 2 years. Yield – 60-70% of the initial volume of the wort.
