The yeast that lives on the surface of grapes and ferments wine is fungus. (Class Ascomycetes, family Saccharomycetes.)
The most well-known alcoholic fermentation process for yeasts has been the reason for their widespread practical use since ancient times. In ancient Egypt, in ancient Babylon, the technique of brewing was developed. The first to discover a causal relationship between fermentation and yeast was the founder of microbiology, L. Pasteur. He proposed a sterilization method for preserving wine by heating at t° 50-60°C. Subsequently, this technique, called pasteurization, has become widely used in various sectors of the food industry.
So the recipe:
- Harvest grapes in dry weather. Do not wash under any circumstances. If some bunches are dirty, do not use them.
- Take a stainless steel or enamel pan. Iron, copper and aluminum utensils are unsuitable.
- Pick the grapes from the bunches and crush each berry with your hands. Berries that are rotten, moldy and unripe should be discarded.
- Fill the pot 2/3 full. Add sugar: for 10 liters – 400 g, and if the grapes are sour, then up to 1 kg. Mix and close the lid.
- Put in a warm place (22-25 ° C – this is important!) For 6 days for fermentation.
- Every day, be sure to stir 2-3 times with a scoop.
- After 6 days, separate the juice from the berries – strain through a stainless steel sieve or through a nylon mesh. Do not throw away the berries (see below).
- Add sugar to the juice: for 10 liters – 200-500 g.
- Pour the juice into 10-liter glass jars, filling them 3/4 full.
- Close the jars with a medical rubber glove, puncturing one finger in it. Tie the glove tightly on the jar.
- Put on fermentation for 3-4 weeks. (The temperature is the same – 22-25 ° C). Direct sunlight is undesirable.
- The glove must be inflated. If it has fallen, you need to add sugar. (You can remove the foam, pour some of the juice into another bowl, add sugar, mix, pour back).
- After 3-4 weeks, the wine must be removed from the sediment. To do this, take a transparent food tube 2 m long, immerse it shallowly in a jar of wine standing on the table, draw wine from the opposite end of the tube with your mouth, and when the wine starts to flow, lower the tube into an empty jar standing on the floor.
- You need to fill the jars to the top (0,5-1 cm to the edge), put on a nylon lid, put a glove on top and tie it. Lower the temperature to 15-20°C.
- Within a month, you can remove from the sediment several times. Banks must be filled to the top!
- After that, you can add sugar to taste and store the wine in the cellar, pouring it into 3-liter jars and rolling them up with iron lids for tightness.
- You can drink wine after 3 months, and preferably after a year. Before drinking, the wine must be removed from the sediment (there will always be sediment, no matter how many years the wine has been stored), pour into 1-liter jars to the top, two – roll up, and leave one for consumption (if less than half remains in the jar, pour into a half-liter ; you need to have less air in the jar than wine). Keep refrigerated.
- This is the recipe for the “first” wine made from grape juice. From the remaining grapes (cake) you can make a “second” wine: add water (boiled), sugar or jam (good, not spoiled), or berries that are in the fall: viburnum, or sea buckthorn, or chokeberry, ground on a combine, or hawthorn (ground hawthorn with water – there is little moisture in it), or boiled (required) elderberry trees (herbaceous elderberry is poisonous), or frozen pitted blackthorn, or raw currants, raspberries, strawberries with sugar, or chopped quince, apples, pears etc. All supplements should be at room temperature. It is necessary that there is enough acid, otherwise the wine will ferment poorly (for example, add viburnum, or currant, or sea buckthorn to mountain ash, hawthorn, elderberry). The whole process is repeated in the same way as in the preparation of the “first” wine. (If it ferments very rapidly, you can lower the temperature to 20-22 ° C).
To make wine you will need 6 days within 2-2,5 months:
1. 1st day – to collect grapes.
2. 2nd day – crush the grapes.
3. ~7-8th day – separate the juice from the berries, put the “first” wine on fermentation in 10-liter jars, add the ingredients to the “second” wine.
4. ~ 13-14th day – separate the “second” wine from the pomace and put it on fermentation in 10-liter jars.
5. ~35-40th day – remove the “first” and “second” wine from the sediment (10-liter jars are full).
6. ~ 60-70th day – remove the “first” and “second” wine from the sediment, pour into 3-liter jars and put in the cellar.