Recipe for chacha from wine at home

Probably, everyone who has visited the Transcaucasus at least once has heard of chacha – a strong alcoholic drink, which the locals revere as a longevity drink and use as an aperitif before meals in small quantities. Traditional chacha has a high strength from 50 to 70 degrees, but it is drunk quite easily and, as a rule, there are no consequences in the form of a headache. There are several analogues of this drink in the world: the Italians have grappa, the Slavic peoples have brandy.

But, for some reason, it is around chacha that disputes about what it should be prepared from do not subside: from the grapes themselves and wine or from grape pomace left after making wine. The thing is that both methods of making chacha are widespread and, of course, in the Transcaucasus itself, where grapes grow in abundance, perhaps the method of making chacha from grapes itself remains traditional. But, for example, in Our Country, where grapes are a more valuable raw material, especially in areas north of the Krasnodar Territory, grapes are usually used for making wine, and chacha is made from grape pomace.

The article will consider both methods of producing chacha at home. Moreover, experts believe that they do not differ much from each other in terms of the final product.

Chacha from grapes

The simplest recipe for making chacha is to use ready-made wine and distill it in a moonshine still. To do this, it is better to take still very young homemade wine, not specially processed in any way. Store-bought wines are not the best choice in this situation, as they contain harmful impurities, such as sodium sulfate, used as a preservative, which give an unpleasant odor to the finished product.

Distillation Technology

The distillation technology itself is not very complicated. First, the prepared wine is freed from sediment, if any, and poured into a cube for distillation. The first distillation is carried out without separation into fractions.

But finish the selection when the strength of the jet at the exit begins to fall below 30-25 degrees. After adding water, bring the strength of the resulting drink to 20 degrees. Then, to preserve the aroma, do not use any additional purification methods, but simply distill the distillate a second time.

Re-distillation is one of the most effective ways to clean moonshine. After all, it makes it possible to remove most of the harmful water-soluble fractions. It is for these purposes that moonshine is diluted with water before the second distillation.

In addition, repeated distillation makes it possible to get rid of harmful substances whose boiling point is lower than ethyl alcohol – they are called “heads”. As well as those substances whose boiling point is higher – they are called “tails”.

First, it is imperative to cut off the “heads”, which contain the most harmful impurities for human health. As a rule, they make up about 13-15% of the amount of absolute alcohol obtained after the first distillation. For example, from 3 liters of distillate with a strength of 43%, they will be approximately 0,19 liters.

Then collect the main fraction in a separate bowl until the strength of the jet at the outlet drops to 40 degrees. The remaining “tails” are best collected separately, since they can still be used for a new distillation, but they contain substances that make the head split in the morning.

The resulting chacha is best left to stand for a few more days before drinking. If you are interested in the yield of the finished product, then from 1 liter of wine with a strength of 14%, you can get about 200 – 220 ml of grape chacha at home.

The process of making wine from grapes for chacha

If you have enough grapes, then the best option would be to make wine from it with your own hands, which is then used to make chacha.

According to the recipe, prepare 25 kg of grapes, 50 liters of water and 10 kg of sugar. The last ingredient is optional. But, when choosing whether or not to add sugar, consider the following calculations:

• Even when using sweet grapes with a sugar content of about 20%, about 25-5 liters of homemade chacha are obtained from 6 kg of grapes.
• If you add the amount of sugar prescribed by the recipe, then the output is already about 16 liters of chacha.

The grape variety can be any, but Isabella is considered the most affordable and suitable, whose inimitable aroma cannot be confused with any other grape.

But you don’t need to add yeast. Real Caucasian chacha is distinguished precisely by the fact that only wild yeast is used in its manufacture, which lives in abundance on the berries themselves, unless they are washed.

So, knead all unwashed grapes with your hands. You can use a wooden pusher, but be careful, because if the stones are damaged, the drink may become bitter. Do not remove the scallops and twigs, because it is in them that the secret of the amazing aroma and unique taste of chacha is hidden. Then place the crushed grapes in a fermentation container, add water and sugar, mix. About 15% of the empty space must remain in the tank for the release of foam and gases during fermentation.

Place the container in a warm place with a temperature of +22°+28°C. From the first day on the surface of the mash, a cap of pulp will appear, which must be mixed almost every day with the rest of the liquid. This must be done to avoid souring and mold. A water seal is placed on the container or a glove is put on. Fermentation with wild yeast lasts quite a long time – 40-60 days, sometimes up to 90. The signal for the end of the fermentation process is a fallen glove or the cessation of gurgling in the water seal.

The finished mash must be drained from the sediment and additionally filtered through several layers of gauze. But all the pulp left in the gauze is able to give the chacha its unusual properties. To use these properties of the pulp, there is one little trick.

Drain the strained mash into a moonshine cube, and hang the remaining pulp directly in cheesecloth on top of the cube, so that all aromatic substances can get directly into the distillate during evaporation and distillation.

In the future, the distillation technology is no different from the one described above. According to this recipe, you can get a real Caucasian fragrant and healing chacha as a result.

Chacha from grape pomace

For residents of central Our Country, and even more so the northern regions, preparing chacha from grapes or even wine will be an unaffordable luxury. Even if you have your own grapes growing on your site or you have the opportunity to buy a large amount of Isabella in the fall, it is wiser to use it to make homemade wine. But the waste from the production of wine, that is, the same pomace, is quite suitable for obtaining fragrant homemade chacha.

So, according to the recipe you will need:

• 10 liters of grape pomace from white grapes and 20 liters of grape pomace if you use black varieties;
• 5 kg of sugar;
• 30 liters of water.

If you want to get the taste of a real Caucasian drink, then it is not recommended to use additional yeast. But if it is more important for you to get chacha as quickly as possible, then 10 grams of dry yeast can be added to the ingredients of the recipe.

So, put the pomace from the grapes into a fermentation tank, add water and sugar there and mix everything thoroughly with each other.

Place the container, as in the case of grapes, in a warm place and after 18 hours put a water seal or put on a glove on top. When wine yeast is added, the fermentation process will end quite quickly – after 8-10 days the mash will be ready for distillation. Do not forget only during the fermentation process to remove the lid every day and mix the pulp with the rest of the liquid, otherwise mold may well appear.

The finished mash must be drained from the remainder and filtered before pouring into a moonshine cube. In the future, proceed exactly according to the distillation technology described above. Ready chacha before use, as a rule, is allowed to brew for about a month.

There is another folk way to improve the taste of chacha. It is left in open bottles for 4-5 days. During this time, its strength drops by several degrees, but the smell of alcohol disappears, and the taste of chacha becomes softer.

The article revealed almost all the secrets and features of making real Caucasian chacha. Therefore, even a beginner in moonshine brewing will not be difficult to understand all the nuances of this exciting process and make a unique drink for himself and his friends.