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Winemaking is an exciting pastime. It has more than one millennium. Initially, wine was made from grapes. The vast majority of wine sold is still made from it.
Grapes can not grow everywhere. To make good quality wines, technical varieties with high sugar accumulation are needed. Not everyone has the opportunity to plant and grow them. But the berries and fruits familiar to us grow in almost every garden.
Criteria for the suitability of raw materials for winemaking
In order for the wine to ferment well, the correct percentage of sugar and acid in the must is important. In practice, almost all berries and fruits make it possible to make wine from them at home. But the quality will be different. The most delicious wine is obtained from gooseberries, dark and light plums, white and red currants, dark-colored cherries. Quite suitable for this and sea buckthorn.
Unripe berries, as well as overripe ones, will not produce high quality wines.
Wines are divided into foamy or sparkling, in which there is a lot of carbon dioxide, and still: dry, semi-dry and semi-sweet. The amount of sugar in such wine ranges from 0,3 g/l to 8 g/l.
You can make any still wine from sea buckthorn.
Characteristics of sea buckthorn wine
- Bright yellow or fiery orange.
- Intense taste, there is a slight astringency.
- It has a delicate aroma, in which honey and pineapple notes are clearly felt.
It is best to make dessert-type wines from sea buckthorn with sufficient sugar content, but other types of wine are obtained from this healthy berry quite worthy.
To make sea buckthorn wine at home, you need to choose and prepare the berries correctly.
Preparation of raw materials
- The berries are picked fully ripe. Overripe is not allowed. In overripe berries, the oil content increases. This is good for medicinal use, but the taste of the wine is negatively affected. Fatty components envelop the yeast and slow down fermentation.
- Since the fermentation process is due to the yeast contained on the surface of the berries, they cannot be washed. Therefore, it is better to collect sea buckthorn in the early morning. Berries washed with dew will be clean. Contaminated berries can be wiped well with a dry cloth.
- We sort out the collected berries to free them from debris. We throw out all rotten and damaged mercilessly. Even one low-quality berry can spoil the entire batch of wine. You can store sea buckthorn for no more than a day, but it is better to use it immediately after collection.
- We knead the berries in a wide basin or pan. You can do this with a blender or use a wooden pestle.
There are different ways to make sea buckthorn wine. They differ in the amount of added sugar and cooking technology. For beginner winemakers, the simplest recipe for sea buckthorn wine is suitable; it is easy to make it even at home.
Sea buckthorn wine – a simple recipe
It can be prepared from 15 kg of berries, 5 kg of sugar and a liter of water.
The gruel obtained after crushing the berries is filtered. For this, a simple gauze is suitable. Add water. After half an hour, the process is repeated to get rid of the remaining thick. Now you need to dissolve the sugar in it and decompose the resulting wort into a glass dish with a wide neck.
In the process of oxidation, salts are formed that can not only spoil the wine, but also harm health.
The first days of the fermentation process is rapid with the formation of a foam cap. It must be removed. The wort is stirred several times a day.
If the collected foam is removed in the freezer, it will make excellent nougat.
After 3-4 days, a special shutter must be put on the bottles, which will not let oxygen through to the future wine, but will make it possible for the released gases to escape.
If there is no such device, an ordinary rubber glove worn on the neck will do.
In her fingers, holes will have to be pierced for the release of gases. For successful fermentation, the temperature in the room must be constant and range from 17 to 25 degrees. Future wine cannot be kept in the light. Once a day, the glove is removed for a couple of minutes so that the gases come out faster. A month later, the wine is removed to a cooler room, in which it is necessary to maintain about 15 degrees, but not less than 10. After another month, it is carefully drained from the sediment and bottled. Such a young wine is already drinkable. But it will become tastier after ripening for about 4 months. The temperature for this should be from 6 to 10 degrees Celsius.
Homemade sea buckthorn wine prepared according to the following recipe has a different ratio of juice, water and sugar. It turns out to be a dessert type and is similar to pineapple liqueur.
Dessert wine from sea buckthorn
For 10 kg of berries you need 4 kg of sugar and 7 liters of water.
The initial stage is no different from that given in the previous recipe. Strained juice is mixed with water and after the secondary straining, we dissolve sugar in it. After a day of rapid fermentation, we put gloves on the bottles or put a water seal.
Wine needs to ferment in a warm room for 1 to 2 months. To determine the timing of fermentation, we more precisely observe the glove. When the amount of gases decreases, it no longer stands above the bottle, but falls. If we use a water seal, a decrease in the number of bubbles serves as a signal for the end of fermentation. There should be no more than 30 per minute. In this case, the wort is clarified, and sediment appears at the bottom of the dish. We don’t need him. Therefore, we carefully decant the wine with a rubber or plastic tube into bottles. Dessert wine matures for about 6 months. After that, the prepared drink can be served on the table.
This simple sea buckthorn wine recipe is for those who don’t want to wait for it to mature. It’s ready in two months.
Instant sea buckthorn wine
For every kilogram of berries, 1/2 kg of sugar and the same amount of water will be required.
Mix crushed berries with water, strain and dissolve sugar in the wort. After 24 hours of fermentation, close the neck of the bottle with a glove or water seal. After the end of fermentation, the wine drained from the sediment should mature a little in a dark and cool place. After that, you can taste it.
Wines made from sea buckthorn are distinguished not only by their excellent taste, but also retain all the healing properties of this unique berry, since they are not subjected to heat treatment.