Oranges began to be cultivated in China 4,5 thousand years ago. They were brought to Europe by Portuguese navigators in the XNUMXth century. Since then, these citrus fruits have never gone out of style. Next, you will learn how to make orange wine at home. It turns out a delicious original drink of a yellowish color.
To make wine from oranges, you can take fruits of any variety. The main thing is that they are ripe, juicy and not spoiled (without mold and rotten parts). Due to the high acidity and lack of wild yeast, oranges require a special approach, so I advise you to follow the recipe exactly.
Ingredients:
- oranges – 8-10 kg;
- sugar – 150 grams per liter of juice;
- water – 30 ml per liter of juice.
orange wine recipe
1. Make wine sourdough according to one of the recipes. By itself, orange juice may not ferment because there is no wild yeast on the fruit. Adding starter ensures normal fermentation. An alternative option is to add wine yeast, which is sold in many stores.
2. After the starter is ready, wash the oranges thoroughly, peel and squeeze the juice using any available method.
3. Mix the resulting orange juice, pomace and water in a container with a wide neck. Add sugar (75 grams / liter of juice) and sourdough (wine yeast). Then mix well, bandage the neck with gauze and put the container in a dark place with a temperature of 18-25 ° C. Stir the wort once a day with a wooden stick or a clean hand.
4. After 3-4 days, foam will appear on the surface, a sour smell, and the pomace will float to the top. This means that the fermentation has successfully begun and you can proceed to the next stage.
5. Strain the wort through 2-3 layers of gauze. Squeeze the pulp (hard part) through cheesecloth to squeeze out all the remaining juice. The pulp is no longer used in the preparation of orange wine.
6. Add another portion of sugar (25 grams per liter) to the juice, mix and pour into a fermentation tank.
7. Install a water seal of any design. Transfer the bottle to a dark warm (18-25°C) room for active fermentation.
8. After 3 days, add the next 25 grams of sugar per liter of juice. To do this, open the water seal, drain 1 liter of juice, dissolve sugar in it. Pour the resulting syrup back into the bottle and close the water seal.
9. After another 3 days, add the last portion of sugar (25 grams / liter) according to the technology described in the previous step.
10. After 45-60 days from the date of installation of the water seal, fermentation will stop (the wine will brighten, sediment will form at the bottom, the shutter will stop bubbling). It’s time to drain the wine from the sediment through a thin tube into another clean container. It is very important not to touch the sediment at the bottom so that the drink does not become cloudy.
Young orange wine is sharp in taste and gives a little mash, but this sharpness will disappear during aging.
11. Close the container with wine tightly (or install a water seal) and transfer it to a dark room with a temperature of 10-16 ° C, for example, in a refrigerator or cellar. After 1-2 months of exposure, drain from the sediment and hold for another 2-4 months. The transfusion removes the sharpness of the taste.
12. Drain the wine again from the sediment, pour into bottles and seal tightly with corks. Store in refrigerator or basement. The taste only gets better with time. Shelf life – up to 3 years. The result is approximately 3 liters of dry homemade orange wine with a delicate original taste and a yellow transparent color.
PS Thanks for the recipe to user Alexander M., who tested it in practice and shared photos of the finished wine.