The best ways to make fortified wine at home
Many novice winemakers do not know why they are engaged in fixing a wine drink. Experts recommend doing this, since homemade wine contains a low percentage of alcohol, which makes it rather weak. This will cause the drink to quickly lose its aroma and taste. Therefore, it is recommended to familiarize yourself in advance with the preparation of fortified wine from grapes at home.
What is it for?
Before you start fixing, you need to familiarize yourself with what this procedure is for.
There are several main reasons that you need to familiarize yourself with in advance:
- Early stop of fermentation. Fastening is done to stop fermentation. This is done to preserve the taste of the wort for a long time.
- Acceleration of clarification. The fortified drink is clarified on its own without additional use of clay or gelatin.
- Prevention of re-fermentation. Sometimes wine drinks are re-fermented, resulting in a deterioration in their taste. Therefore, it is recommended to fasten it so that it does not ferment again in the future.
- Increase storage time. Bonding is done so that the prepared drink does not spoil for a long time.
How to fix wine at home?
There are five common ways to fix a homemade wine drink.
Vodka or alcohol
Most often, young wine is held together with ordinary vodka or alcoholic liquid. Alcoholization is carried out using the following ingredients:
- a pound of granulated sugar;
- five kilograms of grapes;
- liter of alcohol.
Sometimes it is necessary to add more sugar. However, in this case, it is necessary to strictly observe the proportions so that more than one hundred grams of sugar is not used per liter of liquid.
First, the grape berries are kneaded with your hands, after which they are moved into a saucepan and left to infuse for 3-4 days. Then sugar is added to the mixture, the mixture is poured into jars, covered with a water seal and infused for half a month.
When fermentation stops, add alcohol to the mixture. The alcoholic liquid is filtered and left in a cold room for three weeks.
Sugar
Some people do not want to add alcohol to the wine drink and therefore use other fixing methods. You can strengthen wine not only with alcohol or vodka. To do this, you can also use ordinary sugar, which everyone has.
Before starting the procedure, you need to make a calculation and determine the exact amount of granulated sugar. Experts recommend adding 100 grams of sugar to each liter of wort.This is enough to increase the strength of the drink by five percent. However, do not add too much, as this will stop fermentation and deteriorate the taste of the drink. If dessert wines are held together, sugar dissolves directly in the wine liquid. At the same time, it is added gradually, every 2-3 for a week.
Freezing
To increase the degree of alcoholic beverage, it is recommended to use the freezing method. This method is based on the difference between the wine alcohol and water molecules that are part of the drink. The fact is that water molecules crystallize, but alcohol ones do not. This leads to the fact that after freezing the strength of the liquid increases significantly.
To hold the wine together, you need to put the bottles of liquid in the freezer for 5-6 hours. All the water in the containers will freeze, and the alcohol will remain in a liquid state. After that, it is poured into separate bottles. The remaining ice can be left and used to add to the tea. It should be noted that the sealed drink is several times less than it was originally. 6-8 liters of wine comes out of 15 liters.
Pasteurization
To increase the strength of the drink, it is recommended to perform the so-called pasteurization. When performing this procedure, the liquid is heated to sixty degrees. In this case, the process should last for an hour. You can also heat the wine composition to eighty degrees. However, in this case, the duration of the procedure is reduced to half an hour.
The procedure is performed in several sequential stages:
- A thermometer is placed in a bottle of water, with the help of which the temperature will be determined.
- A container with a thermometer is placed in a pot of water, after which bottles of wine are added to it.
- The filled saucepan is placed on a gas stove and heated to 60-70 degrees.
If you follow the above steps, the wine drink will become 2-3 times stronger.
Sulfurous acid
During the production of wine drinks, preservatives are often used. The most popular is sulphurous acid, which can increase the strength of the drink. Many experienced winemakers use this ingredient to make their wine stronger. Fixing the liquid with sulfurous acid can get rid of dangerous microorganisms that accelerate the deterioration of the drink.
However, the use of such an acid has certain disadvantages. For example, if you add too much of a substance, the drink becomes dangerous to human health. Therefore, the use of sulfur dioxide must be very careful.
How to make homemade fortified wine
There are four recipes that can be used to prepare a strong homemade wine drink.
From grapes
Grape wine made from ripe berries is especially popular with winemakers. The strength of such a drink will be given by vodka, which is added during the preparation process. To create a drink you need:
- 3-4 kilograms of grapes;
- 300 milliliters of vodka;
- 300-400 grams of granulated sugar.
To begin with, grape juice is prepared, which is transferred to a dark room for settling for 3-4 days. Then sugar is added to the mixture, after which the container is closed with a rubber glove and left for two weeks. Then the liquid is filtered, mixed with vodka and poured into bottles.
Cherry
You can also make a strong wine with red cherries. The drink is created from the following products:
- 5-7 kilograms of berries;
- five kilos of granulated sugar;
- alcohol or vodka.
The cherries are mixed with sugar, covered with a lid and soaked in a cold place for about two months. The mixture is stirred regularly so that the granulated sugar dissolves faster. When fermentation stops, the mixture is filtered and mixed with vodka.The liquid is then poured into bottles and transferred to the cellar.
From apples
To make strong apple wine you will need:
- 3-4 kilograms of apple fruits;
- a pound of sugar;
- 350 milliliters of yeast for each liter of mixture;
- 200-250 milliliters of alcohol.
Apples are cut into equal parts, pitted, boiled and kept warm for three days. The prepared mixture is filtered, after which the apple pulp is squeezed out. After that, the mixture is mixed with wine sourdough and left to ferment.
The fermented mixture is filtered, alcohol is added to it and poured into bottles.
Raspberry
To create a raspberry wine drink, you need the following ingredients:
- five kilograms of ripe raspberries;
- 900 grams of sugar;
- half a liter of alcohol.
The berries are passed through a juicer and mixed with some water. Then they are infused for six hours and squeezed again to obtain juice. Sugar and a liter of water are added to the mixture. After that, everything is poured into jars and placed on a water seal. After 10 days, sugar is added to the composition, after which it is left to ferment for a month. Alcohol is added to the fermented liquid.
How to store fortified wine?
Although the bonded wine is better stored, it still needs to be stored properly.
For long-term storage, a cellar is used, where the temperature will not rise above fifteen degrees Celsius.
Conclusion
In order for the prepared wine to be stored longer and become stronger, people are engaged in fixing it. However, before that, you need to understand the methods of binding the drink and the recipes for its preparation.
