How to create delicious homemade wine? Detailed DIY recipes

Home winemaking is not only (and not so much!) a method of obtaining cheap, high-quality alcoholic products, but an interesting hobby in which anyone can embody the creative component of their own personality. For almost all winemakers, the process of making wine, the difficult path of experimentation, is decisive.

Just think - nature has generously gifted us with berries and fruits, which man, through the mysterious process of winemaking, turns into a drink that gives a riot of flavors and an indescribable play of smells.

In this article we will discuss how to create wine at home, highlight several aspects of this most interesting process, and also provide recipes for homemade wines that any of you can prepare (no, make!).

Currant wine without yeast

Usually, recipes for making delicious homemade wine involve the introduction of wine yeast , but the drink can be prepared without them. Let's look at how to make homemade wine without yeast using a currant drink as an example:

We collect ripe black currants. Do not wash it under any circumstances - the peels contain the yeast we need.
We crush the berries, then grind them using any available device - a blender, meat grinder or food processor.
Add sugar and water. For any kilogram of berries we will need to add one kilogram of sugar and 2.5 kilograms of water.
Mix all the ingredients. A large glass bottle is ideal for this task.
We put a water seal or a rubber glove on the neck of the container.
We put it in black space. As soon as the glove inflates, we pierce it and release the air.
Wine does not like direct sunlight, so it is better to store it in a dark place. At a temperature of 23-24 degrees, about 3 months will be needed for aging. If you want to make the wine as light as possible, place it in the coldest place for a certain number of days.

In addition to the recipe, watch a video on making dark currant wine:

Homemade blackcurrant wine will be a good addition to meat dishes and will definitely amuse you and your guests with its tannin.

Isabella wine recipe

In warm areas, you don’t have to resort to tricks and replacing grapes with berries that grow in the north of Russia. Therefore, homemade wines in the southern regions are almost always made specifically from grapes.

And the variety that has become most widespread since Russian times is “ Isabella ,” which is famous for its unusually gentle and very well-known smell - even a person who is far from the world of sommelier, once tasting it, will unmistakably guess the presence of “Isabella” in the blend.

It is not difficult to prepare Isabella wine at home; here is the usual recipe:

Take 15 kg of ripe grapes. The grapes should be crushed completely, but gently. If you are not careful enough, the seeds will be damaged, resulting in a very bitter wine.
The resulting grape slurry (also called pulp) should be stirred 3-4 times a day with a clean hand, the floating pulp and skin of the berries should be removed from the surface, otherwise it will become sour.
After a certain number of days, strain the pulp or squeeze it through two or three layers of gauze.
If you do not have a special tool for measuring the acidity of the medium (pH meter), we determine the required amount of sugar according to taste - the juice should not be very corrosive to the oral cavity. If the juice comes out frankly sour, add water, but not more than 500 ml (or better, no more than 100 ml) per liter of juice. You shouldn’t add a lot of water, as the acidity will drop after adding sugar. Sugar should be added from 100 to 200 grams per liter of diluted juice.
Place the juice in the container, based on the usual rule - fill it no more than two-thirds. As with cider making, this size is needed for the fermentation process.
Equip the fermentation container with a water seal and place it in a black room. The best temperature for making Isabella wine is 16-22 degrees. If the temperature is significantly higher than indicated, the container may not withstand the gas pressure.
Sugar can be added evenly - when pouring the juice into the container for the first time, after 5 days and 10 days after pouring into containers.

Stabilization is the process of bringing acidity within reasonable limits.

You can add sugar, you can “fix” the wine by adding vodka or ethyl alcohol.

Additional aging is required for the wine to be tasty. This process will take from 3 to 5 months, be patient - the result will be worth the wait!

Making with wine yeast

This recipe for making wine with yeast implies that you will take care of the effect of making yeast a week and a half before moving on to actual winemaking. Wine yeast acts as a starter - with them the fermentation process will be much more fun.

And, although the presence of an additional manufacturing step may seem like a factor complicating the process, don’t let this frighten you, since there is absolutely nothing complicated in making wine starter.

The recipe for delicious yeast homemade wine in almost all versions involves the use of wine yeast, so now we will tell you how to create sourdough.

How to create a wine starter?

To make a wine starter, you will need to grind unwashed berries in a clay mortar (raspberries, currants, cherries or strawberries are completely suitable for this purpose).

After this, it is worth transferring the resulting pulp into a liter container, into which add half a glass of sugar and a glass of water.

To completely dissolve the sugar, shake the container with the ingredients well, having previously closed it tightly. Pour the resulting mixture into a black bottle, the neck of which is carefully wrapped with gauze. You can use an elastic band to secure the gauze.

Microbes will need 4-5 days in a warm room (25-27 degrees) to increase their numbers to the level when the starter can be considered ready.

Sweet fortified raspberry wine recipe

Raspberries are widely distributed in our area, which plays into our hands - they ferment well, which is why they are often used as a raw material for fermentation, even for wines made from other berries.

The proposed regular recipe for homemade raspberry wine also implies the presence of wine yeast, so 7-10 days before making wine, prepare the starter according to the recipe given just above.

Let’s assume that you have stocked up on sourdough, so let’s move on to the recipe:

Squeeze the juice from unwashed raspberries. You need 6 liters. juice, so take extra berries. 9-10 kilograms should be enough.
Mix 6 l. strained raspberry juice with one and a half kilograms of sugar.
Pour the wort into a fermentation bottle, add 300 ml of starter. You still remember about the rule of 2 thirds, right? It works here too!
Place the bottle with a water seal or glove in a warm space (temperature 20-25 degrees).
After the fermentation process is complete, pour 1 liter of vodka into the wine and stir. Let it brew for about a week.
Strain the wine, add another 800-900 grams of sugar, stir.

Wine fermentation

This article is dedicated to all those who, at least at one point, have encountered the problem of wine fermentation when making it at home.

In order not to lose sight of everything that a distiller faces during the steps of making wort and its fermentation, I wrote questions that I will answer within the framework of this article:

Is yeast necessary to ferment wine?
What yeast is needed and for what?
How to restart stalled wine fermentation?
How to check the readiness of wine?

Question #1. Is yeast necessary to ferment wine?

In order to realize this, you first need to decide what kind of wine you want to make and from what type of raw materials. Almost everything depends on this. Most people know that wild yeast already lives on the surface of the fruit; they are capable of fermenting wine without adding an additional yeast culture.

But if you want to get a guaranteed result - high-quality wine, or sparkling wine (champagne type or cider), then without adding cultural yeast, it will be difficult and sometimes unrealistic to create a drink that meets your requirements.

If the raw materials for making wine have grown in your garden, and you did not wash the raw materials before fermentation, then the possibility of fulfilling the drink you have in mind is close to 95%.

When purchasing raw materials for making wine on the market, especially imported raw materials, without adding cultural yeast, the possibility of poor quality or souring is very possible. Because fruits are protected from microbes and rubbed or pollinated with a special composition, which, on the one hand, protects the fruit, and on the other, kills a huge part of the feral yeast on the surface of the fruit. It could be grapes, apples, plums, cherries, apricots, peaches and so on...

Adding cultured (specially grown) yeast to the wine must will give your drink a huge opportunity to be.

Question No. 2. What yeast is needed and for what purpose?

On the modern winemaking market you can find a lot of wine yeast for: berries (for example, chokeberry, currant, cherry, sea buckthorn, etc.),
grapes (for example, snow-white, reddish, a certain variety, also for sparkling wine),
apples (mainly yeast for making apple or pear wine),
honey (yeast suitable for making apple cider).
There are also cultures for making strong wines, such as port - these yeasts ferment more alcohol and produce a minimum of fusel.
All-purpose yeast ferments everything - any raw material, but unlike special yeast for certain raw materials - the taste and color of the raw material in the drink is not fully revealed.

Therefore, if you decide to make a specific wine, we advise you to select cultural yeast for your raw materials.

How to restart stalled wine fermentation?

It often happens that the wine wort that has begun to ferment stops and almost everyone is lost and does not know how to resume fermentation. This often happens if you have not added special wine yeast. Wild yeast often dies due to non-compliance with temperature conditions, acidity, sugar density and other reasons.

To resume fermentation, it is necessary to carry out a number of operations:

Check the tightness of the connections - if the water seal has stopped bubbling, this does not mean that the wine is not fermenting. Check all connections for tightness.
Measure the temperature of the wort (use a measuring device in advance - disinfect it so as not to introduce infection into the wort). The ideal temperature for fermenting wine mash (wort) is 18-25°C, beware of temperature changes. If the temperature is unstable and often drops, then the wine yeast “falls asleep.”
A very thick wort is when there is not enough juice (water) and there is a lot of “meat” in the cake. In this case, it is necessary to measure the density of sugar with a hydrometer; if it is above 20%, then add juice or water. If it is low, add 50 grams of fructose per 1 liter of wine must.

If all of the above procedures have no effect and the wine still does not ferment, proceed to the following steps:

The best density for wine is from 10 to 20%; if these values are underestimated or exceeded, it will be difficult to ferment the wine. Measure the density of sugar. (this can be done with a wine meter or an AC3 hydrometer, or a refractometer with a sugar meter). Record this value as the original value. Typically, the winemaker must create this at the very beginning, before pitching the yeast. Knowing the initial density, we will be able to understand at what stage of fermentation our wine is at this moment.

Choose wine yeast for your own drink based on the raw material - for example, for strong vinous wines. Most manufacturers write on the packaging whether rehydration (starting yeast) is required or not. If necessary, rehydrate them in warm water and place them in a fermentation container with wine.

Observe the effect for 3-5 days.

Measure the density again; if it decreases, the fermentation process has resumed.

It also happens that mold appears on the surface of the wine must - this is the result of your carelessness when preparing the raw materials for fermentation. Before fermentation, you need to carefully disinfect everything that will touch the wine wort: the fermentation container, the container lid, including the water seal. If you stir the wine wort with your hands, then before doing this you need to thoroughly wash them with soap or rinse with alcohol.

At the initial stage of mold occurrence, you can try to cure it; to do this, collect it with a sterile spoon from the surface of the wine must. After this, prepare a clean fermentation container and pour it from the old container into the new one using an antiseptic-treated hose. But it is difficult to guarantee a good outcome with all this.

Cases where the wine must began to ferment, and after a certain number of days the fermentation slowed down, can also arise due to a lack of nitrogen compounds. However, all other characteristics (temperature, density, mixture, absence of mold) are normal. Adding ammonia to the wine wort will solve this problem.

How it's done:

Buy a 10 percent solution of ammonia in ampoules at any pharmacy. One ampoule usually contains 1 milliliter - this volume is enough for 2 liters. wine must Don’t be afraid, the wine will not taste like ammonia, because the yeast will completely process it, it will not affect the taste, color, or smell of the final drink in any way.

How to check the end of fermentation - readiness for decanting and fining?

When the strength of the wine wort reaches 12-15%, the wine yeasts die and the water seal stops. Determine the density of sugar. It must drop to at least 5%. The fermentation time of wine wort (depending on the volume of the fermentation tank) is 15-40 days at home (20-30 liters).

If you want to create the strongest wine, add wine alcohol to it; do not add moonshine purchased from sugar - this will spoil the taste and smell of the wine.

Next, the wine needs to be glazed (lightened). To do this, it is poured into another clean (disinfected) container using a hose, so as to remove the yeast sediment, and the other end of the hose must hang so that the flowing wine passes through the air and is enriched with oxygen.

For fining wine, bentonite was previously used, but since the newest winefloc product has entered the market, we do not recommend using bentonite - when clarified, it very much “rips” the wine - it takes away its color, taste and smell. In addition, bentonite has very high hygroscopicity, which leads to huge losses, compared to wine floc.

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Wine made from jam with yeast

1 Fundamental aspects of home winemaking
2 Ordinary recipes for jam wine

It’s hard to imagine a true homemade feast without wine prepared by the owners with their own hands. But home winemaking is a rather labor-intensive and troublesome task. But tasty and fragrant wine can be prepared quite simply using old jam with the addition of auxiliary ingredients, for example, yeast.

The situation when the time to prepare fresh supplies for the winter has already come, but the old sweets have not yet been eaten, is familiar to almost all housewives. No one will want to enjoy old preserves or jam anymore, because there are a lot of new fruits and berries in the gardens, but you shouldn’t throw away the preserved food, because effort and money were spent on preparing it. Jam will not go to waste if you make wine from it. There are many common and affordable recipes using yeast.

Fundamental aspects of home winemaking

The big advantage of making any homemade alcoholic drink is the naturalness of all the ingredients. That is why homemade jam, the ingredients of which are berries and fruits, can be called an ideal base for wine. Any wine must ferment, even wine made from old jam. Almost all housewives believe that fermented jam is a completely unusable product, but it is the easiest way to prepare homemade alcoholic drinks from it. You just need to mix the spoiled treat with boiled water and let it brew for the right time. But you can also make wine from ordinary, unfermented jam, you just need to add yeast.

You can make an alcoholic drink from any kind of jam, but there are more desirable options. This drink has a subtle and pleasant aroma, gentle and light taste. Of course, no gourmet will be able to pass it by.

For winemaking at home, the most suitable jam is from:

raspberries;
strawberries;
apples;
peaches;
currants;
cherries.

Experienced winemakers believe that a good wine must be made from one component; mixing different bases can lead to the loss of taste and smell of any of them. It is allowed to add yeast, raisins, rice and new grapes. These components are needed to stimulate fermentation. In addition, they add a delicate and fragrant note. Live yeast is ideal, but some recipes require using dry yeast. Grape berries, if they are specified in the recipe, should not be washed, because the coating on the skin of the grapes contains natural tiny organisms that accelerate fermentation.

Ordinary recipes for jam wine

It doesn’t matter what kind of housewife can turn jam that the household didn’t like into fragrant wine. This is a fairly common and relatively short process. For a simple and affordable recipe you will need one liter of any jam, as much boiled water, a teaspoon of dry yeast and a glass of rice cereal. First you need to prepare a container, for which a three-liter jar is perfect. It must be thoroughly washed and scalded with boiling water. In a jar you need to mix yeast, rice and warm boiled water. After this, you can pour the jam into the jar and mix all the contents well. A water seal is placed on the larynx of the container, and if there is none, then an ordinary rubber glove will do. The jar of wine must be thrown into a black place for fermentation.

The wine must ferment until sediment forms and the liquid becomes clear. After this, the wine must be placed in the cellar or refrigerator for a certain number of days. After three or four days you can start tasting. If the wine is not sweet enough, you can add sugar to taste.

Even a novice winemaker can handle making wine according to this recipe. Over time, you can master the most complex and labor-intensive processes. A very tasty wine comes out if you take 1.3 liters of jam, 2.3 liters of boiled water, 10 grams of yeast and a handful of raisins. Any kind of jam is suitable for this recipe; you can even combine sweets from various berries and fruits. The main aspect is that the jam must be very sweet. Pour the jam into an enamel bowl; if it is not very sweet, you can add sugar. We put the dishes on the fire and bring to a boil, after which the heated jam must be strained. Both gauze and a fine sieve are suitable for these purposes.

Next, you need to take a glass of water strained from the jam, add yeast to it and mix well, cover with a lid and wait 20 minutes for the yeast to begin to ferment. After the yeast has been activated, it must be mixed with the remaining strained water in an unsealed glass jar. It is necessary to ensure that the container is not full; the wine needs space to ferment. We close the jar tightly with a water seal with a hose, the free end of which is lowered into a plastic bottle with water, covered with a thick cloth (A collection of different and interacting tissues form organs) and left warm.

After three days you need to see if the fermentation process is happening. If the wine bubbles intensely, it means the drink is not ready yet. The process usually ends in five to seven days. The wine is ready when the bubbles begin to come out slowly and sediment appears at the bottom. The drink is worth trying. If it has a sweet-sour, slightly carbonated taste, it means it’s time to bottle the wine and put it in the refrigerator for two to three days.

Making wine from jam with the addition of yeast is very simple. It is very important to never consume jam with mold or brewer's yeast. It is also not recommended to store drinks in plastic bottles. It is worth keeping in mind that jam wine does not get better over time, unlike its own grape brothers. You need to drink it as quickly as possible.