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Fortified homemade apple wine can become a real “highlight” of every feast. It not only lifts the mood, but also has very real benefits for humans, having a beneficial effect on the nervous, gastrointestinal and endocrine systems. Wine made with your own hands is natural, which cannot be said about mass-produced alcoholic products. When preparing this drink, the winemaker can independently regulate the amount of sugar, the sharpness of the taste, and create unique flavor shades and blends. There are a lot of recipes for making natural apple wine and choosing the best one is sometimes not possible. That is why we decided to offer a selection of the most famous recipes, which are most often used by experienced winemakers.
The best fortified wine recipes
Making homemade wine is a long and delicate process, but even a novice winemaker can handle it. To do this, you just need to be patient and have some knowledge. A good recipe for making homemade wine is the key to success.
Fortified wine using classical technology
Apple wine is often made from fruit juice, which is easy to obtain at home. So, one recipe will require 10 kg of juicy and ripe apples.The variety in this case is not of fundamental importance. You can use sour, sweet or even “wild” apples. Fruit juice can be obtained using a juicer or a regular kitchen fine grater. In both cases, the applesauce will need to be additionally squeezed through several layers of gauze. Fruit juice for making wine should be as light and pure as possible. As a result of squeezing the specified number of apples, you will get approximately 6 liters of juice.
The resulting purified apple juice must be poured into a glass container (bottle or jar). Do not fill the entire volume, leaving a little space to the edge of the container. Foam will accumulate in it as the wine ferments. You need to add half of the total sugar to the juice: approximately 150-200 g for every 1 liter of juice. The exact amount of granulated sugar depends on the taste of the fruit and the preferences of the winemaker.
The juice with sugar should be left at room temperature in a dark place for 4-5 days. Cover the container with gauze or plug the neck of the bottle with a cotton ball. After a specified period of time, the wine begins to actively ferment: releasing carbon dioxide and foaming. At this time, it is necessary to close the container with wine with a rubber glove or a special lid with a water seal. You can buy it in a store or make it yourself. An example of the manufacture of such a device is demonstrated in the video:
A week later, from the start of making wine, you need to add the second half of sugar to its composition, mix the ingredients thoroughly and set for further fermentation.Active release of carbon dioxide will be observed for 2 weeks. In the future, the process will proceed slowly over another 1-1.5 months.
After about 2 months from the start of cooking, you will see sediment from the remaining particles of fruit pulp at the bottom of the container. By this time, the fermentation process will be stopped, the sugar will break down into carbon dioxide, which will escape through the water seal, and alcohol, which will give the drink strength. The wine must be carefully poured into a new glass container without raising the sediment. Add 600 ml of high-quality vodka or 300 ml of alcohol to a pure alcoholic drink. Store hermetically sealed bottles in a cellar or basement, where it is cool and dark. After about 1.5 months of such storage, the wine will be completely ready and will acquire its original taste and blend.
The taste of classic apple wine can be complemented with light notes of aromatic cinnamon. To do this, add 1 tbsp to the fruit juice at the initial stage of preparing wine. l. ground cinnamon. This ingredient will make the alcoholic drink more aromatic and tasty, and its color more noble.
Fortified wine with raisins
Experienced winemakers know that raisins are the same grapes that can give an original taste and color to an alcoholic drink. Making fortified wine from apples with raisins is quite simple. To do this, you will need the apples themselves in the amount of 10 kg and 100 g of raisins, preferably dark, which will have a good effect on the color of the finished product. Sugar in the amount of 2-2.2 kg and 200 ml of vodka will add strength to the drink. This composition will allow you to get wine with an alcohol content of 12-14%.You can further increase the degree by adding more vodka or alcohol equivalent.
To make wine according to this recipe, you need to make it not from juice, but from applesauce. So, you need to add sugar and raisins to the grated apples. Pour the mixture of products into a fermentation container, close the neck of the filled container with a rubber glove or water seal.
After 3 weeks of active fermentation, squeeze the applesauce through multi-layer cheesecloth. If necessary, the juice purification process can be repeated many times. The pure product should be mixed with another glass of sugar and poured into clean bottles. The neck of the bottle must be tightly closed with a glove. The wine will ferment for another week.
Add vodka to the prepared apple wine and, after thoroughly mixing, pour the fortified alcoholic drink into bottles for subsequent storage. As a decoration, you can add a few well-washed grapes or raisins to each bottle of amber apple wine. This drink can be stored in the cellar for several years.
Apple and rowan wine with berry sourdough
Often, a homemade wine recipe contains wine yeast or yeast as one of the ingredients. This feature scares novice winemakers. But there is nothing difficult about making berry sourdough. For this you can use raspberries, strawberries or, for example, rose hips. The process of preparing apple-rowan wine also begins with preparing the starter:
- Place 2 cups of unwashed berries in a jar;
- add 2 tbsp. l. sugar and 500 ml water;
- cover the neck of the container with multi-layer gauze and leave for 3 days at room temperature;
- The mixture must be stirred daily;
- 3-4 days from the start of preparation, the starter is a fermentation activator for homemade wine.
In addition to the starter for apple-rowan wine, you will need 10 kg of apples and rowan. The amount of rowan berries should be 10% of the mass of apples, which means that for one recipe you need to take 1 kg of these berries. The amount of sugar per specified volume of ingredients is 2.5 kg. Water should be added to apple-rowan wine in the amount of 1.5 liters in order to obtain a more delicate taste and subtle aroma of alcohol. The strength of the wine will be obtained from 1 liter of vodka.
The first step in preparing fortified wine is to obtain juice from apples and rowan berries. The liquids need to be mixed together and sugar and water added to them. After mixing, add the pre-prepared sourdough starter to the mixture of ingredients. The resulting wort must be placed in a warm room for further fermentation. After 10-12 days, as a result of fermentation, an alcoholic drink with a strength of 9-10% will be obtained. By adding 1 liter of vodka to the wine, you can increase the strength to 16%. The fortified drink is aged for 5 days, after which it is filtered and bottled for storage. It is recommended to drink homemade alcohol prepared according to this recipe after 1-2 months.
Apple wine with sourdough can be prepared not only with rowan, but also, for example, with orange. The preparation technology is similar to the above method, only instead of rowan juice you need to add orange juice. For 10 kg of apples it is recommended to use 6 large citrus fruits.
An original way to fasten wines
Many winemakers know that you can increase the strength of wine by adding alcohol or vodka.But there is another very original way to increase strength. It is based on freezing: water freezes (crystallizes) even at zero temperature, but alcohol does not. You can use this trick in the following way:
- Pour the finished apple wine into plastic bottles and put them in the freezer or snow.
- After some time, ice crystals will appear in the wine.
- The free liquid in the bottle is concentrated wine. It must be drained into a separate container.
- The freezing operation can be repeated several times. Each time the strength of the free liquid in the bottles increases. As a result of this fastenings from 2 liters of light wine you will get about 700 ml of fortified alcoholic drink.
By freezing apple wine, in fact, you get 2 types of drink at once: fortified wine and light cider, with an alcohol content of 1-2%. This cider can be made by thawing ice crystals. This light, refreshing drink will have an apple flavor and will quench your thirst on a hot summer day. An example of freezing can be seen in the video:
By freezing you can increase the strength of wine up to 25%.
Fortified apple wine is a wonderful alcoholic drink that can replace all alcohol-containing products on the holiday table. Wine prepared with love is always tasty and healthy. It is easy to drink and does not give you a headache the next day. You need to take your time making apple wine at home. Well-fermented must and long-term aging of the finished product always make the wine better.
