Homemade blueberry wine: preparation technology and recipes. Blueberry wine, or how to curb the forest capriciousness Wine from fermented blueberries
Anyone can make good homemade blueberry wine. The recipe is not particularly simple, but the excellent taste and aromatic smell will be an excellent reward for your efforts. Blueberries are used only for making dry wines.
This berry is not suitable for dessert varieties, because its acidity is extremely low. Blueberry raw materials must be processed immediately after harvest. If this is not done, the future wine may acquire a nasty smell or quickly turn sour.
Rules for getting the perfect drink
Blueberry wine has a very rich color and an interesting taste, which is inherent in some grape drinks. When making a drink, the wort may ferment imperfectly and very slowly.
To prevent this from happening, you must follow the following rules:
The berries should be sorted very carefully, because overripe blueberries will make the drink turn brown easily;
- when grinding raw materials, use the crushing method;
- the pulp must be squeezed out immediately after receiving it;
- juice should never be diluted with water more than twice;
- for better growth of yeast fungi, add ammonia to the wort (0.4 grams per liter of liquid);
-for fermentation it is necessary to use only pure culture yeast.
Blueberry Wine Recipe
Ingredients:
-3 kg of berries;
-4.5 liters of clean water;
-1.6 kg granulated sugar;
-320 g honey.
Gently pick out the berries that have reached ripeness. Wash them using a colander and crush them. Remember that you cannot leave whole berries in the mass. Place the resulting mixture in a clean 10-liter glass jar. Add 3 liters of heated water. Use gauze instead of a lid. Then the jar needs to be put in a warm place (21-27 degrees) for 4 days.
After this time, filter your homemade wine. The cake will no longer be needed; it can be disposed of. Pour the juice into the empty container, do not forget to wash it thoroughly before this action. After this you need to make syrup. To do this, mix: granulated sugar, one and a half liters of water and flower or linden honey. The mixture must be thoroughly mixed so that it is homogeneous.
The syrup is added to blueberry juice. Homemade wine will ferment for about 1-2 months. During this time, be sure to keep the container sealed. The water seal must be covered with alabaster mortar once a week. Once fermentation has stopped, strain the homemade blueberry wine into a clean container. Attach the water seal, and then put the dishes in a cool place, leave for two months.
Carefully separate the solution from the sediment and pour into bottles. Insert tight plugs into them, and fill them with sealing wax or melted resin on top. Bottles should be stored horizontally, in a cool and dry place. If you want to enjoy a sweet or semi-sweet drink, then increase the amount of sugar in the recipe by 1 kg. This blueberry wine perfectly quenches thirst in the summer. It is black in color. The taste is slightly viscous and tart, which is inherent in real excellent wines.
If you have a large harvest of blueberries, it would be advisable to make wine from them. It is worth remembering that moldy berries cannot be used. It is also necessary to carefully sort the berries and remove twigs, leaves and stalks.
Classic blueberry wine recipe
Ingredients
- Blueberries – 4 kg
- Water – 2 l
- Sugar – 1 kg
- Raisins – 100 g (or wine yeast).
Cooking method
- Mash the washed berries until smooth and place in a container with a wide neck.
- Add raisins (sourdough or yeast) and 300 grams of sugar, mix well.
- Tie the neck with gauze or cover with a cloth, then transfer the container to a dark place with a temperature of 18-25°C. Once a day, stir the berry mass with a wooden or plastic stick, knocking off the “cap” on the surface of the pulp and peel.
- After 3-4 days, when signs of fermentation appear (foam, hissing, sour smell), squeeze the wort through cheesecloth.
- Pour the liquid part into a fermentation container (fill to a maximum of 75% of the volume), pour the pulp with ordinary water at room temperature, leave for 15-20 minutes, then squeeze out again through cheesecloth. Mix the resulting liquid with fermented juice. The squeezes can be thrown away; they are no longer needed.
- Add 300 grams of sugar to the wort, place a water seal or a pierced medical glove on the container and transfer to a dark place with a temperature of 18-25°C.
- After 5 days, add the last portion of sugar (300 grams). To do this, drain 0.5 liters of fermenting juice, dilute sugar in it, pour the resulting syrup back, and then install a water seal.
- After 25-50 days, fermentation will end: the water seal will stop producing bubbles, the blueberry wine will lighten, and sediment will appear at the bottom. It's time to drain the wine from the sediment through a thin tube into another clean container, without touching the sediment at the bottom.
- If fermentation does not stop after 50 days from the moment the water seal is installed, to prevent bitterness from appearing, the wine must be drained from the sediment, then left to ferment at the same temperature.
- Taste the fermented drink. If desired, add more sugar for sweetness or fix with alcohol (vodka) 2-15% of the volume. Fortified wine stores better, but is not as aromatic and has a harsher taste.
- Fill storage containers to the top (it is advisable that the wine does not come into contact with oxygen) and close tightly. If sugar was added, it is better to keep it under a water seal for the first 7-10 days in case of re-fermentation.
- Now the wine must be transferred to a cellar or refrigerator at a temperature of 5-16°C for 2-3 months.
- Once every 20-25 days, when a layer of sediment of 2-5 cm appears, filter the wine by pouring it through a straw into another container, leaving the sediment at the bottom of the old one. Blueberry wine is ready when sediment no longer appears.
Blueberry wine with honey
Ingredients
- Blueberries – 3 kg
- Sugar – 1.7 kg
- Linden or flower honey – 300 g
- Water – 4.5 l
Cooking method
- Sort out ripe blueberries, remove damaged fruits and foreign impurities.
- Then place the berries in 1 kg portions in a colander and rinse, immersing them in a bucket of water.
- Let the water drain, and then mash the berries with your hand. Place the resulting juice and pulp in a ten-liter bottle, add 2 liters of warm water, tie the neck with gauze and take it to a warm room, where it is kept for 4 days at a temperature of 20–27 °C.
- After aging, carefully filter the infusion through a filter.
- Squeeze out the remaining pulp and discard, and pour the juice into a clean bottle and add the juice prepared from sugar, honey and 1.5 liters of warm water.
- Close the bottle with the wort with a fermentation stopper and place it in a warm place for fermentation, which will last from 25 to 50 days (depending on the room temperature).
- When fermentation is over, to clarify the resulting wine, it must be decanted into a clean bottle and the water seal placed again.
- Then you need to take the bottle into a cold room and keep it there for 2 months.
- Drain the finished wine using a tube, pour into bottles and seal.
- Store in a dry, dark place, laying horizontally. To get semi-sweet or sweet wine, the amount of sugar per the above weight of berries is increased by 0.5–1 kilogram.
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Blueberries have a great taste and unsurpassed aroma. These characteristics make it possible to create excellent wines that have some similarities with grape ones. Preparing such alcoholic drinks is a rather difficult task, since the slightest mistake can negate all the efforts made. In addition, this berry does not ferment well, so during the manufacturing process one should not violate the technology and neglect clean dishes. This is the only way to make blueberry wine of truly high quality and aromatic.
Process Features
To create wine, you need to use only ripe blueberries. It is best if it is collected immediately before the start of its preparation. At the same time, lying berries can only be used if they were picked no more than 24 hours ago. First, you need to thoroughly sort the blueberries, removing rotten, overripe, moldy and too small berries from the total mass. After this, the selected part should be washed.
In nature, any berries and fruits are covered with a thin layer of white coating, which includes wild yeast. They are fermentation catalysts and are therefore very important for winemaking. However, it is better to wash the blueberries, because if this is not done, the drink will acquire a bitter aftertaste, which is extremely undesirable. You can replace them with special wine yeast or sourdough made with your own hands from unwashed raisins.
Important! All containers, devices and equipment must be completely sterile, since the slightest contamination can become a source of development of foreign microflora. Its entry into the wort can not only affect the fermentation process, but also spoil the taste of the finished drink.
Therefore, immediately before starting winemaking at home, these things are washed well and doused with hot water.
Simple recipe
Composition of ingredients and proportions:
- blueberries – 8 kg;
- water – 4 liters;
- raisins – 200 grams;
- sugar – 2 kg.
Step-by-step sequence of actions.
Making blueberry wine is not that difficult. The main thing is not to deviate from the sequence of actions given below and strictly follow it.
1. Pre-washed blueberries are kneaded until a homogeneous consistency is obtained and transferred to the bottle.
2. Add unwashed raisins (yeast or sourdough) and 0.6 kg of sugar. All components are thoroughly mixed. The neck is tied with gauze folded in several layers, and the container itself is transferred to a dark, warm place. In the future, the resulting mass must be mixed at least once a day using a wooden stick or a clean hand.
3. After 3-4 days, obvious signs of fermentation should appear, such as bubbling, hissing and a characteristic odor. The separated part of the juice is drained, and the remaining pulp is squeezed out through cheesecloth.
4. The resulting juice is poured back into the washed bottle. It should be filled no more than 3/4 full. The remaining pulp is poured with warm water and infused for 15–20 minutes, and then squeezed out again through gauze. Then the pulp is discarded, and the resulting liquid is mixed with the main volume of juice.
5. 0.6 kg of sugar is added to the wort, a water seal or a rubber glove with a pre-made hole in the finger is installed on the bottle, and the container is moved to a dark place with a constant temperature of at least 18 degrees Celsius.
6. After 5 days, the remaining sugar (0.8 kg) is added to the wort. To do this, 0.5 liters of juice is drained, in which granulated sugar is subsequently diluted. The syrup obtained in this way is poured back into the bottle, and a water seal or glove is again installed on its neck.
7. After 25–55 days, fermentation should stop. This is quite simple to determine: the water seal will stop gurgling (the glove will deflate), the blueberry wine will become lighter, and a layer of sediment will appear at the bottom of the bottle. The finished wine is poured using a thin tube into any clean container so that the sediment remains at the bottom.
8. If desired, the finished drink can be sweetened or made stronger. It should be remembered that fortified blueberry wine lasts longer, but becomes harder and loses some of its aroma.
9. Bottles are filled up to the cork and screwed tightly.
10. The finished homemade wine is moved to a dark, cool place with a temperature of 5–16 degrees Celsius and left there for a period of 2 to 3 months. After this time, the drink will become more mature, which will have a positive effect on its taste and aroma.
The shelf life of this wine is 3 years, and the strength is 10–12 degrees.
Homemade blueberry wine is an excellent drink, having a very delicate and at the same time tart taste with subtle berry notes. Homemade blueberry wine is of high quality with a rich bouquet, rich dark color, moderately sweet and slightly reminiscent in taste. If blueberries are combined with red and white currants when preparing, you can get a drink that tastes like a classic Cahors.
Benefits of blueberry wine
A glass of blueberry wine after a tiring day at work will help you relax and set yourself up for a pleasant evening. Along with the undeniable mild taste, blueberry wine also has most of the beneficial properties. Making blueberry wine at home allows you to preserve most of the vitamins present in the perishable fresh berry.
Drinking this drink within reasonable limits will help strengthen your strength and prevent the development of many diseases. Blueberries can be called a real storehouse of vitamins and essential microelements. The antioxidants it contains rejuvenate and cleanse the body of toxins.
In folk medicine, blueberries are used to treat diseases of the kidneys, intestines, skin and diabetes. Adding various medicinal plants to homemade wine during the preparation process helps to end up with a real medicinal drink used for medical purposes.
Required Ingredients
Craftsmen prepare real blueberry wine at home using fresh berries. In areas where the blueberry harvest is impressive, you can prepare the raw materials yourself - the collection process is quite pleasant and uncomplicated, but quite long. It is recommended to cook with a large amount of blueberries - at least 4-6 kilograms, and the berries should be ripe, but not overripe.
Despite their watery consistency, blueberries crushed into a homogeneous mass produce little juice, so a small amount of water is added to the concentrate.
To avoid too sour taste, sugar is added during cooking. Thus, a standard set of products for making wine consists of 3 ingredients: blueberries, sugar and water.
Traditional recipe
Contrary to the apparent complexity, the classic recipe for making blueberry wine at home is simple. It consists of several stages:
Blueberry wine with honey
The recipe at home has undergone changes over the years, new interesting ingredients appear in it. Adding honey to blueberry wine gives the drink sweetness and a soft, unusual taste. To prepare you will need:
The preparation process is similar to the classic recipe, it differs only in that at the stage of creating the syrup, honey is also added to warm boiled water. Do not forget that all equipment must be sterile, this will help avoid the entry of bacteria.
Making wine with sourdough
In order for blueberry wine to ferment at home with 100% probability, it is recommended to add wine yeast or starter to the raw material. You can prepare sourdough with your own hands like this:
- Prepare a handful of grapes or raisins, rinse well.
- Add 2 tablespoons of sugar to the berries.
- Pour the mixture with 2 glasses of warm water and leave in a warm place for several days.
The standard cooking recipe remains the same, but at the first stage, ready-made yeast or settled starter is added to the blueberry mass.
Homemade blueberry wine is of excellent quality and can be stored for up to 3 years. The best way to preserve the taste of blueberry wine is to pour the drink into oak barrels and leave it in a cool, dark place, but in the absence of such containers, you can store the wine in glass bottles.
Homemade wine is deservedly popular among many people. The heady taste, relatively uncomplicated production technology and complete confidence in each ingredient are also attractive to those who love wine.
At home, you can make a drink from any raw material, be it dark grapes, apples or wild berries. In particular, the choice of novice winemakers often falls on blueberry wine.
As in the production of any alcoholic drink, when making blueberry wine you need to take into account some subtleties.
Making blueberry wine requires some subtleties.
For fermentation, you need to take only ripe fresh berries, picked no later than a day before the start of the process. Blueberries need to be sorted and cleaned of substandard products.
Most often, when preparing berries, it is not recommended to wash them, since wild yeast cultures are located on the skin, thanks to which fermentation occurs. In the case of blueberries, this does not work - unwashed berries give an unpleasant aftertaste, so they definitely need to be washed. You need to wash blueberries carefully, being careful not to damage them, as the berries are very delicate.
Fermentation assistants
Wild yeast, washed off with water, can be replaced with store-bought wine yeast. If you want to make blueberry wine that has been fermented without yeast, you need to use raisins or homemade sourdough, which is prepared several days before you start adding the ingredients.
Tools
To produce blueberry wine, you will need glass containers of suitable volume. As with grape wines, blueberry wines love aging in oak, but not everyone has this opportunity.
To ferment blueberry wine, you need to prepare large glass bottles. For fermentation, containers made from food-grade stainless steel are also chosen, but glass bottles will suffice. You will need a large container for fermentation and separate ones for aging.
To prepare the wort, a regular masher, which is used for preparing vegetable puree, is quite suitable. A water seal that removes carbon dioxide from the container can be purchased at a hardware store or replaced with an ordinary rubber glove with a small puncture.
All instruments must be thoroughly washed and wiped dry. Any foreign odors are also prohibited, and you only need to work with the wort with clean hands.
Water
The traditional ratio of water to blueberry juice is 1:4, but these numbers can be varied based on your experience. The water should be cold and clean, preferably spring water. Filtered will also work. The main thing is not straight from the tap.
Homemade sourdough recipe
Ingredients:
- 400 grams of raspberries or chokeberries;
- 2-3 tbsp. Sahara;
- 200 ml water.
In order to prepare the starter, you need to crush the chokeberry in a bowl and add water and sugar to it. Preparation:
- Crush the berries in a bowl without washing.
- Add sugar and water, stir.
- Transfer the starter into a bottle, filling it two-thirds full. Seal the neck with a cotton swab and put it in a dark place for 7 days.
Homemade blueberry wine recipes
Production recipes differ in the number of ingredients. As a supplement, you can use honey, grape juice, apples, raisins, chokeberries or other berries.
Classic recipe
Ingredients:
- 2 liters of water;
- 1 kg sugar;
- 4 kg blueberries;
- 100 g raisins, sourdough or wine yeast.
Preparation:
If fermentation continues after 50 days, the wine still needs to be drained, getting rid of sediment and left to ferment at the same temperature.
Advice. If desired, you can add sugar to the finished wine to sweeten it; in this case, it is advisable to keep it under a water seal for another 7-10 days in case of spontaneous fermentation. You can also “fix” with vodka or alcohol up to 15% of the total volume, this wine will be stored longer.
Recipe with honey
Ingredients:
- 300 g of flower or linden honey;
- 1700 g sugar;
- 4.5 liters of water;
- 3 kg blueberries.
Preparation:
- Process the berries, mash them with a wooden masher or clean hands.
- Place the resulting wort in a glass container, add three liters of warm water and place in a dark, warm place for 4 days to begin fermentation.
- Squeeze out the pulp and pour the juice into a separate bowl.
- Prepare sugar syrup from 1.5 liters of water, honey and sugar. Pour it into the resulting blueberry wort.
- Close the bottle with juice and syrup with a water seal and place in a warm place for 30-50 days.
- Upon completion of the fermentation process, remove the wine from the sediment, filter, and pour into a clean container. Continue for two more months
- After aging, remove the wine from the sediment again, pour into bottles and seal.
Blueberry jam can be prepared with the addition of linden honey. Advice. To get a sweeter wine, you need to increase the amount of sugar by 500-1000 g.
Blueberry-grape wine
Thanks to wild yeast living on the skins of the grapes, no additional fermentation aids are needed, so this is the simplest homemade wine recipe.
Ingredients:
- 5 kg red grapes
- 250 g sugar
- 2.5 kg blueberries
Delicious wine is made from blueberries and grapes. Preparation:
- Wash and sort blueberries. Give juice from crushed berries. Also squeeze the juice out of the grapes.
- Mix both types of juice in fermentation bottles, add sugar.
- Place a water seal in the neck and move the fermentation container to a dark, warm place.
- At the end of the process, pour the wine into another container, remove the sediment, and filter.
- Pour into bottles and seal them.
Ready blueberry wine can be stored for 3 years in sealed bottles.