The recipe for homemade apple wine (cider) contains many nuances that will become clear only after it is tested in practice. When making alcoholic beverages for the first time, you need to thoroughly study the process technology and some significant details.
Homemade apple wine. Cider Recipe. Leaven
The basis of all such drinks is one. This is apple juice. Wine and cider are different products, although they are similar to each other. Cider is a sparkling drink that is stored for a very short time. In contrast, apple wine (at home, the recipe requires adaptation to a specific variety of fruits and production conditions) is more mature and matured. It can be stored much longer, and over time it will only improve its taste. In any case, no matter what you want to cook - wine or cider - you need to start with leaven. Take a glass of strawberries or raspberries. In no case do you need to wash them! Mash, fill with one hundred grams of warm water, add two teaspoons of sugar, cover with a napkin (from three to four layers of gauze) and leave in a warm place. Three days later, a dense foam appears on the surface and the smell of fermentation is distinctly felt - this means that the sourdough is ready.
Apple wine at home: recipe, selection of apples and containers
Enough large containers will be needed - the volume of the bottles should be at least six to eight liters in order for the drink to turn out to be of high quality. In addition to size, the shape also matters - the dishes must certainly have a narrow neck. When preparing containers, it is necessary to take care, first of all, about their cleanliness - without this it is difficult to make apple wine at home. The recipe tells us what to start by washing the bottle with a strong soda solution. Then rinse them with clean running water and cover with a clean, ironed cloth. Remember to wash your hands throughout the entire manufacturing process. Also take care of the quality of the water: ideally, take a fresh tap or a tap cleaned with a good filter. Harvested apples should be allowed to mature for three or four days if your goal is cider.
And a couple of weeks - if you want to make wine. If you pick apples from a tree, you don’t need to wash them, because the skin contains natural microorganisms that will help fermentation. The fruits raised from the ground must be thoroughly washed, dried, and rotted places and wormholes removed. Squeeze juice from apples, drain the foam, fill each container with juice by two-thirds, pouring it in a thin stream. Then make sugar syrup at the rate of one liter of water and two hundred grams of sugar for every four liters of juice. Pour the solution into the bottle, add the pre-prepared berry yeast there, mix, cover with a linen napkin. After the appearance of foam on the surface of the future wine, close the container with a lid, in which you need to make a hole and insert a long tube there. Place the other end of the tube in a jar of water. Use plasticine to seal all holes. When making apple wine at home, the recipe of which involves two peaks of fermentation, remember that after the first you will need to add 150 grams of sugar for each liter of wine. After the second fermentation, the cider can be considered ready. In order to get wine, you need to add an additional two hundred grams of sugar per liter and leave for another twenty days.