People who are not alien to the culture of drinking, preferring elegant drinks prepared independently, must at least once make wine from quince. This fruit is related to apples and pears, but differs from them in a pleasant and original astringency. Due to the low sugar content and the high content of tannins, the fruits are rarely used in winemaking. However, it is not difficult to put homemade wine from quince: the recipe is available for development even for a beginner who has not yet got his hand in this area.
Raw material requirements
Japanese and ordinary, and even wild (or rather, feral) quinces are suitable for our purposes. If you come across fruits of early varieties, before sending them to the wort you need to let them mature for about two weeks, if later - as much as two months. Fruit sorting is required; all damaged or damaged items are removed. It is forbidden to wash them: on the skin there are natural yeast needed for fermentation. If the purity of the fruit is doubtful, it is allowed to rub it with a clean dry cloth.
Before making wine from quince, each fruit is cut into halves, tails are removed, and a bone with a core is cut out. If this step is neglected, the final product will get an unpleasant bitterness and will leave a viscous aftertaste.
What is needed
For wine from quince at home, in addition to the fruits themselves, sugar is needed: half a kilo at the start and 150 grams for each liter of juice. In addition, stock up on citric acid at a rate of 6 g per liter. This compound stabilizes the acidity of the wort, which contributes to the normal course of fermentation. And also significantly increase the shelf life of wine.
The last component needed is pure drinking water. It needs a little, for 10 kilograms of fruit - just half a liter of water. However, you can’t do without it: liquid is required to reduce the concentration of the above tannins.
Quince wine recipe at home
Prepared fruits, cut and freed from everything superfluous, are rubbed through a fine grater along with the skin. You can hold them through a meat grinder or a blender. The initial mass of sugar indicated in the recipe should be dissolved in a small volume of water, unboiled and cold. The resulting syrup is poured into a fruit pulp, which is placed in a container - glass, plastic or enameled, with a wide neck. It should be covered with gauze to prevent dust, debris and insects.
Quince wine must be placed in a dark and not too warm room; mix it should be twice or thrice a day. The peel and pulp floating up must be immersed in the depths of the container.
In three days, quince wine will finish the first stage of fermentation. The appearance of foam with hissing will almost cease, the intensity of the acid smell will decrease. At this stage, the wort is filtered through several layers of gauze, the pulp is carefully wrung out. In the subsequent stages only juice is needed, the meal can be thrown away.
Next stage
After filtering into wine from Japanese quince, which so far is a fermented juice, you need to introduce sugar in the amount of 150 grams per liter and citric acid in the desired concentration. The base is mixed, poured into a container more suitable for fermentation (up to two-thirds of its volume), a water lock is installed, or a medical glove is pulled, punctured on a finger or two, and it will play the role of a water lock. The bottle is transferred to a room where the temperature corresponds to room temperature, but the lighting is poor, close to darkness.
Five days later, the next dose of sugar is poured into the container, 50 grams for each liter of future wine. In this case, after removing the water seal, you should drain about a third of a liter of wort (using a tube) and dilute sugar in it, after which the syrup is returned to the container.
Five days later, the manipulation is repeated. And when the gas ceases to be released, the liquid brightens and the sediment begins to settle to the bottom, you can start pouring wine from quince into permanent bottles: these signs indicate that the fermentation is over.
Final stage
The wine, which has already been fermented, is drained through a tube and is being tested. If it turns sour, you can add sugar and again put ten days under the water seal. If fixing is required (you are not satisfied with the table and dessert version of wine from quince), then vodka is added. We take into account that its maximum occurrence is 15 percent of the total volume.
For ripening, quince wine is distributed in glass bottles and cleaned in cool. The ideal option is a basement or a cellar, where the temperature does not rise above 5-6 Celsius. There it must be aged up to six months. If a precipitate appears, re-filtration using a tube is used.
The finished drink does not lose its qualities for three years, if you do not violate storage conditions.
Quince wine at home: a simple recipe
Wipe, use a water lock, comply with the aging regime, not everyone can filter and defend. Quince wine can be prepared in a more primitive way. Without a doubt, it will lose somewhat in aroma and saturation, but at the same time it will not lose its basic qualities, valued by true tasters.
We take so many fruits that they produce at least a liter of juice (approximately 2-2.5 kilograms), cut as small as possible, pour into an enameled or stainless pan, add 3.5 liters of water and cook. When the fruits are softened, wipe them through a sieve or strainer, transfer to a fermentation tank and pour a little more than 800 grams of white sugar.
When the fermentation is over, the quince wine is filtered and supplemented with another half kilogram of sugar. Then again let it settle and strain again. When finished, the drink is poured into dark bottles and put away to a place intended for storage.
A sparkling wine
This is the name of champagne made not in the province of Champagne and not from grapes. Quince wine can also serve as it - we will tell you the recipe, and the taste will delight him much more than the traditional one.
Unfortunately, the amount of ingredients is calculated on a barrel of quince champagne. On the other hand, it is not difficult to count on more modest volumes. Initially, a capacity of 6 buckets is required, that is, approximately 60-82 liters. Pour 8 kilograms of sugar into it, add water to the top and boil until 5 buckets (50-60 liters) of syrup are obtained. It pours into the appropriate volume of the barrel and cools to room temperature. Then quince is taken - from a kilogram to five, depending on how pronounced you prefer the taste. The fruits, peeled correctly, are dipped in syrup, a glass of yeast, diluted to the consistency of thick sour cream, and a couple of liters of quality vodka are poured there. The barrel is warm until fermentation begins. After six hours, he is transferred to the cellar, preferably icy. Two weeks later, the liquid is extremely carefully drained and filtered, bottled in a pleasant-looking bottle. In each of them should be laid a couple of zest, and the neck should be sealed to the maximum. It’s best to grind. Keep quince sparkling wine in good cool. If possible - in a deep cellar.
Quince and apples
If you are interested in quince apple wine, the recipe requires a fruit ratio of 1 to 2, you can 1 to 3. Apples make the taste more familiar, but more gentle and soft. Both types of fruits are frayed, and the best device for this is a grater, and not something from modern devices. The next step is to pass the pulp through the juicer. You can get juice separately; then they merge together. Sugar is added at the rate of a glass for every liter of base, a third it is diluted with high-quality water (for lack of drinking, you can use boiled tap water). Citric acid is also required. It is added in such an amount that the original taste resembles tea with a slice of lemon.
Further actions are elementary and familiar to each winemaker with experience: water seal and observation. It will take about three weeks to wait until the young wine is obtained. If you want a mature one, be patient for at least two months. You can fix it, if you wish, a month after placing the container on the sedimentation.
Taste variety
Quince wine can be supplemented with different notes from other plants. Blackcurrant and elderberry of the same color are most recommended. You need to add them in the must, at the first stage of ripening. However, attention: the volume of the wort of the additional ingredients should not exceed 1/10 of quince wine. Otherwise, you spoil the taste and aroma. But in the indicated volume, such additives will give the drink a noble color and exquisite taste.