Sea buckthorn is a berry from which it is customary to make jelly or jam. The fact that it is possible to make excellent wine from it is not known to everyone. The honey and pineapple aroma of this drink is light and pleasant, the taste is soft and unforgettable, and the color charms with its golden amber tones. In addition, sea buckthorn wine has useful properties due to the fact that it contains the healing oil of this berry - a storehouse of useful substances. To prepare a high-quality drink, you need to follow the recipe below and pay attention to the specified subtleties and nuances. In this case, you are guaranteed success.
What should be the input components?
Particular attention should be paid to the selection of quality berries. It is preferable to use a sufficiently ripe sea buckthorn. Of the berries that did not have time to ripen, good wine will not work. And if they are overripe, then the fermentation of the product will be slowed down due to the high content of oils in the feedstock. Sea buckthorn juice is a valuable biological raw material, which contains about eight percent of free lipids. They cover a film of fat of any kind of yeast and significantly slow down the fermentation process. And at the end of it, homemade sea buckthorn wine is often cloudy.
Also, spoiled berries should be excluded from the total mass to avoid the appearance of a putrid odor.
The quality of the water has a significant impact on the taste of the cooked sea buckthorn wine. A simple recipe for this drink involves using prepared liquid. To obtain high-quality water, it is recommended to use a special filter to clean it from unwanted additives and impurities. It is also allowed to use tap water, which must be boiled and allowed to stand for 24 hours.
Essential Ingredients
To make sea buckthorn wine at home, you need the following components:
- sea buckthorn (berries) - 15 kilograms;
- sugar - 5 kilograms;
- purified water.
From the specified amount of ingredients, you will end up with six to nine liters of homemade wine.
Below is described in detail how to make sea buckthorn wine at home - a recipe with a step-by-step breakdown of the process.
Step one. Pretreatment of berries
Before you start directly preparing wine from sea buckthorn, you should carefully remove the branches, leaves and other garbage from the berry collection, being careful not to damage the fruits. You do not need to wash them, because wild yeast is located on the surface of the berries, which contributes to the fermentation process. In the case when sea buckthorn is dirty or dusty, it is recommended to wipe it with a dry cloth.
Next, the processed berries need to be crushed to a state of homogeneous gruel in any way convenient for you. It can be a blender, a meat grinder or a juicer. It is also allowed to knead the sea buckthorn manually using a wooden pestle.
Step Two Getting Sea Buckthorn Juice
In order to continue to prepare homemade wine from sea buckthorn, the recipe involves the completion of the most difficult and time-consuming stage - obtaining juice from berries. Shredded sea buckthorn should be squeezed out well using a fine sieve or gauze, folded twice or three times. In the process of obtaining juice, it is recommended to add water to the berries in small portions. This will make spinning a little easier. The extracted sea buckthorn juice should be left for half an hour to settle trash.
Step Three Preparation of juice for fermentation
The resulting berry juice must be carefully, without stirring the sediment, pour into 4-5 liter glass jars. Add to each one glass of granulated sugar and mix well until it is completely dissolved. Fill the tank no more than three quarters.
After that you need to tie the neck of each jar with gauze or another loose cloth and leave it for three days in a room with a temperature close to room temperature. About three hours after adding sugar, an orange foam will begin to form on the surface of the juice. It must always be removed at least two to three times a day.
The fourth step. Active fermentation phase
In order to prepare high-quality wine from sea buckthorn at home, the recipe involves the next important step - wort fermentation. For this, after the specified period, it is necessary to drain the juice from all five-liter cans into one large container, not forgetting about the precipitate. He must also be present in the must. After that, you need to dilute 2.5 kilograms of sugar in three liters of preheated water, add this solution to sea buckthorn juice and mix well.
Next, put on the neck of the container a rubber medical glove, in one of the fingers of which you need to make a puncture with a needle. A wort bottle is recommended to be transferred to a dark place in which the temperature is maintained not lower than eighteen degrees and not higher than twenty-seven.
The remaining sugar must be divided into three equal parts and introduced into the wort on the fourth, seventh and tenth day of fermentation.
To make sea buckthorn wine at home it is of decent quality, it is recommended to shake or slightly shake the container with must in 4–5 times a day in a circular motion in order to wash the contents of the walls to avoid the appearance of vinegar acidification zones.
You should mix the liquid with a long wooden spoon once or twice a day so that the wine acquires a more saturated color and taste. Also, this procedure allows you to more evenly distribute the fermentation zone throughout the volume.
A rubber glove serves as a kind of signaling device for determining the period of fermentation. If it remains filled with air, this means that the active phase of fermentation is taking place. As soon as the glove is deflated and dropped, it is recommended to proceed to the next stage of wine production.
Step Five Filtration and quiet fermentation phase
During active fermentation, a layer of sea buckthorn oil forms on the surface of the wort , which must be removed. After this, the resulting wine from sea buckthorn should be filtered three times through cheesecloth, folded in several layers, to get rid of sediment. The filtered wort must be poured into a clean bottle, cover the neck with a rubber medical glove and put in a cool, dark place where the temperature is maintained at no lower than ten and no higher than sixteen degrees. The basement is ideal for this. It is necessary to leave the tank for three to four months for quiet fermentation. In order to achieve the desired result and get good wine from sea buckthorn, the recipe involves periodic filtering of the wort through gauze folded in several layers. This process should be done once every five to six weeks to get rid of sediment and the so-called ventilation of the drink.
Step Six Making wine transparent
This stage changes the color of the wine, making it transparent, but does not appear in any way on its taste. To do this, you need to separate one egg white from the yolk, beat it well, gradually adding water (about a hundred milliliters). The resulting foam should be mixed with one liter of wine and carefully introduced into a bottle with a thin stream. Further, it is recommended to mix the sea buckthorn wine well, cover with gauze and leave for two to three weeks to acquire transparency.
Seventh step. Bottling
After giving the drink transparency, a white wine from sea buckthorn with a beautiful amber hue is obtained. Next you should bottle it. This process must be carried out carefully, excluding the agitation of the sediment at the bottom of the tank and getting it into the drink. Bottled sea buckthorn wine should be tightly closed with corks and sent for further aging in a cool dark room. The longer the wine stays, the more refined its taste will be. Exposure for it should be at least four months. The maximum shelf life of this magic drink from sea buckthorn berries is three years.
Making wine from sea buckthorn does not require complex components, because the above recipe requires only berries and sugar and eliminates the use of yeast and other additives. However, the process itself is rather complicated and, most importantly, lengthy. But the result will reward you in full. The magical aroma of this drink, soft enchanting taste and golden color will not leave indifferent even the most demanding sommelier.