Home winemaking is an activity quite popular among amateur chefs. Delicious drinks are prepared based not only on grapes, but also on other fruits and berries. Why not try making wine from rose hips? It turns out not only tasty, but also very useful, because the berries in the drink fully show all their positive qualities. They say homemade wine from rose hips can even remove stones from the kidneys. Of course, if you consume it in reasonable quantities. So to speak, in a medical dosage.
About the fruits
Rosehip wine at home can be made from any berry - fresh, dried or frozen. But each of the options requires a special approach.
Fresh berries require the right harvest time - September or the very beginning of October. Otherwise, a significant part of their usefulness will be lost. The sorting of raw materials is the most thorough. Not a single rotten, lethargic, immature or untouched berry. One single low-quality fruit can nullify all the efforts of the winemaker. At least in relation to the taste of the resulting drink. By the way, the bones from the rosehip, intended for making wort, do not need to be removed.
Frozen berries before laying the wine from the rose hip should be brought to room temperature. And this should be done in a natural way - no hot water or microwave.
Dried fruits are handled even more diligently than fresh ones, since during storage they can "pick up" the mold. In the wort, they are crushed.
About fermentation
The rosehip itself is an absolutely yeast-free berry, so it won’t wander without the introduction of additional components, it will simply become sour. Therefore, almost any recipe for rosehip wine indicates the need to use natural fermenters. Most often, a handful of raisins is proposed to be used as an initiator of fermentation. Which, by the way, is not supposed to be washed. Instead of dried fruit, you can put into business a similar amount of fresh grapes, and also unwashed.
Wine from rose hips has a very interesting taste effect, in which fermentation starts raspberry sourdough. It can be made from jam, or from fresh berries. In the latter case, raspberries are rubbed through a sieve with a little sugar; in any case, the mass is slightly diluted with water and heated over a fire - to start the fermentation process.
About the container
Whichever rosehip wine recipe you choose at home, remember that it will not produce the result you are counting on if the fermentation tank is made of aluminum, iron or copper. Metals are used to oxidize, and therefore - to add an unpleasant taste to the wine. "With a creak" are allowed to use stainless steel tanks. But experienced winemakers claim that in them the wine turns out to be somehow soulless and uninteresting.
Wooden barrels were and remain an ideal option, which should be washed, scald several times and fumigated with sulfuric smoke. But unfortunately, for most of us, this luxury is not available - just keep nowhere. Then we stop on glass bottles that need to be washed with baking soda and thoroughly rinsed.
Wine making: the first stage
The classic recipe for home-made rosehip wine offers the following proportions: one and a half kilograms of fresh or frozen berries (five glasses of dried), the same amount of sugar, five liters of fresh drinking water, grams of 100 raisins.
Rosehip is crushed, for example, with a rolling pin or a crush. A syrup is made, on which a kilogram of sugar is measured and a liter of water is poured. When the loose component is completely dissolved, the syrup should be cooled to about +30 Celsius and pour it into a container with rose hips, raisins and the rest of the water. The neck of the container is tied with gauze so that foreign "components" like insects, debris and dust do not get into the wort, and it is placed somewhere where it is dark and warm for three or four days.
Second approach
When the wine from the wild rose begins to ferment throughout the volume, the wort is poured with the liquid into the bottle, where it will ferment until the state of first readiness. A water seal is put on the neck; if it is not available in your household, use a tight rubber glove that requires one of your fingers to be pierced to release carbon dioxide. By the way, this old folk method is even more convenient in some ways: it is easier for a non-specialist to determine that the process has ended by a fallen glove than by emitting gas bubbles in the shutter.
Last step
After another week, the wort is filtered from the pulp and supplemented with a sugar residue. The water lock or glove returns to its place, the bottle again goes to a dark and warm room. Now we are gaining patience for a month, or even a half. During this time, the wine from the dog rose is completely fermented, the sediment will sink to the bottom, and the liquid will lighten a little. It is carefully poured into another container, at the same time a sugar test is performed. If it is not enough, it's time to rectify the situation. Clogged with a lid or the same closure, the container is classified as a shutter speed. Rip wine from rose hips should be in a dark, but this time cool room, with a temperature not exceeding +16 ° C.
After 2-3 months, the drink is completely ready. It is drained from the sediment, distributed in bottles and sealed tightly. Subject to storage conditions (darkness, coolness, lying position), rosehip wine does not lose its taste and healthy qualities for two years.
And repeat it?
Having removed wine from the rosehip once from the wort, it is not necessary to get rid of the already used wine material. From it you can get a second "crop". The sediment remaining in the bottle is filled with a couple of kilograms of granulated sugar and poured over the shoulders with water. Do not forget to add “fermentation” material to it and put on the shutter. The capacity is again placed where there is no light and warm enough. Further manipulations - as with the first use of the pulp: removal from the sediment, filtration, maturation.
The secondary product, of course, will not possess the richness of taste and aromatic shades, like the first plum. However, it will still be much cooler than store wines enriched with flavors, sweeteners and preservatives. And many winemakers claim that the reuse of wort allows you to get wine from rose hips, which only a professional sommelier can distinguish from the first removal. Whether this is true can only be understood from personal experience.
Rosehip wine: a simple recipe for beginner winemakers
Or for those who do not agree to wait a few months. A kilogram of fresh berries should be washed and chopped well. With dried, they do the same, except for the washing stage; they will be required for a standard winery capacity of only 400 grams. Syrup is prepared from seven liters of water, a half kilogram of sugar and a teaspoon of citric acid. When it cools down to 20 degrees, it should be poured into a container with rosehip berries. And add 10 grams of yeast. A water seal, as they say, is not necessary here, just tighten the neck with gauze. To sustain such a wine from rose hips you need only a week. Then it is filtered off, bottled and tasted. The tart taste of the young drink is liked by all wine lovers.
You need to keep it cool again. And if the room is also dark, over time you can get a seasoned version of the wine from the rosehip. Unless, of course, you do not taste it to the very bottom.
Fans of experiments who are no longer new to winemaking can try combining rose hips with something else. It is believed that it goes well with blackcurrant, mountain ash and wild berries. The proportions of the components you will have to find out from personal experience.
And remember: wine from rose hips, like other alcoholic drinks, should be consumed sparingly. Moreover, there is a good reason for such a position: the taste of the drink is quite worthy to enjoy. And to fill in grief, if God forbid it happens, you can use something less noble.