Did the garden please you? Do not know where to put a big crop of sweet and sour gooseberries? Our tip: make gooseberry wine. At home, this is not at all difficult. From the sweet and sour berries that literally strewn this shrub, you can prepare a great many preparations, desserts, sauces and, of course, homemade wine. He will be discussed in this article. Gooseberries can be found in any suburban area. To date, many varieties of it have been bred for every taste, it is noteworthy that all of them can ripen at different times throughout the summer. This is good news for both beginners and experienced gardeners. Because in this way it becomes possible to prepare home-made wine with different shades of taste as the ripening berries of a particular variety.
There is an opinion, by the way, absolutely justified that homemade gooseberry wine is simply excellent even for beginners and “pioneers” in this business! Therefore, you need to try, especially since all the recipes for making this drink are not difficult.
In appearance, such a wine made from gooseberries looks very much like grape. By taste and smell, by the way, too. If you take it in moderate doses, it will bring the body only benefits, vitality and good mood. As you know, the berries of this shrub contain many useful trace elements, organic acids, a wide list of vitamins and other important components.
Gooseberry wine is considered fully ripe after 1-1.5 years. But it is not recommended to store it for more than 2 years, because after this period his taste begins to deteriorate. But young wine, on the contrary, can be consumed immediately after filtering at the end of fermentation.
Fermentation process, photo:
Features of making gooseberry wine
There are several nuances that you need to know:
- All berries should be carefully selected: ripe, but not overripe, without traces of mold and other imperfections.
- Gooseberries must be freshly picked! Long-term storage of berries in this case is unacceptable, the deadline is 20 hours.
- You do not need to wash the berries, the exception is only too polluted, for example, gooseberries soiled in the ground. In this case, the raw materials will have to be washed and thoroughly dried. You should know that after such manipulations on the berries there will not be any wild yeast necessary for winemaking. There is a way out - in addition, add a handful of unwashed raisins to the gooseberry, which will provide the necessary fermentation. It is not recommended to add wine or baker's yeast to raw materials.
- Never use metal containers for making wine! Ideally, the dishes should be glass (or ceramic), sterilized and dried. It is most convenient to squeeze the berries with the help of a masher's pusher, it is highly desirable that it is not metal.
- In fact, getting juice from gooseberries is quite difficult, so water is often added to the pulp (transferred berries). However, you should know that you can not dilute gooseberry juice too much with water. For 1 kg of pulp, you can add no more than 300 ml of water. You can also add apple, raspberry or currant juice to the already squeezed gooseberry juice.
The exposure time of the transferred berries is from 10 to 48 hours, after this time, you can squeeze the juice.
How to make gooseberry wine?
In any recipe, the main ingredients are gooseberries, water and sugar. I offer you to consider a few simple recipes for making gooseberry wine.
Gooseberry dessert wine
You will need:
- selected gooseberries - 3 kg;
- water - 3 l;
- sugar - 2 kg.
Mash unwashed berries with a crush (plastic or wooden), place the resulting pulp in a glass or ceramic dish. From syrup and water, boil the syrup, cool it to room temperature, fill it with the transferred gooseberries. Thoroughly mix the pulp, top cover the container with gauze and tie it (so that litter or insects do not get into the berry mass). We leave the dishes in a shaded place for 4 days, remove the cheesecloth every day, mix the contents with a wooden spoon (or with clean hands), while actively interrupting the top layer so that the mass does not acidify. You will understand when the fermentation process begins, its signs are the appearance of foam, a characteristic smell and a hissing sound.
At this stage, you need to carefully drain the juice, and strain the berry mass through a gauze cloth folded into several layers and squeeze it well. Next, you need to mix the juice obtained, pour it into a clean container with a neck and put a water seal. This device can be purchased at the store. And you can use the old grandfather's way - a rubber glove with a punctured finger (for the release of carbon dioxide).
It is important that the junction of the water seal and the neck of the cookware is securely sealed. This can be done using plasticine or a cool sticky dough (mix flour with a little water).
The fermentation tank should be large. The pulp should fill it no more than two-thirds of its volume, the rest of the space remains for carbon dioxide.
This is a very important point, because with a larger filling of the dishes with berry mass, an explosion can occur!
After all the manipulations, the fermentation tank should be transferred to a room with an air temperature of +17 .. + 25 ° C, after about 25-45 days the glove will deflate and fall off. And the contents of the dishes will change color to lighter. At the bottom you can see the sediment. These signs will indicate that the period of active fermentation is over.
Next, you have to carefully pour the wine into a new container (do not drain the sediment!) And wait for a while until it becomes transparent. Now you can bottle homemade gooseberry wine and put it in storage.
Important! If you want to make the wine more sweet, then you can add sugar to it. This is done at the stage of moving the wort to the tank for sedimentation. In this case, you will have to put on the glove-hydrolock again and stand for about 10 days. Then the wine should be placed in a cool dark place (+10 .. + 15 ° C), where it will “ripen” for 2 or 3 months. When the specified period expires, the wine can be bottled and securely corked.
Gooseberry wort, photo:
You can also make wine stronger - it will become more intoxicated, acquire a characteristic harsh taste, and will be able to survive longer (3-4 years) without losing its taste. In this case, any 40% alcohol (most often vodka) will work as a preservative. The approximate ratio of gooseberry wine and, for example, vodka or cognac is 2: 1.
A simple gooseberry wine recipe
You will need:
- gooseberry - 6 kg;
- water - 6 l;
- sugar - 4 kg.
This simple cooking method is ideal for beginners without experience in winemaking. Selected berries need to be crushed or grinded with a blender (or even scrolled through a meat grinder), put the pulp in a suitable dish, add sugar and mix. Now you need to wait about 3 hours, after which add water to the tank. Again, mix everything well and take the dishes to a warm room for 3 days.
Do not forget to mix the berry mass daily. After 3 days, filter the contents of the container through gauze. Pour the resulting juice into a new clean container and wait about 5 days. On the 6th day, carefully pour the gooseberry wine into bottles, reliably cork it, set it to “rest” in the basement or refrigerator for 3-4 days. Now you can pour wine into glasses and taste the fruits of their labors.
Homemade gooseberry wine with other berries and fruits
I want to add a couple more simple recipes in which the taste of gooseberries is intricately intertwined with another seasonal berry or fruit. This technique enriches the wine with new shades of aroma and gives a special aftertaste.
Gooseberry wine with currants
You will need:
- gooseberry - 1.5 kg;
- syrup - 1 kg of sugar + 1.5 l of water;
- sugar - 1 kg;
- currants (red or white) - 0.5 kg.
This is a very quick way to make wine, in which it can be drunk after 14 days.
First you need to make a syrup: it should be boiled for about 10 minutes, after the water with sugar boils. While the syrup is cooling, carefully squeeze the berries of gooseberries and currants. The resulting mass is transferred to a suitable container with a neck, filled with syrup, covered with gauze. Now, dishes with future wine should be moved to a warm room for about a week.
Of course, do not forget to mix the contents of the container daily. During this time, the must must ferment.
Now, future home-made wine can be poured into a new container, put on a water seal on top and kept for about a week in a warm place. When the wine becomes light and produces a precipitate, it will need to be carefully drained and distributed in bottles. Two-month storage in a cold place (in the cellar or in the refrigerator) will only benefit him.
How to make gooseberry wine with lemon
You will need:
- gooseberry (preferably yellow varieties) - 6 kg;
- water - 10 l;
- sugar - 5 kg;
- lemons - 5 pcs.
This is a light refreshing wine that is very pleasant to drink on a hot summer day. It can be consumed almost immediately after fermentation. Squeeze the gooseberry berries with a crush, add 1.5 kg of sugar, stand for half an hour and add water. Then we move the container with the must in a warm room, put on a water seal and wait 10 days. After this time, we proceed to the second stage: we twist the lemons in a meat grinder, put them in a glass dish and add the remaining 3.5 kg of sugar. Let them stand for 30 minutes, and then carefully (through the watering can) add to the container with the berry mass. Next, we again install a water seal on the neck of the container, hold for another 10 days, and then carefully (through the tube) pour the wine into a clean bottle.
When transfusion, care must be taken that the pulp does not fall into a new container!
We install a water lock again and hold the wine until the fermentation process is complete. After removal from the sediment, it should be passed through a filter or a tightly folded clean gauze cloth, bottled and put in a cool room for a couple of weeks.
As mentioned above, young homemade gooseberry wine with lemon can be drunk immediately, just after two weeks of settling, it becomes lighter and, as it were, “picks up” taste.
The recipes of this light alcoholic drink are full of variety. You can experiment and mix gooseberry berries with raspberries, apples. It is allowed to add honey, star anise, cloves or cinnamon to the berry mass to add spice (in small quantities).
An interesting practice is the addition of oak bark to homemade wine. As you know, the best capacity for winemaking is oak barrels, but it is not always possible to purchase such an expensive container, and sometimes there is simply nowhere to put it. A little trick will give the wine an unforgettable aroma and taste, if you want to make sure - wrap oak bark in clean gauze and put it in a must.
Try to make homemade wine from gooseberries, its taste is guaranteed not to leave you indifferent. Drink this wine chilled and in a pleasant company!