Apricot wine

30 servings
8 days 40 min

The quality of the collected fruits plays a very important role in the process of preparing apricot wine according to this recipe. Overripe and damaged fruits are not suitable for making wine. Apricots harvested from the ground are also not recommended. How to make apricot wine?
1. Wipe the fruits with a dry cloth, clean from the bones. Leave the skin, since it is it that will largely determine the color and aroma of the wine.

2. Mash the peeled apricots with your hands until smooth, fold into a voluminous container with a wide neck (saucepan or bowl).

3. Add warm (25-30 ° C) water and
1. 5 kg of sugar, mix.

4. Cover the gauze container, put for 4-5 days in a warm dark place. So that the wort is not sour, stir 2-3 times a day with a wooden stick, melting the surfaced mezga inside - skin and flesh. After 8-20 hours, the first signs of fermentation should appear: foam and hiss. This means that everything is going fine.

5. Drain the fermented apricot juice from the sediment. Squeeze the mezgu (pulp) through the gauze, mix the resulting liquid with the juice, add 500 grams of sugar. Stir.

6. Transfer the wort into a fermentation tank, filling the bottle with a maximum of 2/3 of the volume, so that there is room for carbon dioxide and foam. Install a hydraulic lock or glove with a hole in your finger (puncture with a needle).

7. Place the vessel for 25-60 days in a dark place with a temperature of 18-28 ° C for fermentation. 5 days after installing the hydraulic seal, add 500 grams of sugar. To do this, drain 200-250 ml of fermenting juice, dilute sugar in it, pour the finished syrup back and close with a hydraulic lock. After another 5 days, repeat the procedure by adding the remaining sugar (500 grams).

8. When the active fermentation is over (signs: the hydraulic lock does not gurgle for several days, the glove deflated, the wort brightened, a sediment fell at the bottom), drain the young homemade apricot wine from the sediment through a thin tube into another container. Taste it, you can add more sugar to increase sweetness or fix with alcohol (vodka) about 2-15% of the volume. Fortified apricot wine is a little tougher than usual, but it is better stored. Fill the holding containers with wine at the neck (preferably to avoid contact with oxygen), seal (if sugar was added in the previous step, then first keep under water jam for 7-10 days in case of re-fermentation). Transfer to a refrigerator, basement or other room with a temperature of 5-12 ° C, leave for 2-4 months to ripen. This time is enough for the wine to insist and become tastier. If the sediment appears 2-5 cm (first every 15-20 days, then less often) filter the drink by transfusion (decantation) into another container. Wine is considered finished if the precipitate no longer appears. In this case, the wine can be bottled for storage or left in the same container, there is no fundamental difference. The output is homemade apricot wine with a strength of 10-12% (without fixing). In a cellar or refrigerator, the drink can be stored for up to 3 years. The yield is approximately 60% of the original wort volume before fermentation.