The cause of the transformation of berry or fruit juice into wine is alcohol fermentation, for the emergence of which the presence of certain yeast microorganisms (fungi) is necessary. Ideally, on the surface of berries and fruits are wild yeast, which contribute to fermentation when preparing wine. But often these very yeast is not enough or not at all. This happens after long torrential rains, which they simply wash off from the surface of the fruit. In this case, the fermentation process must be helped by feeding the wort with wine yeast or so-called ferment.
It can be cooked actually from any unwashed berries, more often it's raspberries and strawberries, and from freshly grapes. Today we will consider the preparation of a starter from raisins. The advantage of the method is its ability to use it at any time of the year, without being tied to the period of ripening of various berries.
The sourdough of raisins can be used to make wine from apples, from grapes, from cherries or from any other berries and fruits. It is especially expedient to use it if the raw material has certain impurities and it must be washed beforehand. You can safely proceed to water procedures, because ferment strength of the starter will be enough for active alcohol fermentation and without wild yeast.
How to make a leaven of raisins for wine - a recipe
Ingredients:
- dark raisins - 200 g;
- purified water - 350 ml;
- granulated sugar - 50 g.
Preparation
Prepare a yeast starter for wine from raisins is extremely simple. The main thing is to take a quality product for this purpose and in no case to wash it. Ideally, it is better to find raisins home, in no way processed, because store analogs are often stuffed with chemicals and may simply not contain the necessary yeast bacteria on the surface. If the dried berries with tails are fine, this will only intensify fermentation processes. Raisins should be dark, dense and matte. Glitter on dried berries is an affirmation that they are processed with non-natural ingredients, which is unlikely to be useful when preparing the starter.
We fall asleep necessary quantity of raisins in a previously sterilized bottle, we fill it with slightly warm water, add sugar and shake it, so that the crystals are dissolved. You can first warm the water with sugar, so that the crystals melt, then cool it and then add it to the raisins. We close the bottle with a loose cotton swab and have it in a warm place for three or four days. A ready ferment for wine can be stored after that no more than ten days on the shelf of the refrigerator. After a while, it simply sours and becomes absolutely unsuitable for use in winemaking.
How much starter from raisins it is necessary to add in wort for preparation of apple or any other wine? The amount of leaven that should be added to the must depends on the strength of the wine you want to get. To get dry and semisweet wine, you need to take from one to two percent of the leaven to the total amount of wort, and for dessert wine - 2.5-3 percent. So, for example, if the wort you have five liters, then for a dry or semisweet wine you need to take 50 or 100 grams, respectively. For a dessert drink of ferment, 125-150 grams will be required in this case. With large amounts of wort, we proportionally increase the amount of ferment for wine.
Preliminary preparation of the ferment for wine from raisins and its further use in winemaking will reduce the risk of failures associated with insufficient or absent fermentation to a minimum and make the finished wine more qualitative, because raw materials can be taken for a drink thoroughly washed.