Grape chacha is the national drink of the Georgian people. It is made from pomace or whole berries of any grape variety. People often confuse chacha with Georgian vodka, but these are different drinks. According to the rules for preparing Georgian vodka, its components ferment with alcoholic yeast, and chacha ferments with its own wild yeast. It is not necessary to add sugar to the intoxicating drink. Unsweetened alcohol better preserves the taste and aroma of raw materials. But experts do not prohibit the inclusion of sugar in the recipe for moonshine from grapes.

Selection of raw materials for chacha

If the owner plans to make moonshine from grapes at home, he must stock up on raw materials with high acidity. It is best to use Krasnodar, Caucasian and Crimean varieties for moonshine, as well as Isabella grapes. Early white varieties produce light, fresh chacha with pleasant sourness. Dark and late varieties, like dried fruits, make the drink soft and aromatic. Moonshine from grapes becomes rich when mixing berries of several varieties.

The quality of the final product depends on compliance with the rules. It is made from fresh berries, pure juice or juice. If the drink is created from fresh raw materials, it is used unwashed. Wild yeast living on the surface of the fruit triggers fermentation processes in the mash. The bunches are inspected and unsuitable berries are removed. High-quality raw materials are crushed with gloved hands.

If the cake left over after preparing the wine is used for moonshine, take 2 times more of it. This is due to the fact that some of the substances needed by chacha have already been given to wine.

Features of grape fermentation

It is believed that high-quality chacha made from grapes at home is made without sugar. But some moonshiners add it to speed up fermentation and increase the volume of the final product. Yeast as an auxiliary component is also rarely used in the production of moonshine from grapes, since the mash ferments using natural yeast. If the owner considers it necessary to put them in, then he buys only the alcoholic variety of the product.

Distilled water is not poured into the wort. For chacha, use settled water, previously passed through a multi-stage filter. The temperature for fermentation of the mixture is maintained within 14 – 28°C. In this mode, the wort will slowly bubble for 1 - 1.5 months, but the output will be an aromatic distillate - a precious quality of fruit moonshine.

If chacha mash is made from pulp at home, its readiness is determined by several criteria:

• No bubbles.
• The thicket settled to the bottom.
• The liquid part of the wort has brightened significantly.
• A lit match over a vessel with mash does not go out.
• The hydrometer shows a value of less than 1.002.

Grape moonshine recipes

Residents of cold regions usually grow Isabella grapes. The variety is distinguished by a moderate content of carbohydrates and an abundance of substances that interfere with the processing of raw materials into mash. For this reason, experts have developed separate versions of chacha recipes from Isabella grapes and divided them into three categories - from berries, juice and juice. In principle, this base is suitable for making chacha at home from any grape varieties.

Chacha from Isabella grapes

The bunches are kneaded with your hands, covered with gauze and the dishes are taken to a warm room. The pulp is mixed daily. A week later, the juice for moonshine from Isabella grapes is filtered and distilled twice. Between distillations, the distillate is purified with coal or manganese.

A second batch of moonshine is produced from grape pomace, or the leftovers are used to flavor the chacha being created. In the second case, it is sealed in a gauze bag and suspended inside the device.

Chacha from Isabella grapes will be ready after secondary distillation. It is poured into a clean glass container, left for 2 weeks and tasted.

How to make mash for chacha from juice

Strong moonshine at home can be obtained from grape juice, starting from the proportion of 1 liter of juice to 2 liters of water, 40 g of diluted alcoholic yeast and 400 g of sugar. The mash is allowed for further processing after a week of fermentation.

Recipe with yeast and sugar

Let's look at how to prepare chacha with alcohol yeast at home from grape marc. Ingredients you will need:

You can make moonshine with sugar from grape pomace as follows:

1. Yeast is diluted with warm water and sweetened with sugar.
2. The mass is combined with the cake and mixed.
3. The wort is poured into a fermentation tank, a water seal is installed and the bottle is taken to a warm room with an air temperature of 14 – 28°C.
4. The fermented slurry is distilled twice through a moonshine still, arranging intermediate filtration of the liquid and dividing the final product into “heads” and “tails.”
5. Moonshine made from grapes is infused for 15 days, then bottled.

As you can see, it’s not at all difficult to make mash from grapes at home. To improve the appearance of moonshine, add some oak chips to the glass container - they will give it a light cognac tint.

To prepare chacha at home, grapes of any variety or waste (cake) remaining after squeezing out the juice are suitable. The result will be approximately the same. We will consider a recipe that is as close as possible to the technology used in the traditional regions of drink production - Georgia and Abkhazia.

Real Georgian chacha differs from ordinary grape moonshine in that it ferments with wild yeast, and not with alcoholic or baking yeast, which improves the aroma. It is also advisable not to add sugar, which increases yield but eliminates the unique taste. This point is provided in the recipe. Next I’ll tell you how to make chacha with and without sugar.

Ingredients:

• bunches of grapes (or cake) – 25 kg;
• water – 50 liters;
• sugar – 10 kg (optional).

If the sugar content of grapes is about 20%, from 25 kg of berries with clusters you can get 5-6 liters of forty-degree homemade chacha. When adding 10 kg of sugar, the yield increases to 16-17 liters. At the same time, the original aroma and taste of chacha will not go anywhere, since during distillation we will use one trick.

The grape pomace remaining after making juice or wine yields even less. Therefore, in this case, I recommend adding sugar, otherwise the amount of the finished product will be unpleasantly surprising.

Attention! Chacha from Isabella grapes, grown in the northern regions of Russia, is made only with sugar, since this variety has low glucose content and high acidity.

Chacha recipe without yeast

1. Mash the unwashed grapes with your hands, trying to crush each berry. Do not remove the scallops and seeds; in many ways, they create the unique taste of chacha. The berries must be unwashed. Natural wine yeasts live on the surface of the fruit, causing fermentation.

If preparing chacha from grape pomace, skip this step.

2. Place the crushed grapes along with juice (or cake) in a fermentation container. I recommend using large 100 liter pans.

3. Add water, sugar (optional), mix with your hand or a wooden stick. A minimum of 10% of the container should remain unfilled. The empty volume will be occupied by carbon dioxide, which will begin to be released during fermentation.

4. Install a water seal and move the container to a dark place with a temperature of 22-28°C. Natural yeast is not as active as alcoholic yeast, so natural mash for chacha will be ready only after 30-60 days (in some cases, fermentation lasts up to 90 days).

Attention! The remains of the grapes periodically float to the surface, forming a layer on the surface that needs to be destroyed. To do this, once every 2-3 days the mash should be opened and stirred. Otherwise, mold may appear, greatly deteriorating the quality of homemade chacha.

5. After the end of fermentation (the water seal does not release bubbles for several days, the mash has become bitter in taste without sweetness), you can begin distillation.

6. Drain the spent mash from the sediment, otherwise the solid particles will burn during distillation. On the other hand, it is the seeds, skin and pulp that contain substances that distinguish chacha from ordinary moonshine. To solve this problem, we will use the secret that I wrote about at the very beginning. Namely: we filter the mash through 5-6 layers of gauze, fill the distillation cube with liquid, and hang the solid part on the same gauze at the top of the cube (see photo). As a result, all aromatic substances will remain in the mash and will enter the distillate during evaporation.

Distillation of the solid part of the mash

7. Distill the mash for the first time without dividing into fractions. End the selection when the strength in the stream drops below 30%. Measure the strength of the resulting distillate and determine the amount of pure alcohol in the entire volume.

8. Dilute the moonshine with water to 20% and do a second distillation. Select the first 10% of the amount of pure alcohol separately. These are “heads” - a harmful fraction that is dangerous to drink. Select the main product (“body”) until the strength in the stream drops below 45%.

9. Dilute the finished homemade chacha with water to 40-60% and leave in a cool, dark place for 2-3 days before use to stabilize the taste. The container must be hermetically sealed.

Chacha is a strong alcoholic Georgian and Abkhaz drink. Chacha belongs to the class of grape brandies. The strength of chacha is usually 45-50%, less often it is 60%. Most often, chacha in the Caucasus means grape vodka. Less often - any fruit moonshine.

In this article we will tell you how to make homemade chacha from grapes.

Grape chacha recipe

The simplest way to make chacha is to distill grape wine using a homemade moonshine still.

On average, 15 liters of grape wine produces three liters of chacha at 55 degrees (double distillation). The middle part is taken with a strong cutting off of the “tails” of the moonshine. From the residue you can get raw alcohol, about another 2 liters, which can be additionally distilled in a distillation column into 90 proof alcohol and subsequently made into ordinary vodka.

Homemade chacha smells very pleasant, it has a pronounced grape smell and aftertaste. Chacha is drunk easily and smoothly even when not chilled, and does not make you want to not only drink it down, but also have a snack. The intoxication from chacha is smooth and easy. If, when distilling chacha, you did not capture the tails and heads, then in the morning there is no hangover syndrome - the smell, heaviness of the head, lack of sleep and thirst are simply absent.

Good homemade chacha is made from selected grapes. It is preferable to use the Isabella variety. These grapes are specially bred to have a strong aroma; you can recognize Isabella at the market counter by its smell and you don’t need to crush the grapes for this.

Sometimes chacha is mistakenly called grape vodka made from fermented cake, which remains after squeezing the grape juice. But actually it is not. Real chacha, like homemade Calvados, requires the use of selected source material.

In Ukraine, chacha is often made from cheap sweet Massandra wine by double distillation. Given the low cost of wine, this makes economic sense, but you need to buy young wine, preferably before it is treated with chemicals and packaged in tetrapacks.

Chacha distillation

After the end of active fermentation of grape wine, it is filtered through cheesecloth; this is a mandatory procedure, since the pulp that gets into the moonshine still can burn and thereby greatly spoil the taste of homemade chacha.

After the first distillation, it is necessary to clean the moonshine.

The second distillation is carried out with a large cutting off of the “heads” and “tails”, this allows you to obtain a high-quality product that will not give you a headache after consuming it. Don't be greedy with this distillation! It is better to distill the last part with the beginning of the “tails” into a separate container and subsequently use it to obtain high-proof alcohol in a rectifier.

After the second distillation, homemade chacha is filtered.

After filtering is completed, the chacha prepared by yourself is poured into bottles and allowed to sit for a month. After this, the grape chacha is ready for tasting.

One way to improve the taste of chacha is to leave it in an open bottle for 5-7 days. During this time, the strength of homemade chacha drops by 2-3 degrees, but the drink becomes much milder in taste and the smell of alcohol disappears.

Preparation of grape wine for the production of chacha

To prepare homemade wine, only well-ripened grapes are taken. Raw materials must be of the highest quality, that is, no mold or rot! The berries are separated from the clusters. Grape juice contains fruit acids, which in small quantities are good for the skin, but for wine you will need to sort through a lot of grapes and therefore it is worth protecting your hands with light medical gloves.

The berries separated from the clusters are crushed using a press or a crusher using improvised means. You cannot crush grapes using a juicer or meat grinder, since these devices crush the seeds, and this is unacceptable for obtaining good wine.

The pulp is placed in any suitable container, for example, a bucket or pan. If the berries are not sweet enough, add a little fruit sugar and keep at a temperature of about +25°. The container must be filled in such a way that the rising “cap” has room to “puff”. In order for the pulp to evenly release tannins and coloring substances, it must be stirred periodically.

After 3-4 days, the pulp is filtered first through a colander, and then through a sieve or gauze. The wort is poured into glass (ten or twenty liter) cylinders, a water seal is installed or a rubber glove is put on the neck. While wearing a glove, be sure to make punctures with a thin needle. The taste does not depend on how to make homemade wine from grapes - using a shutter or a glove.

Sugar is added in several stages. To prepare grape wine suitable for making chacha, you will need from 1 kg of sugar per ten liters of wine. Sugar is added on the fourth, seventh and tenth days. This allows the grapes to actively ferment.

At the end of active fermentation, the wine is drained using a flexible hose, the sediment can be flavored with sugar, added with water and left to ferment to obtain raw alcohol. Only wine from the first fermentation is used for chacha.

Tema says:

You write such nonsense. Chacha is precisely the distillation of mash from grape marc, not wine. The second is nothing more than cognac alcohol. Chacha is essentially an analogue of grappa, pisco and other similar drinks. So don't mislead the public

Artem says:

You don’t understand anything about chacha! Seriously!

Semenych says:

Moonshine made from any fruit is brandy. Chacha, cognac, armagnac are made from grapes and this is also brandy. If someone makes it from grape cake and calls it chacha, that’s his personal problem! So moonshine made from pork shit and grape cake can be called chacha.

mantis speaks:

guys, even in Abkhazia, where there are heaps of grapes, chacha is mostly made from cake

Anton speaks:

And in some villages where there are heaps of grain, moonshine is made from sawdust and, excuse me, pig shit.
So this is not an indicator.

Taras speaks:

Why are you arguing? Proper chacha is made exactly as it is written - from wine!

And from the cake mash, ordinary village moonshine is obtained.

Cognac is also made from grapes, and not from sludge and cake!

Andrey speaks:

Guys, what if I have 200 liters of sludge and how much sugar and water should I add to make a strong drink?
So what?!

Maria speaks:

I have been making wine at home for several years, after pressing the pomace on the third or fourth day, almost all of the pomace will give up to wine, the mash on the pomace will only have the smell of grapes, it will not have the same taste as chacha from wine, do not deceive yourself. The author of the article is 100% right

Novel speaks:

Chacha translated into Russian means cake

Dmitriy speaks:

People don't argue, READ WIKIPEDIA

Novel speaks:

Anyone can fix the wiki, but try making chacha yourself at home!

Alexander speaks:

When distilling wine, the smells of grapes and others practically do not remain in high-quality moonshine. I tried it more than once.

Sanchos speaks:

From Wikipedia. Chacha (Georgian ჭაჭა) is a Georgian strong alcoholic drink belonging to the class of grape brandy. This is both pulp (the solid fraction of grape pressing) and the alcoholic drink obtained from it after fermentation and distillation. Analogues of chacha are Italian grappa, South Slavic rakia, and South American pisco.

Gennady speaks:

The author of Wikipedia needs to push all these scribbles into one place! Here's how pisco is made - an analogue, in the words of the original source, of chacha:
“In terms of production technology, pisco differs from all other high-proof drinks. For it, they take pure, freshly fermented wine from grapes without skins and seeds. They distill it once and get an aromatic liquid with a strength of 43%. In principle, that’s all.”

Semyon speaks:

I completely agree! Any idiot can write on the wiki, and other idiots will support his edits, since what is written coincides with _their opinion_!
Trusting Wikipedia is the same as trusting people drinking on a bench about the principles of operation of a synchrophasatron.

Artem speaks:

Good chacha (for yourself) is made from natural grapes.
And it is made from grape pomace according to the residual principle - so that the goodness does not go to waste.
Ask the Georgian you came to visit, who treated you to chacha, “Did you make it from cake?” and you will make an enemy for life!

Dmitriy speaks:

Gentlemen, SO MANY PEOPLE, SO MANY OPINIONS, BUT THERE IS ONE TRUTH. Cognac alcohol is obtained from wine, and CHACHU IS MADE FROM PULP. It was invented for this purpose, so as not to throw away a completely good product.

Artem speaks:

Yeah, and all the moonshine is distilled from pig shit, so as not to throw away a completely good product. Yes? :-)

Franklouff speaks:

Wise words! RESPECT!!!

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I think many have heard about such an alcoholic drink as chacha. Let's get to know her better, find out what she is like and how to make chacha at home.

Chacha is a national Georgian alcoholic drink made from grape pomace, with a strength of 55-70 degrees. It is also called Georgian vodka, which locals happily drink in small portions before meals. The closest world analogues are Italian grappa. According to the preparation technology, this drink is ordinary.

If you are engaged in home winemaking, then it is useful for you to know the recipe for how to make chacha, because from the same amount of grapes you can prepare significantly more alcoholic product. Thus, we have an almost waste-free production; we will make grape wine from the juice, and chacha from the remaining pomace.

Chacha recipe

• 5 l. grape marc;
• 15 l. water;
• 2.5 kg. Sahara;
• 50 g dry yeast or 250 g pressed yeast;

Classic chacha is prepared without the use of yeast and sugar. Therefore, the last two ingredients are optional and can be omitted. But in this case, the yield of the finished product will be significantly lower, especially if the grapes are not very sweet and the fermentation process itself will take 1-3 months. But at home, it is still better to add sugar and yeast; you will hardly notice any loss in quality, but you will get a lot more drink.

Preparation:

Recipe for chacha or grape moonshine

This recipe differs from the previous one in that in it we will use not only cake, but whole grapes. In fact, we will first prepare grape wine, and then, through ordinary distillation, we will obtain it.

We will need:

Preparation:

1. We remove the grapes from the clusters and crush them in a saucepan;
2. We pour it all into a bottle for further fermentation and add sugar, we will do this in fractions immediately and after 10 days. How much to add depends on the sweetness of your grapes, I usually add 70-100 g of sugar per liter of must each time.
3. We put on a water seal and set it to ferment;
4. After 9-11 days, add sugar again;
5. As soon as the wine has finished drinking, we pour it from the sediment into a still and begin distilling. We carefully select heads and tails separately.
6. From 25 liters of wort we should get 3 liters of chacha with a strength of 70 degrees. All we have to do is dilute it a little.

For greater clarity, watch the video recipe for making chacha at home in two different ways.

Whatever recipe you choose, you will still get a drink with a pronounced grape-fruit aroma, which is very easy to drink and 100% natural.

Regardless of how many degrees there are in chacha, this drink is very strong and it is very difficult to drink it without snacking. It is also very often used to prepare various cocktails in nightclubs.

Found a mistake? Select it and click Shift + Enter or

Chacha is good for health and is still used as a medicine in Georgian villages. The recipe for chacha from grapes is passed down from generation to generation to this day. In order to eliminate the indignation and dissatisfaction of readers: “They say that alcohol is harmful and there is no benefit from it,” it is necessary to clarify that we are talking about a small amount of alcoholic drink - no more than 50 grams per day.

What will a glass of chacha get rid of?

• acts as an antiviral agent;
• prevents the appearance of edema;
• treats inflammatory processes.

Caucasian men drink their national drink, chacha, as an aperitif. However, the mountaineers do not abuse their favorite drink, despite the fact that it is in every home. It has been scientifically proven that regular consumption of a strong grape drink helps improve the functioning of the digestive system, normalizes blood pressure, and also calms the nervous system. In addition, a strong alcoholic drink is a preventive measure against the development of cancer tumors.

Contraindications.

Remember that excessive drinking is harmful to your health. When drinking alcohol, you need to take into account individual intolerance to the ingredients of the product.

• serious heart disease;
• mental disorders, as well as people with diseases;
• central nervous system;
• epilepsy;
• peptic ulcer;
• oncological diseases.

Naturally, there are contraindications for the use of both chacha and any other alcohol, including beer, for pregnant women and women during lactation.

How to prepare Chacha at home?

Classic chacha is prepared only from grapes and water, no sugar or yeast is added. Considering the low sugar content of grapes in almost all regions of Russia, it is advisable to use a recipe more adapted to our conditions. Without adding sugar, the yield of the finished product decreases, and wild yeast will extend the fermentation process for 30 - 90 days.

In order to save money, it is best to make a noble Georgian drink and wine at the same time, thus, the grape juice will be used to make wine, and the marc will be used to make Georgian chacha. The used grape cake will be useful to us for making chacha.

Step-by-step recipe

Ingredients

• water (purified) - 30 liters;
• pomace (Isabella grapes) 10 liters;
• sugar 5–7 kg.

1. Squeeze the grapes or use the marc already obtained.

The main component of chacha is grapes, or to be more precise, grape marc. How to choose the right grapes and how much of them you will need to make chacha?

2. After making grape wine, you should have some leftover cake, that’s what we need. If you made red wine, when making it, the pulp should ferment along with the juice and saturate the wine with the astringency and color of the grape skins. And the pomace is separated from the total mass only after a few days.

In the second case under consideration, the already processed marc contains much less of the substances necessary for moonshine for its unique taste and aroma.

So, the amount of marc for chacha directly depends on the quality of the raw materials. To prepare chacha (grape brandy) you will need 20 liters of previously processed cake or 10 unprocessed.

Note! The Isabella grape variety is best suited for making chacha. In addition, there are a lot of these grapes on free sale.

3. Pour the pomace into a container, add sugar and yeast.

Yeast. Most often, in recipes for making chacha, either out of ignorance or inattention, 100 grams of yeast are indicated, and based on this, readers may mistakenly assume that ordinary baker’s yeast should be used, but this is not the case. This type of yeast is intended for baking only. Of course, they will fulfill their function, but the resulting liquid cannot be called chacha.

In general, you don’t need to add yeast to chacha, since the grapes themselves contain fermentation bacteria (in other words, wild yeast). And if you have not treated the grapes with chemicals (soap powder), then the bacteria useful for fermentation will remain and fermentation is guaranteed. If you want to speed up the process, use special dry ones in the amount of 5–10 grams per 10 liters of cake. Yeast must be used according to the recipe instructions indicated on the packaging or on the manufacturer’s website. It’s even better to make a noble drink without yeast from Isabella grapes.

Note! If you are going to make chacha outside the grape harvest season, which is September - early November, depending on the variety, or use imported grapes. There is a good chance that he was exposed to drugs that could kill the bacteria. In this case, you need to thoroughly wash the grapes and add wine yeast to the pulp.

4. Fill the contents of the tank with warm water at 20-25 degrees Celsius.

Additional heating. If the outside temperature is more than 20 degrees, additional heating is not needed. During the fermentation process, the temperature of the mash is always a couple of degrees higher than the air temperature. If the water is hot, the yeast may die and fermentation will not even begin.

A container with pulp needs to be insulated only if there is a large difference between day and night air temperatures in the room where it is located. In this case, you need to achieve the same temperature around the clock by all possible means. The fermentation process directly depends on the amount of wild yeast in the wort.

5. Stir the ingredients throughout the fermentation stage. Fermentation time can vary from 10 days using yeast to 30 days using natural yeast. It is necessary to open the tank with mash at least once a day and lower the risen cap of pulp back into the liquid. If this is not done, then mold may appear on it.

Note! As soon as gas evolution stops, the mash for preparing chacha can be considered ready. Following the recipe, you can safely proceed to the next stage of preparation.

The solid part of the mash should be thoroughly squeezed out and not placed in the moonshine still, as it can burn, ruining the noble drink.

6. Distillation. Chacha is distilled similarly to moonshine. Most experts believe that this should be done. Cutting off the “heads” and “tails”. The heads contain esters that are responsible for preserving the smell of the resulting product. But the “tails” contain fusel oils, because of which a person feels a hangover after abusing an alcoholic drink.

You can limit yourself to one distillation, in which case the moonshine will turn out with a more saturated grape hue. With double distillation, the chacha will be much cleaner, and it will also eliminate the fusel smell from the chacha.

7. It is necessary to pour the resulting liquid into bottles, place it in a dark place and store at a temperature of 15–20 degrees for 35–45 days. During this time, the drink will “ripen” and turn into an exquisite “brandy” with a subtle aroma of grapes. Another undoubted advantage of homemade chacha is the absence of a hangover after drinking the drink (in reasonable quantities).

Precautionary measures.

If you have a pump and a thermostat, to avoid damage to the devices, turn off both. Because the pump will instantly become clogged with pieces of grape pomace, and organic particles can be baked on the thermostat, which is in thick must.

If grapes stick to the thermostat, then during fermentation, which without adding yeast is about a month, they will turn into a solid mass (coke).

This will not only damage the thermostat, but will also negatively affect the taste of the moonshine.

How to check the quality of the drink?

Since time immemorial, there has been an old but effective way to check the quality of a grape drink. This method can only be used if all the technologies and preparation nuances specified in the classic recipe for the Georgian drink are followed.

You need to wet your finger in the chacha and bring a flaming match or candle to it. The flame will engulf the wet finger and the liquid will slowly evaporate. If the fire does not burn your finger, then the resulting drink can be considered high quality.

For a long time, Calvados was considered the alcohol of commoners, since the drink is made from ordinary apples. But after this alcohol began to appear in the works of the writer Remarque, the situation changed. The elite became interested in apple moonshine infused in barrels and it quickly became fashionable. We will look at how to make Calvados at home using the classic recipe and in the form of an imitation tincture.

On a note. Only a drink produced in Normandy (a region in northwestern France) can be called Calvados; in all other cases, apple distillate should be called brandy.

Imitation Calvados (apple liqueur)

Preparation takes a minimum of time and money. The smell of the tincture is slightly similar to the original. If you want to make real homemade Calvados, I advise you to immediately move on to the second recipe.

Ingredients:

• apples – 2 kg;
• vodka – 1 liter;
• sugar – 200 grams;
• water – 150 ml;
• vanilla sugar – 10 grams.

Technology:

1. Wash the apples, remove cores and seeds, cut into cubes.

2. Place the cubes in a jar, sprinkle with vanilla sugar.

3. Add vodka, close the lid and put the jar in a dark place at room temperature for 2 weeks to infuse.

4. Remove the apples by straining the drink through cheesecloth. Squeeze out the pulp.

5. Mix water and sugar in a saucepan, bring to a boil, simmer for about 5 minutes (until foam forms), skimming foam from the surface. Cool the finished sugar syrup to 25-30°C, then pour into the apple liqueur and stir.

6. Pour the finished tincture into glass bottles and seal tightly.

Imitation Calvados

Store in a cool, dark place. Shelf life – up to 3 years. The taste is sweetish apple vodka with a strength of 32-35 degrees.

Recipe for apple calvados (real)

The proposed technology is as close as possible to the original. The only ingredients needed for homemade Calvados are apples. Although you will end up with a distillate (moonshine from fermented juice), I still advise you to take the quality of the apples seriously. They must be ripe, without signs of rot or spoilage. The variety is not of fundamental importance, but it is better to use sweet and juicy fruits.

1. Making cider. Extract juice from apples using any available method. The less pulp, the better. Leave the juice for 24 hours in a dark place at room temperature. Then remove the foam from the surface and drain from the sediment through a straw into a fermentation container. Install a water seal or rubber glove with a small hole in one of the fingers (pierce it with a needle).

Transfer the container to a dark place with a temperature of 18-27°C. After fermentation is complete (signs: the water seal does not release bubbles for several days or the glove has deflated, the drink has become lighter and has no signs of sweetness in taste, sediment has appeared at the bottom), pour the finished cider into the distillation cube, being careful not to touch the sediment at the bottom, you can additionally filter through gauze. If this is not done, the solid part will burn during heating, ruining the taste of Calvados.

Fermentation of wort under a water seal

2. Distillation. It's time to distill the cider. To do this, you need a moonshine still of any design. During the first distillation, the output should not be divided into fractions, selecting the entire product until the strength in the stream drops below 30 degrees. Measure the strength of the resulting apple moonshine and determine the amount of pure alcohol.

Dilute the moonshine with water to 18-20 degrees, then distill it again, removing the “heads,” “body,” and “tails.” Collect the first 12% of the amount of pure alcohol in a separate container and pour it out (use for technical needs); these are “heads” that contain harmful impurities, spoil the taste and have a bad effect on health.

3. Exposure. In order for apple moonshine to turn into Calvados, oak wood infusion is required. Classic technology uses oak barrels. But not everyone has this opportunity at home, so a simpler option is suitable - aging in glass jars (bottles) with oak pegs.

You need oak wood with a trunk diameter of 25-35 cm. Bark, sawdust and shavings are not suitable, as they contain too many tannins, which make Calvados bitter.

The wood needs to be divided into pieces 5-8 mm thick and 10-15 cm long. Pour boiling water over the resulting pegs, leave for 10 minutes, drain the broth, soak in cold water for 20 minutes, then drain the liquid and dry the wood. Place the treated pegs in jars and fill them with apple alcohol diluted with clean cold water to 45 degrees. Roll up the jars with iron lids (close tightly with corks), and place them in a dark, cool place for ripening for 6-12 months.

The concentrate is made from natural apples, which allows you to preserve nutrients and vitamins. The composition of the concentrate is natural and does not contain impurities or sugar.

• Appearance: Thick, almost transparent liquid.
• Consistency: Clean, rich, viscous.
• Colour: Typical orange to light brown.
• Taste: natural, sweet and sour, well expressed, characteristic of this type of product.

Juice concentrate production technology

Apple concentrate is produced using freezing technology, that is, apple juice is obtained by greatly reducing the temperature (direct pressing). Unlike the production of juice using evaporation technology, in our case there is no decomposition of the beneficial substances that make up apples, thus the juice retains vitamins.

No sweeteners are added to the juice. It is great for both preparing reconstituted juice and for producing homemade alcohol, such as cider, wine, Calvados.

• Volume: 5 liters
• Packaging: canister
• Production: Russia

Recipes

To prepare reconstituted juice:

• Dilute the concentrated juice with water in a ratio of 1:4
• If desired, add dextrose or sugar to taste
• Reconstituted juice can be stored in the refrigerator for no more than 1 day.

Cider from concentrated apple juice:

• 4 l. concentrated juice
• 20 l. water
• 1 kg. dextrose (sugar)
• Wine yeast - 10 gr.

In a sterile fermentation container, mix water, juice, dextrose or sugar (make syrup first), check the temperature before adding yeast.
Add wine yeast, seal the container hermetically, and install a water seal. Leave to ferment. When finished, pour into sterile bottles adding 1 tsp of sugar or dextrose to each bottle. (4-5 g) per 1 liter of cider. Seal tightly and leave at room temperature for 2-3 weeks. Before use, cool in the refrigerator at a temperature of 2-4 degrees for 2-5 days. Cider bottled in sterile bottles can be stored at room temperature for up to 4 months (if bottled in plastic), up to 1 year (if bottled in glass).

Calvados from concentrated apple juice:

• 4 l. concentrated juice
• 20 l. water
• 5 kg. Sahara
• Wine yeast - 60 gr.

Mix water, juice, sugar in a fermentation container. Add wine yeast, seal the container hermetically, and install a water seal. Leave to ferment. When finished, let sit for 2-3 days to allow the yeast to settle. Distill with the selection of heads and tails, leave on oak chips for 3-4 weeks or in an oak barrel (aging time depending on the age of the barrel), pour into a glass bottle (preferably sealed with a cork stopper), leave in a dark place for at least 1-2 weeks .

Concentrated juice- This is an intermediate stage between directly pressed juice and reconstituted juice (99% of all juice in the store). The concentrate is a thick and viscous liquid, which is usually sold in 5 kg canisters. The estimated cost is 300 rubles per kg. It is not recommended to consume this raw material., but put mash on it - please!

In general, this is a very interesting idea to use such rich raw materials for fermentation. It will greatly saturate the mash with its taste and transfer the aroma to the future moonshine. If you are open to experimentation, then this recipe is definitely for you.

Concentrated juices from Barinof. Price 1300 rubles per 5 kg.

Manufacturers of this raw material sometimes write the technology themselves, thanks to which it is possible to make wine, chacha or cognac. The proportions are approximately the same everywhere, so for cooking 25 liters of mash We recommend taking the following ingredients:

Wine yeast Lalvin EC-1118 (a good option for such a mash).

• Concentrated juice - 4 kg.
• Sugar - 5 kg.
• Water - 20 liters.
• Wine yeast (25 grams) or alcohol yeast (100 grams).

Wine distillate will taste better, but fermentation will take longer and be less efficient.

The aroma will go away a little with alcohol, but the sugar will ferment quickly and few harmful impurities will be produced.

We put on the mash and distill the moonshine

The technology is quite simple. We meet all the requirements for classic mash, don’t forget about the temperature and everything will be fine.

1. Stir sugar in water until it dissolves as much as possible. You can use it if you wish, but it is not necessary. If your yeast is of high quality, then it will cope with the breakdown of even ordinary granulated sugar.
2. Rehydrate and activate the yeast in a glass of water with a spoon of sugar. After 10–15 minutes they will sizzle, after which they must be added to the wort.
3. We install a water seal on the fermentation tank and take the mash to a dark place with a temperature in the range of 23–27 degrees.
4. The duration of fermentation will depend on the type and quality of yeast. We recommend the best wine and spirit strains, since the concentration of sugar in the mash is quite serious. The wort should ferment within 7–10 days.
5. Remove the liquid from the sediment, filter through cheesecloth and pour into a distillation cube.
6. We do the first distillation quickly. We separate the moonshine until the strength in the stream drops to 25–30 degrees.
7. We dilute the resulting distillate with clean water to a strength of 20 degrees and re-distill it.
8. We isolate the harmful fraction of the “head” - about 250 ml of the first alcohol, then the “body” (until the strength in the stream drops below 35–40 degrees), after which the remaining “tails” can be collected.
9. Let's move on to tasting the finished product and enjoy its taste :)

Double distillation is not carried out for the purpose of purifying the drink from juice concentrate. There are no harmful impurities in it, but there are a lot of them in the alcohol resulting from the chemical reaction.

We spare no time and effort in separating harmful fractions. Your head will thank you the next morning!

Moonshiner Timofey I took the time to write down for you an interesting review of making mash from concentrated apple juice. An interesting recipe using dextrose instead of sugar. We recommend viewing to everyone who decides to make moonshine from the ingredients described above.