Cooking homemade wine is a tradition of many nations. Nowadays, housewives often produce tinctures, liqueurs, and liqueurs with their own hands. Such drinks are characterized by original taste, decent quality and natural composition. None of them compare to store-bought.
However, making homemade wine is not an easy task. It will require a lot of patience, time and effort from the winemaker. And before you do this, you should carefully study the theoretical part. Today we will talk about what pulp is.
Definition
Pulp is called gruel from crushed berries, which also includes juice, fruit peel, seeds, etc. This pulp is considered the product of the initial stage of home winemaking. It seems to be clear what the pulp is. What is it for?
Of course, every amateur winemaker knows that fermentation is provided by the presence of sugar and yeast in the must. Someone prefers to use pure juice and add yeast to it. This is how liqueurs are usually prepared. For wine, the natural fermentation option is more often used.
Yeast is a microorganism that, whenappropriate conditions multiply and process the original product. To ensure the fermentation process, certain conditions are required: first of all, the temperature in the room is 18-22 degrees. On the skin of the fruit there are microorganisms that help fermentation. For this reason, it is not recommended to wash the berries before use. So, thanks to the pulp of fruits or berries, you can start the natural fermentation process of the product.
The pulp can be the original or the one that remained after the separation of grape must.
There are several ways to prepare it. They depend on the consistency of the juice.
Fruits with liquid juice
Meaning cherries, white and red currants. After crushing them into pulp, water is immediately added at the rate of 200-300 ml per kilogram of pulp. The mass is stirred and pressed to make juice. It is important to remember the amount of liquid added.
Juice thick consistency
Fruits that give juice of a thick consistency are blackcurrant, raspberry, blueberry, gooseberry, plum. To facilitate the pressing process, the fruits are first heated in an enamel bowl for 30 minutes at a temperature of 60 °C. Preliminarily pour water at 70 ° C at the rate of 300 ml per kilogram of pulp. The heated product is pressed. The amount of liquid added is recorded.
Fermented pulp - what is it?
This method is considered the best in preparing the necessary pulp. It consists in the fact that the pulp is first fermented and then pressed. Warm up beforeprocessing is not necessary, except for the fruits of Japanese quince.
In this way, the pulp of any berries is prepared. The fruits of Japanese quince before fermentation are heated with the addition of water to 60 ° C, cooled before pressing to 24 ° C.
Crushed pulp is placed in enameled, glass or oak dishes, water is added at 24 ° C, 250 ml per kilogram of pulp, as well as wine yeast leaven, infused for 4 days. The volume of liquid is recorded. The contents are stirred.
Covering the dishes with a clean towel, leave to ferment in a room with a temperature of 20-22 °C. Fermentation usually starts the next day.
In this case, carbon dioxide is released, the pulp rises, a “cap” is formed. This layer is stirred several times a day so that the raw materials do not turn sour, and the wine itself does not turn into vinegar. After 2-3 days, the pulp can be pressed.
In general, the method is not easy, it requires a lot of attention from the winemaker, but it greatly improves the quality of the finished drink. During fermentation, coloring substances and aromas are extracted from the skin of the berries. The wine obtained in this way has an intense color and rich taste.
For rowan
There is another way to prepare pulp. It is suitable only for mountain ash. Before pressing, the fruit pulp is infused with the addition of water at a temperature of 10-12 °C. If the mountain ash was dried, it needs 3-4 days, and 3-4 times more water. The volume of liquid should be recorded.
If there were several pressings, the resulting juice is different. First, the so-called self-flow appears. After pressing - juice of the first pressure. Then water is added to the pulp, mixed, squeezed again, so the juice of the second pressure is obtained. The latter has less acids and sugars than the former, but more flavor. To prepare a drink, juices of all fractions are mixed.
Juice that comes out of the press and mixed with water is called "wort". If there is no special press, you can squeeze the juice manually using a bag. If you separate the pulp using a juicer or any other similar device, the quality of the wine will deteriorate significantly.
What to do with the pulp?
After the pulp has given the liquid everything that is needed, it should be carefully removed. The pulp is separated. The finished wort is filtered through cheesecloth. And what is left at the bottom (wine soot) can be used to make other drinks.
What to do with pulp? The pulp itself can be thrown into compost or given to animals as feed. An experienced hostess will undoubtedly find a use for her.
Wine continues to ferment. And before you can enjoy a drink of your own preparation, it will take a long time. However, this is no longer the subject of this article. We were only interested in what the pulp is.
Conclusions
So, now it becomes clear the meaning of pulp in the process of winemaking. It gives the drink a rich color and aroma. In addition, it should be understood that when using pure juice and yeast, you can get wine with a strength of more than 20%. When addingthe pulp of the fruit, the fortress decreases to 10-15%, however, the drink acquires an original berry taste. This is what pulp is.
