Homemade apricot wine sticks to one’s memory because of its beautiful yellow or red tint (depending on variety). Its only flaw is that it doesn’t have a pronounced flavor, but this by far is compensated by its pleasant sweet taste. I’ll tell you how to make wine from apricots following a simple tested recipe. You’ll only need fruits, sugar, and water.
Unspoiled ripe fruits picked from a tree will do just fine for making apricot wine. Apricots picked from the ground can add an unpleasant earthy taste to the beverage. I also recommend removing the pits which contain hazardous hydrocyanic acid. Not only they are harmful but they also give wine a bitter taste and a strong almond smell.
You can make apricot wine from wild or cultivar varieties. In the first case you’ll end up with a fragrant but not very sweet beverage, in the second – quite the opposite. You shouldn’t wash apricots, because there is wild yeast on their surface which is required for fermentation.
Ingredients:
- Apricots – 6.5 lb / 3 kg
- Sugar – 6.5 lb / 3 kg
- Water – 2.7 gal / 10 liters
- Wine Yeast (In case fermentation does not start naturally, not enough wild yeast found on Apricots)
Apricot Wine Recipe
1. Wipe the fruits with a dry cloth, remove the pits. Peels should be left because in many ways they determine the color and aroma of the wine.
2. Mash picked apricots by hands until you get homogeneous mass and then put it into a large container with a wide neck (a cooking pot or a bowl).
3. Add water, preferably warm (77-86F° / 25-30°C) and stir it thoroughly. Make sure it’s not too hot, nor too cold, so that we do not kill any yeast that are inside.
4. Cover the container with cheesecloth and leave it in a dark warm place. In order for the must not to turn sour, stir it 2-3 times a day with a hand or a wooden spoon. After 15-20 hours there should be the first signs of fermentation: foam and a hissing sound. This means that everything is going smooth.
If the must doesn’t ferment (this happens when there’s not enough wild yeast on apricots), you have to have purchased wine yeast, to start the fermentation process. This won’t affect the taste.
5. Pour the fermented apricot juice from the sediment. Squeeze the pulp through cheesecloth and mix the obtained fluid with the juice and sugar.
6. Pour the juice into a fermentation container, filling it up to 2/3 of its volume, in order to leave enough space for carbon dioxide, and install an airlock.
7. Leave the fermentation container for 10-25 days in a dark place with a temperature of 61-86F° / 16-30°C.
8. When active fermentation is finished (signs: the air lock is not bubbling for couple of days, the must is getting brighter), you should separate the new apricot wine from the sediment, by pouring it through a narrow straw into another container and getting rid of sediment.
9. Tightly seal the bottle with a cork and leave it in a dark cool place for 2-4 months. This time is enough for the wine to infuse and become tastier. After that you can bottle the wine for storing or leave it in the same container, there’s no fundamental difference.
