Homemade wine, from whatever it is made, needs to be fixed. This process will help to make its taste more saturated and keep the drink for a long time.
The procedure itself is simple: you will need wort, alcohol or tincture and sugar. What to do with it and what is the fastening technology - we will find out further.
What is the need to fix wine?
Why this is done:
- Mount stops the fermentation of the drink and helps to lighten it. All excess yeast goes to sediment, and pure liquid remains.
- This will stop the fermentation of wine, evaporation of sugar.
- The procedure will save the drink from diseases - mold and souring. It will be stored longer.
Important! Fortified wine often wrongly called low-grade drink, popularly known as the "murmur". In fact, the murmur is made from various berries or fruits and is highly diluted with alcohol and sugar. Her goal - cheaply and quickly get drunk, while such a drink does not have excellent taste.
The procedure is carried out when the drink has reached the required state - most often it is an indicator of strength from 10% vol.
Strong and dessert wines are fortified subspecies. In strong drinks, the amount of alcohol reaches 20%, while in dessert drinks, the figure does not exceed 17%. The second type has more sugar in the composition - from 21%, whereas in the first one it is not more than 14%.
Examples of fortified wine are port wine and sherry. In such beverages, the alcohol content is up to 22 °. Pure alcohol, vodka, or pre-prepared fruit liqueurs can be used to fix them.
How to calculate the fortress:
- Take advantage of the wine meter - this method is suitable only for drinks from grapes, besides, it will work in already clarified and purified wine.
- A refractometer is a measuring instrument that will show the density of the wort before fermentation and before fastening. The difference that can be calculated from these indicators on a special table will help determine the degree.
- A less accurate way is to calculate the degree based on the fruit from which the drink is made. Special tables also let you know the approximate amount of alcohol.
Video: how to use a refractometer
Learn how to cook apple, plum, gooseberry, raspberry, rowan, currant, pink, grape wine.Separately, you can see the tables based on the fruit from which the drink is made.
The amount of sugar and water that will be required for making wine with a strength of 16%Important! Sometimes even the tables will not help to know the exact number, so you will need to look at the wine itself: if, after adding alcohol and sugar, it began to ferment again, then you should fix it again.
Possible fastening methods, their advantages and disadvantages
Whatever way you choose, you need to carefully monitor the drink. After adding sugar or alcohol, the liquid becomes turbid again, so you should wait up to 5 days so that all the components mix and the sediment goes to the bottom of the bottle.
The bottle must be washed before pouring there already fixed wine. After that, you need to keep it in a dark and cool place, periodically checking whether fermentation has begun.
Adding sugar
This process is step-by-step, lengthy and requires the calculation of ingredients. There are such rules when using this method:
- If you add more sugar, it will significantly slow down the fermentation.
- Drink, which is fixed with sugar, should occupy only half of the bottle, as each kilogram of sugar will increase the amount of liquid per half liter.
- Dry wines are fixed with the addition of sugar, diluted in water, and dessert wines are made, gradually adding sugar mixed with a fermenting drink.
Learn how to make tasty and healthy tinctures from feijoa, strawberries, cranberries, ashberries, cherries, currants, plums, apples.
Alcohol wines (vodka, alcohol)
The easiest and cost-saving way that even novice winemakers can handle. Alcohol pours into the fermenting wort for several days, everything is mixed and sent to ripen.
Benefits:
- simplicity;
- environmental friendliness;
- low cost of materials;
- perfect for home use.
Freezing
The essence of the method is to kill the yeast with cold and strengthen the drink. To do this, you need a large freezer, which at home can not always be found. You will also need a centrifuge to separate the ice. The process is long and requires a lot of strength and patience.
Learn how to make wine compote and jam.
Pasteurization
This method is possible in industries where the drink is closed in a vacuum. Cons pasteurization:
- taste is lost;
- decreases the amount of tannins;
- it is impossible to create a vacuum at home.
Adding sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid, or sulfur dioxide, acts as a preservative in the manufacture of wine. This method is used by many wine-makers-professionals. They believe that it helps to reduce volatile acids and kill microorganisms that can spoil the drink. 
There is also a minus: sulfur dioxide is poisonous and in large quantities can lead to poisoning. For asthmatics, products treated with this preservative are prohibited.
Important! Sulfur dioxide is known as E220 preservative and is used in the manufacture of many products. In small doses, its harmful effects occur in rare cases.
Sulfur dioxide is present in any wine - it is a side effect of fermentation. However, its small amount can not harm.
Video: about sulphurous acid in wine
How to fix wine with sugar
Usually this method is not used separately - sugar is added together with alcohol for fixing. In any case, the calculations will be as follows: for 10 liters of wine you need 800 g of sugar if you want to get a sweet product, and 400 g to get a semi-sweet.
Adding to 1 liter of raw material 20 g of sugar, we increase the strength by 1 °.
Wine fixing with alcohol or vodka
Wort fermented, precipitate fell - you can pour the drink into a separate vessel, where we will fix it. 10 liters of wine will require 1 liter of alcohol, vodka or tincture.
Learn how to make apple brew.
Fixing young wine
To increase the strength, you need to remember the rule: when adding 1% alcohol or 2% vodka in a 10-degree drink, the degree is increased by one.
Thus, you can calculate the required amount of alcohol added to your volume of wine. For example, if you want to increase the degree by 6 units, you multiply this number by the number of liters and by one (1% of the volume), and then divide everything by 100.
In the case of adding vodka instead of one, you need to multiply the numbers by 2 (2% of the volume). 
Given:
- 5 liters of wine;
- It is necessary to increase the degree by 6 units.
- How much alcohol to add to increase the degree.
- (5 * 6 * 1) / 100 = 0.3 l of alcohol.
After adding the right amount of alcohol to the drink, it is infused for up to 2 weeks. After that, the liquid is drained from the sediment and bottled.
Learn how to make homemade champagne, cider, chacha, pouring from plums, cherries, raspberries.
Mount the wort at the fermentation stage
The peculiarity of this method - the juice is not drained from the pulp. Just before you send the fruit for fermentation, they are crushed.
Procedure:
- Sugar is added to the wort in the amount of 9% of the total volume.
- The mixed mixture is sent to wander into a room with a temperature of 25-26 ° C for 3-4 days.
- The wort is pressed and topped up with alcohol 90%, stirred and left in a dark cool place for a week.
- The finished liquid is drained, clarified and bottled, then left to ripen at a temperature of 15 ° C for a couple of years.
It should be borne in mind that with the premature and excessive addition of alcohol to the wort, it may not ferment. When storing the drink you need to ventilate - pour from bottle to bottle.How to freeze wine to increase the fortress
Before using this method, note that the amount of the finished product will decrease, as water freezes, and the wine spirit is drained.
Did you know? Fear of wine is called oenophobia or oinophobia. Typically, the fear is hygienic in nature: a person is afraid of the method of making wine at the stage of collection and fermentation. After all, before the grapes were harvested and stamped with their feet, and then they left it to ferment in barrels.
How to do:
- drink, poured into liter bottles, put in the freezer;
- after a couple of hours, take out and pour the wine spirit into another container.
How to make fortified homemade wine
This drink at home can be made from any fruit. The most popular ones are cherries, apples and raspberries. The drink is sweet and sweet.
Of cherry
Would need:
- cherry juice (not purchased, but made by hand) - 1 l;
- sugar - 100 g;
- yeast sourdough - 0.3 l;
- alcohol 90% - 0.3 l.
From apples
Would need:
- dried apples - 1 kg;
- pure water - 800 ml;
- sugar - 100 g;
- yeast sourdough - 0.3 l;
- alcohol 70% - 0.5 l.
From raspberry
Would need:
- raspberries - 5 kg;
- water - 2 l;
- sugar - 300 g + 150 g per 1 l of wine after fermentation;
- yeast sourdough;
- alcohol - 0.5 liters per 10 liters of wine.
Did you know? Until 194 BC. e. in ancient Rome, a woman could be killed for drinking wine. And my husband could do it. Later, the death penalty was replaced by divorce.
Squeeze the juice out of the raspberry and add half of the water and all the sugar. Separately, pour the raspberry cake with the remaining water and after 6 hours again squeeze the juice. Mix it with the previously obtained juice, add the leaven and leave to ferment for 10 days. Squeeze the liquid, add sugar at the rate of 150 g per 1 liter, put the ferment on. A week later, we decant again and fix with alcohol. Bottled and leave to ripen.
So, we learned that the process of fixing wine at home is not so complicated. It will help stop fermentation, improve the taste and make the drink stronger and, if desired, sweeter. If you follow all the rules of fixing, then the drink will turn out not worse than the store and will definitely be natural.
Video: mount wine Reviews: how to fix wine
