rhubarb wine

[Intelekt]

Mines a dark pink, probs because I added red grape concentrate, I hope I get that lovely rhubarb pink back when it's done :wink:

 

[Kieran]

I didn't add anything just water.

 

[tonyhibbett]

Mine is down to sg 1000 and tastes very pleasant. The rhubarb flavour is very pronounced, although all trace of red has gone. I am tempted to stop it, because unsweetened rhubarb is not pleasant. However, I'll keep it going to the bitter end, because it can be back sweetened if required.

 

[Kieran]

How would I back sweeten mine if it needed it?

 

[tonyhibbett]

Assuming it has been stabilised, you can add up to 60 g of sugar per gallon, according to taste.

 

[Kieran]

What reason do you stablise for?

 

[Tim_Crowhurst]

"Stabilising" means stopping fermentation, so that no more sugar is turned into alcohol. Most people use a combination of potassium sorbate and sodium metabisulphite (campden tablets).

 

[tonyhibbett]

1 batch has pretty much stopped at sg 1000, so I treated it with Clear It finings at the minimum dose. It contains stabilizers and is usually highly effective. I doubt the mimimum dose will be effective, but it will start the proceedings.

 

[tonyhibbett]

Sure enough the minimum dose was not enough. The equivalent dose to that supplied with kits would be 'heavy', 3ml per gallon of each part. Because Clear It uses gelatine, the tiny amount of tannin I added will be stripped out. Only 1 of the recipes I read included it, at the rate of 1/4 teaspoon (1.25 g) per gallon. However, it took a rounded teaspoon of the powder to even register 1 g on the digital scales. I will add this after clearing, to give it a bit more bite and a little colour. I just checked the best before date, sept 2012. So I mixed 1/2 a teaspoonful with a wineglass of water and tasted it. This is a massive concentration, but the effect on the palate was little more than strong tea. So I will have to get fresh stock.

 

[Kieran]

Would it be ok to add nothing.

 

[tonyhibbett]

Well. I put some old tannin into the cleared wine, which made it darker and a bit cloudy, but the effect on the bland wine is barely perceptable. So don't bother! It's perfectly palatable and very smooth, just like Blair in the early days.

 

[tonyhibbett]

There are some clearing problems with this wine. I may have to resort to filtering and I'm not convinced that will solve the problem. Also the taste is very bland. Makes a great alcopop, but that wasn't quite what I had in mind. Nevertheless, it has finally put my small rhubarb patch to some interesting use.

 

[Kieran]

Well alcopop or no alco pop, to make something out of nothing is still an achievement :), I feel a sense of pride if I create something myself, I'd love to have some of the kit and talent of some of you guys. Big thumbs up to everyone for all the advice so far and yet to come. I'm just looking at my garden thinking now what can I grow I've got an apple tree that's only a couple of years old some rhubarb, strawberrys and a greenhouse full of tomatoes and cucumber. What next ha!

 

[tonyhibbett]

In the end, I got 10 full bottles of medium sweet very palatable and smooth wine with a subtle rhubarb hint. A good result!

 

[tonyhibbett]

Supposedly, rhubarb wine is good for blending, so as it was a tad too sweet, I mixed it with the dandelion, which is uninteresting but dry. The result was an uninteresting medium dry wine with no trace of rhubarb flavour at all!

 

[nick789uk]

Hi the way I make rhubarb wine is really easy get your rhubarb cut up into pieces and freeze them overnight. next day put rhubarb into a big pan pour over three pints of water and bring to the boil simmer for about 5-10 mins strain onto another pan dissolve a kilo of sugar into the mix, make sure all equipment is clean and sterile pour into demijohn add water to make one gallon add yeast when cool and leave to ferment.

2pounds of rhubarb
kilo of sugar
8 pints of water
yeast
Pectic Enzyme

hope this helps

 

[Intelekt]

This sounds a good recipe nick :thumb:

I've made two so far, both still fermenting, one using the freeze and sugar extraction and the other using an electric juicer with a bit of ginger.. So there are at least 3 ways of making this wine :

 

[Kieran]

Went to a tour round thwaites tonight really good tour and free beer too.

 

[Alex Noodles]

Ha, the wife grows tonnes of rhubarb so this is one the to do list!!
Thanks for sharing :)

Alex

 

[MadrikXIV]

Mines a dark pink, probs because I added red grape concentrate, I hope I get that lovely rhubarb pink back when it's done :wink:

Strangely I have 2 shades of rhubarb on the go at the moment....

Both made at the same time, basically 10 litres of juice made from rhubarb in my fermenting bucket (dry extraction, topped with water etc)

Then split this into 2 demis.

Only difference is a very dark pink shade with the sachet of youngs champagne yeast demi, and a very light pink with the standard Youngs activated yeast.

I did add the whole champagne sachet, and at the last measure, it was streets ahead on converting the sugar, tasted stunning so far.

Will try and sort a picture later