rhubarb ginger wine

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Crastney

Landlord.
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so I've currently got 450g of chopped frozen rhubarb, defrosting, juice from 350g of ginger, defrosting, and 1kg of sultanas.

my plan is to defrost rhubarb and ginger juice, blitz the sultanas, add all to a bucket, cover with 450g of brewing sugar, and leave for a day or two.

I have saved champagne yeast (from a ginger beer) that is now in 3/4 litre of apple juice, with nutrient, hopeful it'll become a starter.

Is fermenting on the rhubarb pulp ok, or do I need to extract the juice, and discard the pulp before fermentation in DJ?

Do I need to add tannin or pectolase?
 
I have an update on this:
- sultanas blitzed, added to defrosted rhubarb, and ginger, covered in 475g of brewing sugar, and 1 tsp pectolase, left for a day.
- the yeast starter worked perfectly ok, even though it was just the lees/trub poured into a marmite jar, with a teaspoon of yeast nutrient, and stuck in the fridge, several months ago.
- this starter was poured onto the mush, with a litre of AJ, on Monday night.
- yesterday it was going nuts, probably because the temp in the utility room was about 26 deg C !!
- this morning, I poured all this through a muslin cloth, and squeezed out any remaining juice, into a DJ - got to about half an inch below the bottom of the shoulder of the DJ, it was bubbling again furiously (about once every 2 seconds) within a minute or two.
- I plan to top up with white grape juice, if I can find any.

Hopefully this'll turn out ok, but I'm worried that I'll have too much oxalic acid from fermenting on the pulp of the rhubarb, and squeezing, and that the temperature of the ferment is too high. I could smell bananas and I'm sure I've read somewhere that that is a side effect of high fermentation.

I didn't add tannin, or glycerine, there may have been sugars still available in the sultana mush that I removed - how does one know when the sugars in fruits have been all converted? When's the optimum time for taking off the pulp?

other than that - all good.
 
Hi I'm currently experimenting with a banana & blueberry wine.
Oxalic acid is contained in the leaves of the plant not the stem, that is why the leaves are poisonous so as long as you haven't used the leaves should be safe there.
With mine I boiled the bananas to extract the juice and then poured the hot liquid over the crushed blueberries I left for a couple of days before straining.
Raisins contain tannin so no need to add it.
 
here's an update: last night I was rooting around in the freezer trying to find something to eat for dinner when I happened across a plastic take away container with the words "Ginger Juice, 350g, 2013"
'oh dear' I thought - if this is ginger juice in this container, then what was in the container that I defrosted and put in my FV with the rhubarb and sultanas?

the only thing we normally have in the freezer is leftovers, curry, rice, chilli, etc. and occasionally chicken stock.
the only one of these that could be mistaken for ginger juice (by site alone) is the chicken stock....
(I don't recall smelling it to see if it was or wasn't ginger)

I think I may have created cock wine?!

It did ferment rather quickly, and I don't think there's much fermentable sugars in (home made) chicken stock.

What has fermented is still in the DJ before first racking, is there any reason why I couldn't defrost the ginger, siphon off enough wine, and add the ginger to what I've already got?

(of course I could just have forgotten what it was, and it's something else that isn't chicken stock, but I can't think of anything else that would be in our freezer - or I made two tubs of juice, but only put one in...)
 
so another update on this is that I have defrosted the actual ginger, siphoned off the same amount of liquid, and then added this ginger juice back to the DJ.

that was on Monday, and there is little sign of fermentation, so either the yeast is now dead, or the fermentation of the ginger was that fast that I failed to notice it. I will do a Specific Gravity reading next time I remember to check the sugar levels/density.

I tasted some, and it's definitely alcoholic, but also has a certain taste that I couldn't quite put my finger on (trying desperataly not to think of chicken and vegetable water)
 
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