Rhubarb Wine

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Tau

Landlord.
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Wern't planned, visited old man and wipped 2kg of his champange rhubarb. Haven't made for some 35 years, but didn't like any of the recipes I could find in books and on tinternet. I was put off by recipes that involved fit looking korean women, that lack 1. A beard 2. Didn't have a glazed look in their eyes and 3. didn't have a wonky blind eye from extreme alcohol poisoning like the guy I used to buy scrumpy from in Devon, you know the kind of place you know the ciders good when near empty pint glasses are full of dead mice. So just chopped up in a pan, 80g of sugar, juice (maybe a few pips) of 2 lemons, brought to boil and simmered to cooked and not jam. Two tea bag cup onto a kilo of sugar for tannin, poured rhubarb straight into dj over sugar until dissolved. Then added 400ml of welch's purple grape, would have added more but colour was getting to purple. Cooled in cold water, then added 2 heaped tsp of pectic enzyme and 1 tsp of nutrient. Muntons GV4 yeast (21% rated) added. Fermenting away.

Edit just added another 220g of sugar as Rhubarb only has 1.1g/100g of sugar.
 
I wish you well with only the one proviso.

A mate of mine in Glasgow is still drinking (from a tiny glass) rhubarb wine he made last year.

It was his first time brewing any wine, he got the recipe off t'Internet and the first thing he did was say "They can't mean that amount of sugar." and promptly halved the amount.

Move on a few months and he pours a glass of what turns out to be Roy's Rhubarb Battery Acid for himself and his wife to try. The result was she refuses to drink it herself, refuses to let him throw it away and insists that it will be a great "learning curve" for him to not mess with recipes in the future if he drinks it himself. (Glasgow women don't molly-coddle their husbands do they?!?!)

So my proviso is simply "Have you got enough sugar in your recipe?" :thumb::thumb:
 
Some rhubarb is sweeter than others so you really need to check the SG to see how much sugar is needed, I have done some that required a lot more sugar than other batches, but when it comes good it really is my favorite wine, I've got several kilo's of rhubarb in the freezer which will soon be turned into wine.
 
So my proviso is simply "Have you got enough sugar in your recipe?" :thumb::thumb:

There's 1.22 kg plus about 60-80g with grape juice and whats in the Rhubarb. After racking off the must will added another 200g to compensate sugar loss.
 
Taken off the must, added 300g of suagr to compensate what I lost b removing the rhubarb.
 
Tastes nice at the moment, s.g. 1020, so another couple of weeks to go.
 
Stopped this wine at s.g 1.012, camden and k.sorbate. In fact acidity was comming through to strong at this sg so added 2.5 tsp of precipated chalk. Just added finnings. At 1.016 was tasting much better and even better at 1.020.

Hoping will improve over time maybe some malo latic fermentation will occur.
 
Racked before bottling, the chalk did the trick and tastes good. Bottled 14.9.16
 
Right this years batch, slightly different method in that boiled and simmered and strained, rather than put the whole lot in a dj. Nice pink colour to each dj.

Two Dj's made
1.5kg of Champayne Rhubarb (name of type) Stripped and chopped into pan boiling water over and boiled and simmered until mush.
1kg sugar (using less sugar this year as it took ages last year with 1.5kg)
1 litre of waitrose wgj into each dj.
1tsp wilko yeast nutirent in each
1/2 tsp of citric acid (replaced the lemons) would've put 1 tsp but thought might be too acidic.
1/2 heaped tsp of powdered tannin (looked more red than last batch of chestnut tannin)
1tsp heaped of pectolase
GV4 yeast (put a bit too much in one batch, might blow)

Fermenting and hopeully a quick one as need to bottle and drink towards mid August.
 
How's the first brew doing?

No kidding, my mate in Glasgow still has a couple of bottles remaining. "Left to mature." he says ... :whistle:

... "Left 'cos it's too soor to drink is more like it!" says his missus! :lol:
 
Racked today, sg 0.990, so racked onto a camden and k.sorbate, added dissolved 10g plus of sugar to each dj, hopefully that will sweeten up enough to take the edge of the rhubarb harshness.
 

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