Busy brew day, lots of wine and cider

[Nicks90]

Having been given 6kg of rhubarb from a friend and collecting 2kg of blackberries and 2kg of mixed cherries, I decided to get my brew on today. Should have a nice stash of rhubarb wine, rhubarb cider, blackberry wine and a mixed cherry wine!

4kg of rhubarb is chopped up and macerating in 2kg of sugar over night. That's going to get 2l of boiling water to wash it out, followed by a squeeze of the pulp and then diluted in to 2 djs until it hits 1.100. reckon I'll get 4l in each.
Cherries and blackberries are also being macerated in 1kg of sugar each and they will get a gentle mash followed by the same hot wash treatment tomorrow and put in to one DJ each.
Again aiming for about 1.100 OG and about 4l each.
They'll will then all get a campden tablet to kill off any nasties and will be brewed using gervin gv9 yeast Monday morning. All will be getting some pectolase and yeast nutrient. The rhubarb must will also get a dose of calcium carbonate to try and take some of the sharp acid away

The last 2kg of rhubarb has been chopped and stewed up in 2l apple juice, thoroughly squeezed and then topped up to 4l in yet another DJ. That's already had a campden tab put in and will be getting dosed with pectolase, strong Yorkshire tea and yeast nutrient and brewed with some cml cider yeast.
So by tomorrow afternoon I should have 5 DJ on the go!!!

 

[Nicks90]

Just remembered I still have a DJ full of BlackBerry wine and another with watermelon/peach wine I put down this time last year!!!
Better get them bottled I suppose.

 

[Nicks90]

All bubbling away merrily to themselves.
Ended up at 1.090 for all of them, but depending on how the gv9 yeast performs, should still be 10% or higher

 

[Nicks90]

The cider, cherry and blackberry brews have kicked off nice and quickly, but the rhubarb wine is being very slow.
It's going, but no krausen and seems a little subdued. Could it be the acidity?
I added some calc-carbonate to the rhubarb cider, as I didn't want it face crushingly tart. That's fine , but the untreated rhubarb wine.....hmmm

 

[Nicks90]

Cracked open a pint of rhubarb cider... Ooooo that's rhubaby!

Very strong forward rhubarb taste that's smacks you in the face. But it's not too dry and is smooth already, considering it's not been down too long (for a cider), it's very pleasant indeed.