Grow Your Own Magazine

Just realised I haven't strained my Schnapps so will have to do it tomorrow.

Can you eat the rhubarb strained off? Was going to make a rhubarb crumble for Christmas Lunch and wondered whether to add it in - might mean we don't see much of Christmas afternoon

It should taste fantastic, the cooking will drive most of the alchohol off, it is the last course after all, unless you have room for cheese and bickys.
Have a great Christmas

I used the juices from the cooked fruit by reducing it and made an ice-cream with it,and adding small chunks of the 'fruit'. I think it was one of the nicest ice-creams I've had. Fresh but not sour.
I've composted the rest of it and now wish I'd cooked it!
Hope it tastes lovely Jennie!

Strained it off this morning and added the rhubarb to OH's rhubarb crumble for Christmas Day (he hates Christmas Pudding). So should be good!

Had a wee tipple before lunch - coooorrr it tastes l-o-v-e-r-l-y! And a nice warming sensation afterwards too! I shall not be sharing with too many people.

Never made it before, but intend to next year!

Is it Gin or Vodka based?

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Go for it Snadger!!
( mine is vodka based)
Merry Xmas to you and yours....

Wassssssss that ......... Snadg?

Hic ......... I think Vodka ........... hic ............ b***** good .........

Say no more Jennie!!!!! Enjoy!

__________________
My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Hi, here goes with my first ever post on the Grapevine (a little nervous)
How do I make Rhubarb Scnapps?
Thank you!

You can find the recipe here Headfry. It's legend amongst your fellow grapes here! Welcome to the Vine!

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Dwell simply ~ love richly

schnapps

For the recipe! Welcome to the vine btw!

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Blessings
Suzanne (aka Mrs Dobby)

'Garden naked - get some colour in your cheeks'!

The Dobby's Pumpkin Patch - a blogspot work in progress!
Last updated 26th November2008 - more new piccies!

What an excellent first question Headfry!
I can see you are going to fit in wonderfully!!
Don't be nervous after that ground breaking question.......

this recipe reminds me of the Monty python flower arranging sketch. Take some flowers and put them in a vase.

Take some rhubarb and put it in vodka. You could make a rhubarb wine brew which is as strong as the above by using 5lb of rhubarb per gallon, follow the usual wine rules and it could get to 18 - 20%. Which is all you will get from diluted vodka plus you will have saved the £10 for the vodka and you will have 7 pints not 2. You will need two packs of sugar but that is just over £1.

Sounds like the best option to me, just make sure you keep everything clean.

Thank you all for your very kind welcome to the forum and for your help.
I will make both the vodka and the wine!
I am just about to bottle my first ever atempt at wine making from the grapes that I picked from my little vine at home.
May I please ask a couple more questions....
My instructions say to add a crushed campden tablet a couple of days before you bottle it, this seems a little vague, if I were to leave it more than a couple of days between adding the tablet and bottling would it hurt the wine?
and,
I have some plastic covers that go over the corks, do I use a hair dryer to 'shrink wrap' them?
Thank you

Please ask as many questions as you want as this is what keeps the whole thing going, and me interested.
The idea of the campden tablets is to kill the yeast. So you could stop it at sweet, or where-ever stage you want, and bottle it and it would not continue on and explode, has been known !!
However if the wine is dry and has stopped working ( plopping, thanks madderbat ) then you can bottle in safety.
I have used the plastic covers but using a hot air blower such as you would use to strip paint, it only took a few seconds per bottle so you may be more controlled with a hair dryer. You may need to get the nozzle quite close and rotate the bottle with the other hand.
I have a vine which produces enough grapes to make 4-5 galls of wine, it's great fun and I love the look on visitors faces when they see all the grapes, then drink the wine. Have fun.

What else can you you brewer instead of sulphite to kill the yeast??

methods to kill yeast or stop a brew include.
Add a campden tablet which releases sulpher dioxide, which does dissapate.
Alcohol strength, most yeasts give up around 13%,
Lack of sugar to work on, the yeast will die if it is not fed.
Heat, pasturisation, but then that would remove some of the alcohol by evaporation unless you could do it under reduced pressure some how.
You could freeze it for a while untill the yeast dies, say 3/4 days.

Best way seems to be, be aware of the sugar content of your brew using a hydrometer to control the outcome.