Rhubarb Wine

[Hazel at the Hill]

Right - normally, I do what you've done, and after a couple of days I rinse the sugary juice off the rhubarb.

That is, chuck in a load of cold water into the bucket (a couple of litres, then slosh it all about, strain it into another bucket; put the rinsed rhubarb back into bucket 1, splosh in some more water, whizz it about then drain off into the second bucket.

Repeat until you have rinsed rhubarb in bucket 1; and just under about 4l in bucket 2. It is bucket 2 which you then add a can or grape concentrate (wilko half price at the mo) or a carton of white grape juice would do; then a tsp of pectolase, a piece of lemon rind, a tsp of yeast nutrient and a tsp of yeast.

Stir, cover, and stand well back. The pieces of rhubarb in bucket one will still be hardish, and you can pop 'em in your mouth like sweeties.

In your case, if I really did think it was just a bit of mould, I'd scoop it off with a spoon and make the first rinse with boiling water to kill any nasties.

You might want to wait for further opinion on this, mind - the others will be along soon, no doubt. In the meantime, can you take a pic of the bucket and post it here?

[Betty 1966]

Hi Hazel,
I picked my rhubarb, cut it into pieces about one inch long. Then into a sterilised bucket, put sugar on, lid on and left it for three days. The rhubarb is still hard and it appears to have bits in it that, ( to me), look like mould.
Should it have softened, should I try stewing it by boiling?
Thanks!

[Hazel at the Hill]

Sorry, Betty - I was in a rush and didn't read through properly!

So, from the top - what have you done so far?

[Betty 1966]

Rhubarb wine

Hi Betty and welcome to the VIne.

It sounds like your 'mould' is just the yeast fermenting - fear not, it'll all be fine, I'm sure!

Hi hazel thanks for the welcome
I did not put any yeast in only rhubarb and sugar ??????

[Hazel at the Hill]

Hi Betty and welcome to the VIne.

It sounds like your 'mould' is just the yeast fermenting - fear not, it'll all be fine, I'm sure!

[Betty 1966]

Rhubarb wine

Help please !!!!!!!!
Followed the recipe for rhubarb wine and after 3 days the mixture in the bucket had got mould on it !!!!!!!
Also I could not mash the rhubarb as it was still quite hard

[redser]

How did it come out Andy? You inadvertantly got me into brewing last June and I've been busy at it since
Started a Rhubarb off last July and sampled some last night. Man, NOW I understand what they mean by 'buttery'. It's pure magic. Going to leave it a few more months though.

[redser]

Thanks very much Samurailord and chris

[chris]

There's one that ready very fast - in the brewing forum here

I had no idea it could be ready so quickly! A local lady advertised wine making gear for free (her husband was a hobbyist but sadly died last year). I got three demijohns and other equipment and she also gave me a bottle of his plum wine. So kind. After reading this I'm going to get started and try some rhubarb wine this weekend. Thanks for posting!
ps. any chance of a quick rundown of what you did? I have one of those plastic tube thingys in the set. Cheers

Realised I hadn't submitted my answer - I'd left a tab open and forgot about it until I just saw it now.

Anyway-

This is the one I was on about: http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...wine_2365.html

[Samurailord]

Hi Redser

Like others on here have said, brewing wine is really easy and quite forgiving.

You need

1.5Kg rhubarb
1.5kg sugar
1 tsp Pectolase
1 sachet general purpose white wine yeast
1 campden tablet

To make my rhubarb wine I cut 1.5kg of rhubarb and sliced it into 6mm slices. I should have frozen it at that point but I forgot. (freezing breaks down the walls between the cells and enables more juice to come out of the fruit/veg)

Put your sliced fruit into a sterilised bucket and cover with 1.5kg of sugar. Put the lid on and leave for three days.

Crush the pulp with a potato masher to get all that lovely juice out, then add 3 litres of cooled boiled water.

Strain the lot through some muslin into another steralised bucket and add 250ml white grape juice concentrate (you can get this from Wilkinsons and some larger Tescos if you don't have a local home brew shop). Add more cooled boiled water to make it up to 4.5 litres and add a sachet of general purpose white wine yeast and a teaspoon of Pectolase (bought from the same place you got the concentrate)

Cover and leave for another week, then use a syphon tube to transfer the liquid to a clean demijar and fit a bubble trap. Leave for another three or four weeks and you should find that the yeast has thrown a layer of sediment at the bottom of the jar.

Use your syphon tube and transfer the liquid only to a new jar, make up the volume back to 4.5L with a sugar solution of three parts boiled water to one part sugar, allowed to cool before adding to the demijar. At this stage it doesn't matter too much if you get some sediment in the new jar.

Once there are no more bubbles coming through the trap your wine is ready and can be syphoned very carefully into a clean demi jar (now it is important not to get any sediment transferred) and then add a crushed campden tablet that has been disolved in a little of the wine. This will cause any remaining yeast to drop out of solution to the bottom of the jar, hopefully giving you a clear wine.

Once the wine has cleared (if it won't do it naturally you can buy a product called wine finings which is wonderful for this) syphon into a clean demi john and then bottle.

Have a taste before you bottle it to make sure the sweetness is to your liking - if it is too dry add a bit of artificial sweetner to the demi jar until you get to an acceptable level of sweetness.

It is important not to use sugar for this as that will restart the fermentation process and give you the possibility of bottle bombs if the CO2 build up inside the bottle gets too much.

It can be drunk straight away, but is best to leave for a while for the flavours to develop and stabilise.

Hope this helps

Andy

[redser]

Thanks! Must get reading!

[chris]

There's one that ready very fast - in the brewing forum here

[redser]

I had no idea it could be ready so quickly! A local lady advertised wine making gear for free (her husband was a hobbyist but sadly died last year). I got three demijohns and other equipment and she also gave me a bottle of his plum wine. So kind. After reading this I'm going to get started and try some rhubarb wine this weekend. Thanks for posting!
ps. any chance of a quick rundown of what you did? I have one of those plastic tube thingys in the set. Cheers

[Hazel at the Hill]

I am hoping that it will be ready to drink in about two weeks time - I will let you all know how it tastes.

By all means have some once is is ready, Andy, but like most homemade wines (at least all those that I have made) I think that you will find that it tastes much better if you can leave it alone for a bit - it's ok after about three months, I think (from memory) but I leave all my wines for twelve months.

I'm on last year's rhubarb wine now, and it is lovely and light - and as you say, just perfect for a summer's evening.

[Farmer_Gyles]

post on here when you're ready and someone will tell you what equipment to get and how to get started - it's easy