Rhubarb Wine

Started 30th June 2013

This has been a long time coming, mainly because we love rhubarb crumbles and didn't have enough to spare for wine. But the home made wines are so good we decided we really have to do this one. It's been a long time coming!

All the rhubarb is chopped and frozen - it's the easiest way for us to store it for crumbles throughout winter. It's also ideal for winemaking as apparently you can get more juice from frozen rhubarb than fresh rhubarb.

There are loads of different recipes for rhubarb wine (as with any other wines!) and no way we can test them all to find the best. But the good news is that home winemaking doesn't need to be precise - we can experiment!

For this wine, I've chosen to go with the basics that are used in all recipes and not to worry about tannin or other things. Rhubarb is known to carry a pectin haze that can be difficult to clear, so I've used 2 teaspoons of pectolase in the hope of avoiding this.

Rhubarb Wine
Ingredients:
4lbs rhubarb
2.5lbs sugar
2 litres white grape juice
2 teaspoons pectolase
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
1 teaspoon Youngs wine yeast
water to top up to 1 gallon

Step 1:
Put the chopped, frozen rhubarb into a bucket
Add the sugar
Cover and leave for 48 hours

Step 2:
Strain the liquid into a clean, sterilised demijohn
Add the white grape juice
Add 2 teaspoons pectolase
Add 1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
Add 1 teaspoon yeast
Shake well, add bung and airlock, leave to ferment for a few weeks

After 4 weeks the ferment had slowed down to almost nothing - no bubbles in the airlock and no bubbles around the top of the liquid. I shook the demijohn a bit and the ferment restarted, but slowly. After 5 weeks the ferment had stopped again so I checked the SG - I got a reading of 1020, so not fully fermented yet. This time I added a teaspoon of yeast nutrient and stirred the whole demijohn with the handle of a long plastic spoon. Hopefully this will be enough to give the yeast a boost to finish the ferment.

Step 3:
Crush a campden tablet into a clean, sterilised demijohn
Rack off into this demijohn and shake well
Add 1 teaspoon stabiliser and shake well again
Fit bung and airlock and leave in a cool place for 2 or 3 months to clear

Possible Step 4:
This depends on how the wine looks, especially whether it's cleared or not. If it hasn't cleared, I'll rack off into another demijohn and maybe add bentonite to help it clear. I'll have to wait and see.