OK gang, what about rhubarb? I have a tin of solid rhubarb (2.82kg to be exact) coming next week, bought on the spur of the moment for the princely sum of 85p, and I thought it could be useful for winemaking. Anyone got a good rhubarb wine recipe?
Is that drained weight, and does the contents list state how much water/juice and sugar are in the tin? What I'm thinking of is Rhubarb Strawberry Wine.
I don't have a recipe but 50 years ago Mrs Shiney used to make wine at home (she worked for Gilbeys in those days and was also on their staff taste panel) and always found rhubarb wine, made from garden produce, was very successful. She also made rice wine that tasted a bit like whisky.
When you started off with "lost my..." I thought we were going to hear something of your young sex exploits
As far as I know, there is nothing to drain and nothing added - it is pure, solid rhubarb. I will find out for sure tomorrow. If it is suitable, I might well buy a load more whilst it is being sold at such a silly price.
I have a lot of rhubarb in my freezer. A friend had a big clump and brought me more than I could use so I froze it. Would this be suitable to try making wine with? There is just the rhubarb, no additives/water. many thanks L
OK, it has arrived - 2.82kg of Rhubarb, ingredients - Rhubarb 95%, Water 5%. Sugar content 0.6g per 100g So, I make it 2679g drained weight with a sugar content of 16.07g (we'll call is 16g for easiness. So, if I use it to make a 4 or 5 gallon batch, is it sufficient fruit (flavour wise), and if I also added a couple of kilos of raisins (instead of wine concentrate), roughly how much sugar would be needed? Does rhubarb contain pectin?
At only 0.6% sugar, it's clear than none has been added. That makes things easy as because Rhubarb is so low sugar the chunks would have absorbed some if it was in syrup. I would consider 2lbs 8ozs to be the right amount to make the 4.7L reuired to fill a 1 gall demijohn (including an allowance for racking wastage), so just under 6lbs isn't quite enough for 3 gallons of Rhubarb wine, and is more than required for 2 galls. If using just 2lbs/gall, add 1lb or so of another ingredient (as I use when making Rhubarb & Strawberry). If you look online and find recipes requiring 3lbs/gall, that will be those that require addition of one gall of water, which together with the bulking from the addition of sugar will nake far in excess of what can be fitted in a one gall demijohn. There's 2 options [1] with Rhubarb, making a golden wine by adding White grape concentrate/juice/Sultannas, or a Rosé by adding Red grape concentrate/juice/Raisins. Raisins & Sultannas are 67% sugar by weight. I normally use the 'freeze & thaw' method of juice extraction, chopping, freezing, then defrosting so an slmost clear juice runs out achieving over 50% extraction, then choosing other ingredient (s) to give it some colour/additional flavour. I don't know it that method would work with cooked Rhubarb. Personally, I'd use that tin of Rhubarb to make two or three different wines. It's low in pectin, but I always add some, as it's been cooked use aTHREE teaspoons to avoid a problem called jellification, high in acid so no additional acid required. due to the high acidity of Rhubarb, Sulphite & Sorbate as it'll probably require back-sweetening. [1] There is a 3rd option, totally clear wine that has the appearance of plain tap water,.
I have 10kg of strawberries in the freezer, so I could use those and add raisins and sultanas - not overly fussed by the colour, although totally clear would seem a bit odd. Opening the tin will mean that this is a one hit job (no more room in the freezer either), so I might be best to go with maybe 3 gallon (ish) in one fermenter?
I've just tried a glass while transferring to the bottles - this strawberry jam wine is delish - and no back sweetening required. It's jam all the way from now on
I could only get 4 bottles from the demijohn - 3 have already been snaffled by friends - so that leaves us with 1 bottle
