Rhubarb Wine Recipe


 

Ruhbarb Wine Recipe

This recipe for making 6 Gallons of Rhubarb wine was sent to us by Allison K.
 
Ingredients
14.5 lbs. Canadian Red rhubarb
14.5 lbs. sugar
1 packet (5 gr.) Cote de Blancs yeast
1 1/4 tsp. yeast nutrient
 
Directions
  1. Slice rhubarb thinly and cover with sugar in stainless steel or glass pan. Cover pan with cheesecloth.
  2. After two days, strain off juice and wash out sugar remaining in the pulp by stirring the pulp with cold water,
  3. then strain again. Add enough water to make six gallons plus one quart and pour into six-gallon carboy. Save one quart as "sweet reserve" by putting into a Ziplock bag and freezing (the use of the reserve juice will produce a significantly more "fruity" wine). Do not add Campden tablets/sulfite at this time as it will reduce the taste of rhubarb in the final wine.
  4. Add yeast and yeast nutrient and ferment at a temperature of 60 to 80 degrees (follow your yeast’s instructions).
  5. Transfer the wine after three months and top off by adding the one-quart "sweet reserve" juice. Add tartaric acid to raise the titratable acidity (TA) to 0.76, if needed.
  6. After five months, check sulfite level and add Campden tablets/metabisulfite to bring SO2 level to 50-60 PPM.
  7. TA of my wine was 0.81 at bottling.
  8. Bottle and enjoy!
 
Comments:
The rhubarb should be small stalk red rhubarb as that is better flavor. Young rhubarb is best.
Not adding sulfite at the beginning will help keep some additional flavor. The sweet reserve is taken out of the main batch, so no sulfite is added anywhere until after the fermentation is done.
From my experience, rhubarb is sometimes tough to start because the acid is often high. It often works best to make a good yeast starter before adding to the must.
 
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