Easy Rhubarb Wine
Rhubarb wine is a fantastically tasty and potent drop of rose, ideal for summer evening BBQ's, yet goes equally well served with a mid winters feast of roast duck.
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Rhubarb is a fantastic perennial plant that almost every allotment has in some corner, and every kitchen garden should have planted in at least one corner!
Its prolific yield, multitude of uses and ease of maintenance sums up the appeal to the laid back gardener. |
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The recipe and ingredients are very relaxed, as I believe cooking and brewing should be. Use what you have at hand and adapt to your tastes. If you don't quite have 5kg of rhubarb, use what you do have and if you have more - add that as well!
Ingredients for a 2 gallon batch of rhubarb wine:
Ingredients for a 2 gallon batch of rhubarb wine:
- 5 kg (or there abouts) of rhubarb, chopped into 1 inch chunks
- 2 kg of granulated sugar
- 3 - 4 black bananas
- Brewing yeast and nutrient
- 1 mug of strong black tea
- 500g of dried fruit (raisins or sultanas)
Here is a quick video of how I made my rhubarb wine, which hopefully will give you an idea of how to make this fantastic wine!
Method:
First off, you want to sterilize all of your equipment and wash off your rhubarb to remove any additional sources of protein.
Cut the rhubarb into one inch chunks and place them into your clean fermenting bucket and proceed to chop and mush up your old bananas. Add these to your bucket also.
Make a cuppa tea and add, along with 2 kg of granulated sugar and the 500g of dried fruit.
Once all of your main ingredients have been added, pour in 2 gallons of boiling water and give it a good stir. Allow to cool over night till it becomes room temperature and add the yeast.
Allow all the ingredients to become friends for a few days, stirring daily, before pouring the liquid through a sieve and into your demijohns.
Rhubarb wine seems to take an age to ferment, so set it aside for a couple of months, keeping an eye on the level of water in the airlock.
Once the fermentation has subsided, rack the liquid off the sediment and place back into demijohns and seal. Rhubarb wine has a fantastic pink colour which can be broken down if it is left in strong sunlight for long periods of time, so you want to be storing the wine in a dark place, or wrapping the demijohn in newspaper.
Store the wine for as long as you can resist - it improves dramatically with age, so if you can, set it aside for a full year!
First off, you want to sterilize all of your equipment and wash off your rhubarb to remove any additional sources of protein.
Cut the rhubarb into one inch chunks and place them into your clean fermenting bucket and proceed to chop and mush up your old bananas. Add these to your bucket also.
Make a cuppa tea and add, along with 2 kg of granulated sugar and the 500g of dried fruit.
Once all of your main ingredients have been added, pour in 2 gallons of boiling water and give it a good stir. Allow to cool over night till it becomes room temperature and add the yeast.
Allow all the ingredients to become friends for a few days, stirring daily, before pouring the liquid through a sieve and into your demijohns.
Rhubarb wine seems to take an age to ferment, so set it aside for a couple of months, keeping an eye on the level of water in the airlock.
Once the fermentation has subsided, rack the liquid off the sediment and place back into demijohns and seal. Rhubarb wine has a fantastic pink colour which can be broken down if it is left in strong sunlight for long periods of time, so you want to be storing the wine in a dark place, or wrapping the demijohn in newspaper.
Store the wine for as long as you can resist - it improves dramatically with age, so if you can, set it aside for a full year!