Rhubarb Wine - Homebrew Recipe

The rose coloured vegetable that gets used as a fruit. Rhubarb makes delicious puddings but can also be used to make lovely beverages too. Rhubarb is a saviour crop, that just when the seeds for the new growing season go in the ground, it appears and reminds us that the summer will soon be here. Forced rhubarb (grown in the dark) has yellowish leaves and usually appears in January but main crop and even all year cropping are available now.   

Rhubarb is also a very prolific grower and an established plant can give masses of tart tasting stalks. Whilst the stalks are very tart, with a little sugar and a few other ingredients it can make a fantastic syrup, which when diluted makes a lovely cordial or if you have a particularly large crop, try this homemade wine recipe. 

Makes 1 gallon

Ingredients

• 1 gallon water
• 2.5 pounds sugar
• 3 pounds rhubarb stalks
• 1/8 teaspoon tannin
• 1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
• 1 Campden tablet, crushed
• 1/2 teaspoon pectic enzyme
• 1 package yeast

Instructions

1. Boil the water and stir in sugar to dissolve.
2. Wash and cut rhubarb stalks into small pieces. Put in the bottom of your primary ferment bucket. With a sanitised potato masher, mash the fruit.
3. Once water is room temp, pour water and sugar over the fruit, then mash it again.
4. When cooled, add the tannin, yeast nutrient, and crushed Campden tablet.
5. Add the campden tablet and the pectic enzyme.
6. Twenty-four hours later, add the yeast.
7. After seven days,  strain the liquid into a sanitised demijohn. Don't squeeze the fruit or you will end up with a hazey wine!
8. Secure with an airlock.
9. From there, rack as needed until fermented out and clear.
10. Once the wine is clear, it is time to stop the fermentation with Potassium sorbate, added in the amount of 1/2 teaspoon per gallon of wine. Once done you can sweeten to taste with sugar and siphon into sterilised wine bottles.