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W is for … wine making

… wine making.
G’s had a bit of a love affair with rhubarb this year and decided to make wine for the first time when it became apparent that a daily dose of rhubarb fool was slowing him down on the badminton court.  Fast forward a month or two and we have 5 bottles of rhubarb wine maturing in the cellar (‘racking’ to use the correct technical term), rhubarb and raspberry wine fermenting in the demi-john, damson and raspberries soaking in sugar and several kilos of rhubarb in the freezer waiting for an empty demi-john to occupy (the fruit gives out more juice apparently if it’s been frozen).

G googled how to make wine from various fruits, read through lots of recipes and then in true G fashion made up his own simplified version!  Here’s his basic ‘how to make home-made wine‘…

what you need to make rhubarb wine

1.3kg frozen rhubarb
1.3kg sugar
mug of grape juice (we used Nic’s home-made mixed berry cordial)
Wine yeast
4 litres of water (approx or enough to make up 1 gallon of liquid)
mug of cold black tea
1 Campden tablet (to kill the yeast at the end of fermentation/prior to bottling)

a large plastic container (to extract the juice from the fruit)
a large pan (to decant the juice into)
a demi-john container with air lock (for fermenting the juice)
5 glass bottles with screw top lids (we use fizzy water bottles cleaned using sterilising tablets )
a funnel (for decanting juice into the demi-john and the new wine into bottles)
a hydrometer (for measuring the gravity of the liquid)

how to turn rhubarb into wine

Chop the rhubarb into 1 to 2 inch pieces.  (G’s developed a scary looking ninja-style technique for chopping the rhubarb stalks mid-air into a bowl, without a chopping board, using a large kitchen knife.  ‘It sounds dangerous, but it’s a lot easier and safer than using a board – but only if you have good hand eye co-ordination and are careful when you get close to the end you’re holding!)

Place the required weight of rhubarb into a plastic bag and freeze for a day or two.  Freezing changes the molecular structure of the rhubarb making it easier to mash up by hand later on.

Remove from the freezer and place rhubarb pieces in a clean, lidded plastic container.  You can get special food grade fermenting buckets for this, but G’s use of a spare composting bin has served him just as well.

Add the sugar to the fruit in the container.  Close the lid and leave for a couple of days until all the juice has been released.

After 2-3 days mix it all up with a spoon and use a potato masher to mash up the pieces of rhubarb.  Transfer the mixture to a large pan using a fine sieve or strainer to separate the rhubarb pieces from the juice.  Squeeze all the juice out of the strained fruit.  When adding the water you can pour about a litre through the mashed up rhubarb to get the last remaining sugary juice out of it or simply discard the rhubarb and add enough cold water to make up a gallon of rhubarb juice. Remember to add your mug of grape juice/cordial and mug of cold tea (adds astringency and useful tanins) before making up your gallon total.

Using a funnel decant the juice into a demi john and add 1 teaspoon of wine yeast.  Leave for as long as it takes for the hydrometer reading to reach 1.01 or less, indicating a suitable alcohol level for wine or your preferred sweetness/dryness balance is achieved.  Then add the crushed up campden tablet to kill off the yeast.

You’re now ready to decant the new wine into your 5 sterilised glass bottles and store in a cool place.  Rack for at least 10 months during which time the wine should clear naturally.  You’ll have some liquid left after filling your fifth bottle but it’s probably best to discard this as it’ll contain lots of sediment.  To avoid this you can siphon the liquid off from the demi-john but G didn’t have any piping for his first attempt so simply made sure he was very careful decanting it.

G’s various batches of wine will all be ready in time for our wedding anniversary next year.  We celebrated 13 years of marriage last week and while G prepared fruit for his wine I made an enormous batch of damson chutney. 

(my other A-Z challenge posts are here)

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8 comments

  • Lynne
    September 16, 2011

    Must be a George thing, as mine started making wine a few weeks ago, though the first one was a kit. It made a very nice Pinot Grigio though, and he has now got another kit, this time Rioja, and a real one – apple wine, bubbling away. The rhubarb wine looks gorgeous, but we haven’t got any left after our jam-making exploits!

    Reply
  • Joanna
    September 16, 2011

    Wow! Look at the colour of that. I”m so impressed. What fun you’re having. I have fallen behind on the preserving side of things… must try harder 😀

    Reply
  • greg becker
    September 17, 2011

    Sounds intriguing, love to know what it tastes like and whether it could possibly improve my badminton.

    Reply
  • Nip it in the bud
    September 21, 2011

    Lynne – I’m losing count now of the number of different fruits my G has experimented with. We’re going to have to plan a big celebration next year to get through it all – I just hope it tastes good!

    Joanna – I’ll have to take a pic of the various bottles lined up to compare the various shades. They do look appetising, although I’m not much of a drinker myself (or G for that matter, I think he has Christmas presents for 2012 in mind!)

    Greg – well it will be ready in the summer next year when league matches are over for G so I suspect by then he won’t worry too much about the effect on his game for a few weeks! Will have to get him to do a review when the big taste-off happens o)

    Reply
  • Bren
    September 26, 2011

    wow that wine looks a lovely colour – you have both been very industrious! puts me to shame

    Reply
  • hello plot, we’ve missed you! | Nip it in the bud
    April 22, 2013

    […] from July to October.   G picked the rhubarb and while there wasn’t enough to make rhubarb wine he was very happy to make his legendary coronary inducing rhubarb […]

    Reply
  • OXO stocking filler ideas for your favourite cook | Nip it in the bud
    December 1, 2013

    […] to the task as it’s suitable for pitting olives too) – I sat through 2 films de-stoning the last batch of spiced damson chutney I made. Mamacook posted a baked cherry custard this week which I decided was a better option than a big […]

    Reply
  • five ways with … a ton of rhubarb | Nip it in the bud
    November 20, 2017

    […] rhubarb wine […]

    Reply

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