British Champagne AKA Rhubarb Wine (1922 recipe)

[TimT]

Yeah, I didn't want to boil originally but the mould kind of forced my hand. I think it might have helped with the extraction actually - the must was a fantastic pink colour this morning and the rhubarb mushy, spent and grey(ish). So I've drained it all off, added sugar, and pitched the yeast.

 

[Donnan]

Hi all, new to this site but just saw the rhubarb wine recipe and caught my attention. Only relatively new to brewing wines, had a crack at a couple of meads a year ago and was a bit of a fail but just started a rhubarb and strawberry wine 2 weeks ago. Was going to be completely rhubarb but the rhubarb was a bit expensive for the amount i needed so ended up buying some beautiful punnets of strawberries at the tamborine markets as they were the best smelling strawberries i have ever tasted. Didnt precisely measure for recipe but for one gallon demijihn i used two punnets about maybe 4 or 500 grams each and a big bunch of rhubarb about maybe 1.5 kilos and about 2.2kilos of sugar. Sliced the rhubarb and strawberries after freezing and spread the sugar over and left for about 3 days and collected the beautiful syrup from it which ended up 500ml of strawberry syrup and 700 of rhubarb. Put into demijohn with 3 dessert spoons of honey and glass of strong tea and added yeast nutrient and vintners harvest sn9 i think it is. Looked like somebody had put an aerator in the bottle as the ferment was really racing. Stopped after a week and racked tasted feral straight up but once the harsh flavour left the tongue could really taste the strawberry. Dont know how it will turn out but planning on aging it for six to 12 months and see what happens. Looking for something sweetish. Gravity was 1.070 when first made before yeast was pitched. Looking forward to mucking around making different wines like carrot and parsnip and dandelion types of things.
Regards Donnan

 

[TimT]

Cool For some reason the 'spread sugar over the rhubarb and let it turn into syrup' method never quite worked for me. Something about our rhubarb? Softening them up by freezing them could have helped to break open the cell walls.

Got another rhubarb wine to bottle, must do that some time. Cheers to you!

 

[Donnan]

Yeah, didn't get a hell of alot of juice from rhubarb had to strain and squueze it a fair bit.strawberry on the other hand just bled out in 24 hours. Is there a recipe page for wines like this? Seems to be alot of beer ones but cant find wines

 

[TimT]

Yeah, the focus is mostly beer. All wines will pretty much be discussed in this sub-forum - 'Non-beer brewing'. A lot about cider, some about mead, and a few about country wines and old-style wines like rhubarb, strawberry, etc.

Just tested by blackberry mead this morning!

 

[Donnan]

Oh yeah any good? Goin to pick some blackberrys this weekend out near Warwick if i can find me some wild bushes, gonna try a blackberry wine or a port if i can pick enough.

 

[TimT]

It fermented flat out for a few weeks and then floomped last night because it was cold. I don't think it's going much further. I'm impressed with it but it's going to need age before it's really worth drinking - I'll give it a few months to develop those lovely mead flavours to complement the blackberries. It looks amazing, a dark purple, and hasn't developed too many of the phenols that are a problem in some young meads. I reckon meads with fruits often age quicker because the yeast gets a natural source of nutrients from the fruits. So yeah, give it a few months and I think it'll be lovely

 

[TimT]

Good luck picking blackberries, I think they may be almost finished by now.

 

[Donnan]

Hey with my rhubarb wine when i made it it went 1.070 on the hydrometer and just checked it then and it is about 920 with no action. Just wandering what the alcohol content would be? Think it was about 1.8 odd kilos of sugar i used for the 1 gallon batch.

 

[Donnan]

Bugger was looking forward to a days picking

 

[TimT]

Hey I could be wrong, I often am. It depends a bit on location, etc. When we picked the blackberries we got heaps but I imagine birds will have eaten most of the rest now. Mind you, a house just north of us has a blackberry bush hanging off their fence with some berries still not ripe...

 

[TimT]

Calculate your alcohol content here!

 

[Donnan]

Its coming up at 19.69% does that sound about right?

 

[TimT]

Er.... hmmm..... that does seem a tad.... over the top. I plugged in the same figures and read 'apparent attenuation 230%'. I don't pay much attention to these things normally but common wisdom holds that yeast will conk out at around 14% alcohol. Maybe someone else can explain this to us?

My blackberry mead went from 1.096 to 0.996, so an even higher ABV!

 

[Donnan]

Haha yeah, what does attenuation mean?