Rhubarb Wine Recipe and full Winemaking Instructions

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March 12, 2020 · 107 Comments

Rhubarb Wine Recipe and full Winemaking Instructions

Homemade Wine and Drinks· Recipes

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Use fresh spring rhubarb and a few other ingredients to make this rhubarb wine recipe. Includes tips on equipment and the full winemaking process.

Quite a few people think of rhubarb as strictly a springtime treat but if you grow it yourself you’ll know that you can be pulling stalks of it far into the summer. Even so, it’s a matter of time before you’re tired of eating rhubarb crumbles. When this happens, you know it’s time. Time to make sweet rhubarb wine.

I only made a single batch of this recipe last year and it turned out to be a real tragedy. A tragedy in that I didn’t make more. I’m planning on rectifying the situation this year so you can bet that every spare stalk of rhubarb is going to be saved for these bottles of boozy deliciousness. The wine tastes sweet, crisp and with the full-bodied taste of rhubarb in every sip. It’s absolutely divine and has impressed everyone who has tried it. Especially the skeptics.

What does Rhubarb Wine taste like?

Depending on how much sugar you use, rhubarb wine can be very dry and zingy to sweet and lemony. The lemony part comes from the oxalic acid that’s naturally in rhubarb. It’s what gives rhubarb its kick! Either way, it’s fresh and summery and great for serving at late summer gatherings.

Some people get upset stomachs from too much acid and there are two things you can do. First off, use bright pink forced rhubarb. It’s lower in acid than summer rhubarb. Also, you may want to consider using a specialist wine yeast. Both Vintner’s Harvest MA33 and Lalvin 71B-1122 cut down on malic acid in wine and they may be of use in reducing oxalic acid.

how wine is made

Everyone knows that wine contains alcohol, but how does it get inside? Traditional grape wine is made from grape juice, and you make rhubarb wine using a homemade sweet rhubarb juice. After this point, yeast is introduced and it starts eating up the sugars. Alcohol is what the yeast produces as a by-product.

Grapes have perfect balances of sugar, water, wild yeast, tannins, and other ingredients that make winemaking simple. Making country wines, like rhubarb wine, takes a little more thought. We add things like commercial yeast, and ingredients to stop fermentation to have better control. Winemaking is a precise art, and it’s something that you can make with a lot of other berries and vegetables, like black currants, parsnips, and apples.

Use fresh spring rhubarb and a few other ingredients to make this rhubarb wine recipe. Includes tips on equipment and the full winemaking process #rhubarb #rhubarbrecipe #winemaking #kitchengarden

The finished wine is sweet and golden in color

Choose to make dry or sweet rhubarb wine

What you’ll end up with at the end of making rhubarb wine is a clear and light golden wine. It’s a white wine that’s initially very dry, so if that’s your taste, you could leave it at that. That dryness comes from the alcohol content and the tannins from the tea. Basically, there’s no sugar left in it at the end and the crispness reflects that. Some people really like a dry white wine, and they can bottle it up at that time.

If you’re more a fan of dessert wines, there’s an extra step that will transform dry rhubarb wine into sweet. You literally just add a bit more sugar and an extra ingredient that ensures that the yeast doesn’t transform it into alcohol. If you’d like to use honey to sweeten the wine, you can use that instead of sugar but you’ll need to use a little more. When you make your own wine, keep notes on the process, records of exact quantities, and hydrometer readings.

If all of this is beginning to sound complicated, you can make other boozy treats with rhubarb including this delicious rhubarb gin recipe.

Use a hydrometer to work out how much alcohol is in your homemade rhubarb wine

Using a hydrometer

Although not necessary, a hydrometer is a great way to keep track of how sugary your wine is. Also of how much alcohol it contains. A hydrometer is a long glass bobber that you place inside another tall container with a liquid. It tells you the specific density of the liquid inside compared to plain water. Water is measured at 1.0, and liquids that are heavier than water (such as sugar-water or juice) are heavier than that. Alcohol is lighter than water so the measurement would be less than 1.0.

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Knowing the specific gravity of your liquid can help troubleshoot any issues that you might encounter. If you take a reading both before (original gravity ‘OG’) and after fermentation (final gravity ‘FG’), you can also know how much alcohol is in your wine. The formula for this is (FG – OG) x 131.25 = ABV %

Winemaking does need specialist equipment but also containers and utensils you already have

Winemaking equipment

When I first started making wine, I stopped off at the local recycling center and asked if they had any demi-johns (carboys). From there I picked up piece by piece until my set was complete. There are a lot of things that you can use in winemaking that you already have in your kitchen cupboards. You can get other specialist equipment like airlocks, hydrometers, and wine corks and corker from a winemaking supplier. If you’re lucky, you’ll have someone local. If not, there are plenty online.

Another thing that I get recycled for winemaking is the actual wine bottles. Cleaned and sterilized, many can be used indefinitely. Though some come with screw-on lids, I’d advise not reusing that part. It can be difficult to sanitize them of bacteria and other contaminants. Fortunately, you can purchase sterile wine corks that you can insert into the neck of any wine bottle.

Winemaking can get expensive if you get all the equipment at once. Consider it an investment though, since each bottle of wine you’ll eventually make will cost about a dollar in ingredients. One other tip I have is that you can save money by purchasing a beginner’s winemaking kit.

You can sterilize glass and metal winemaking equipment in the oven

Sterilizing winemaking equipment

Sterilizing winemaking equipment and the bottles is essential. If not done properly, you can introduce all kinds of nasties into your wine that will cause it to taste terrible or to spoil. There are three ways to sterilize winemaking equipment, so choose the best way for the type of material the equipment is made of.

Run it through the dishwasher. Though you will need to use a bottle cleaning brush to get inside wine bottles and demi-johns.
Glass and metal objects can be sterilized in the oven. Place them inside an oven pre-heated to 320-350°F (160-180°C), and leave them to heat through for thirty minutes. Turn the oven off and allow them to cool inside.
Chemical sanitizers. There are many available at winemaking suppliers and the idea is that you dissolve it into a container, allow it to sit for around 5-10 minutes then drip dry. You need to do this immediately before using the vessel and I’ve used them before when using large fermentation vessels. For this recipe and the smaller demi-john, I just use the oven method.