# evil looking rhubarb



## shoes (Mar 23, 2009)

made this rhubarb wine the other day. kinda gruesome looking, huh? 
i used Jack Kellers' recipie. never done rhubarb before. wait till you see the next pic!


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## shoes (Mar 23, 2009)

four days later! wow! i've never seen such a drastic change in color in such a short time. does this look right? its REALLY cooking along too!


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## arcticsid (Mar 23, 2009)

You'll probably be okay, did you add any pectin ensyme? It will help break that down. I don't know for sure if you can add it at this point, but take a look at my picture. This was frozen concentrate It is orange/pineapple/mago. Look at that pulp. This was the first day. A week or so later that bulp was less than an inch in the carboy. I used pectin enzyme and it broke it right down.
Troy


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## shoes (Mar 23, 2009)

did not use any peptic enzyme Troy. the recipe did not call for it. i did not have hardly ANY pulp in the bottom of mine. i mashed the rhubarb with a 2by 4 in my bucket then soaked the pulp in water(and k met) for 3 days, them strained out the pulp and started the must from there. will keep a good watch on this one!


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## St Allie (Mar 23, 2009)

Freeze the rhubarb first, it makes a huge difference to getting the juice out of it.

that looks fine.. you probably have the victoria variety of rhubarb which has mainly green stalks? If you manage to get hold of glaskins perpetual variety .. the stalks are really red and you'll end up with a lovely deep rose colour.

By the way .. I find rhubarb wines really hard to clear even with pectic enzyme.. I'd be interested to hear how you go with clearing it.

Allie


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## St Allie (Mar 23, 2009)

great use for the bathroom too!

hehehe 

Allie


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## arcticsid (Mar 23, 2009)

If I understand correctly freezing will not necessarily help to extract the juice, but it helps to break down the body of the "fruit" fibers and thereby allowing more of the fruit juices and and the fibers to do their thing. I still think you're gonna be okay. Keep the airlock on ther for now and maybe one of the other members who are more familiar with fruit wines can advise you more.

And remeber, "Just because it doesn't look good, doesn't necessarily mean it's bad"

Troy


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## St Allie (Mar 24, 2009)

Troy,

sugars defrost first. so freeze the rhubarb first, pop the fruit in the muslin in the strainer , keep an eye on it. Really everything defrosts first except the water.

don't keep the last third defrosted from frozen. It'll dilute everything

Allie


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## arcticsid (Mar 24, 2009)

is it fermentind Shoes? If it is leave it alone for now. Like I said maybe someone else may chime in but geez if that stuff is fermenting, it may be a fine batch, only patience will tell. "Looks like a darn batch uh that redneckin stuff I done bin readin 'bout"

Troy
If you have access to more rhubarb try again, but I seriously think it is working for you. If it is fermenting, it's gonna be something, may be not what you wanted or expected but hell, is it ever? LOL Just tell your friends it was exactly what you expected, well, only your non wine making friends


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## Luc (Mar 24, 2009)

I did a story on rhubarb some time ago:

http://wijnmaker.blogspot.com/2007/06/scroll-down-for-english-text-al-lange.html

I sometimes wonder on what I did not do a story 

About the color change.
Did you use sulphite ???
Sulphite is known to temporarely discolour juice.
After a while when the sulphite is blown out of the airlock (by the fermentation process) or bound then the colour will change back.
I once had a dramatic change in rose-petals. They went from red to white within just a few seconds !!!!

Rhubarb can be juiced easily by freezing it and then thawing. It will release the juice almost without effort. A little bit of hand pressing is sufficient.

To de-acidify it, freeze it again.
Then look at the frozen juice and you see the dark parts.
remove them and you will have a low acid must remaining.
I just did a small batch (5 liter) in which the acidity dropped from 16 to 4 this way......


Luc


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## St Allie (Mar 24, 2009)

Luc?

with victoria rhubarb the colour change is dramatic..unlike the perpetual hybrid. Do you know what plant you are getting the stalks from?

Troy? I'd be keen to swap information on the rhubarb wines you have made yourself. I have a huge area in my garden devoted to rhubarb plants. 

Allie


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## Boozehag (Mar 24, 2009)

Allie can you give me a rubarb receipe? i have access to some rubarb and wouldnt mind giving it a try.


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## St Allie (Mar 24, 2009)

sure darl.. let me know what you want.. ie wine or sparkling etc.. I'll raid my recipes for you 

Allie


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## Boozehag (Mar 24, 2009)

Oh I think Ill have to start with still, not ready to make sparkling yet. Speaking of, have you got the book yet???

Do you have a good feijoa receipe too, my trees are fruiting and will be ready before too long!


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## arcticsid (Mar 24, 2009)

Luc, could you actually make a wine from rose petals? Iffin you had enough. That would be outrageous to capture the essence of rose in a wine. We have millions of acres of fireweed here and they make jelly with it, I'll have to inquire about using the petals for wine now that I am more comfortable with wine to do it. I do here tell there is someone making a mead with birch syrup. I know nothing about mead otjer than I know what it is, I would be interested to tasted some.
Troy


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## St Allie (Mar 24, 2009)

Troy, I made a rose petal wine this year.. it's a one gallon recipe..if you want, I'll mail it to you

Allie


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## shoes (Mar 24, 2009)

Troy
its fermenting like crazy right now, i'm pretty sure its gonna be okay, its just that i've never run into this before. 
i did freeze the rhubarb before i started it, i try to always freeze first. i sure helps breaking the fruit down. the stalks were all green, hardly any red to them, i'd like to get the red ones next year. 
Luc,
i used calcium carbonate to knock the acidity down, it was WAY up there, got it down to about a 8. also, i did use campden during the "pre soak".


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## shoes (Mar 24, 2009)

St_Allie said:


> great use for the bathroom too!
> 
> hehehe
> 
> Allie


so true Allie! its got everthing a winemaker needs, hot and cold running water, the toilet to get rid of the lees (my septic system gives me NO problems with all the yeasties i flush down there!) good thing we have two bathrooms. our guests call it my latoratory!


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## arcticsid (Mar 24, 2009)

*Two???*

I hope the bears dont like the smell of sulphite water because the only running water around these parts is the running of it as it flows down the hill after I fling my discarded water on the hill behind the cabin, and it runs into the French drain ditch. If the bears like the smell of that I'm in trouble. Maybe my cats will save me, they seem to be friends with all the Moose that come around and eat everything in the garden!!! Got a picture of the Moose in the neighbors garden eating his prized broccolli while my cat is on the opposite side, well, "digging for worms" I guess.
Troy


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## St Allie (Mar 24, 2009)

Coll?

The book arrived yesterday, looks quite interesting, just need some time to sit down and read it. I've got 20 litres of peach wine to bottle today.

Allie


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## Luc (Mar 24, 2009)

St_Allie said:


> Luc?
> with victoria rhubarb the colour change is dramatic..unlike the perpetual hybrid. Do you know what plant you are getting the stalks from?



Allie,

I haven't the faintest idea.
Last year there was a guy who I only know from e-mail exchanges which I helped with his wines.
Then he mailed me and asked me to visit his son who lives in Delft a town 20 km from here. I went there and found 20 kilo rhubarb waiting for me. I haven't got a clue on what kind of variety it was.

Luc


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## Luc (Mar 24, 2009)

arcticsid said:


> Luc, could you actually make a wine from rose petals? Iffin you had enough. That would be outrageous to capture the essence of rose in a wine.



I made it about one and a half year ago and trust me it has indeed to age that long. At first it tasted like rose perfume. Now it is a really nice blush wine with a hint of roses.

Luc


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