First batch · 19.0 litres · Country white
Rhubarb wine
Almost no sugar in the fruit at all, so the alcohol comes entirely from what you add and the rhubarb supplies only acidity and a clean, sharp character. Finished off-dry, because dry it is skeletal.
Starting sugar
19.0 Brix
3.90 kg of fermentable sugar
Original gravity
1.079
from the ingredients, not asserted
Finishing gravity
1.000
medium
Alcohol
10.3%
Brix alone predicts 10.5 to 11.4%
Residual sugar
13 g/L
approximate, from gravity
Ready after
6 months
best around 2 years
Made to Country white, and every computed figure lands inside the published range for it.
ABV inTA inpH inRS inWhat decides this wine
Freeze the stalks rather than boiling them. Boiling rhubarb sets the pectin into a haze that no enzyme fully clears afterwards; freezing and thawing breaks the cells just as effectively and leaves the wine bright.
What goes in
| Ingredient | Weight | Sugar | Volume | Share of sugar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rhubarb Stalks only. The leaves are high in oxalic acid and are not food. | 4.00 kg | 0.06 kg | 2.40 L | 2% |
| White sugar | 3.50 kg | 3.50 kg | 2.21 L | 90% |
| White grape concentrate Body and nutrient, both of which rhubarb has none of. | 0.50 kg | 0.34 kg | 0.39 L | 9% |
| Pectic enzyme | 8 g | - | - | 0% |
| Yeast nutrient | 12 g | - | - | 0% |
| Water, to volume | - | - | 14.00 L | - |
The ingredients contribute 5.0 litres and the water makes up the rest to 19 litres. Those figures are checked against each other when the site is built, because a recipe whose volumes do not add up produces a wine weaker or stronger than every number above.
Acid and sulphite
Acidity of the must
8.0 g/L
at pH 3.20
No malolactic
8.0 g/L
the acidity you measure is the acidity you keep
Potassium bicarbonate
21 g
to reach 7.0 g/L. Bench trial before treating the batch
Sulphite at bottling
0.8 g
potassium metabisulphite, for 23 mg/L free SO2 at pH 3.25
The batch
- Must volume
- 19 L
- Ferment at
- 18-21 C
- Molecular SO2 target
- 0.8 mg/L
- Malolactic
- No
- Yeast
- 71B for fruitto 14%, low N
The sulphite figure is worked out against the pH of the finished wine, not of the must. Malolactic and deacidification both raise pH, and dosing a finished red to its must pH under-protects it by roughly a third. Recompute for your own reading.
Method
- 01Chop the stalks, freeze them solid, and thaw into a bucket. Do not boil them.
- 02Add sugar and concentrate, top to volume with cold water, and stir until dissolved.
- 03Add pectic enzyme and wait twelve hours.
- 04Pitch and ferment on the pulp for four days at 18 to 21C, then strain.
- 05Ferment out in a carboy, then stabilise with sulphite and sorbate before back-sweetening to taste.
- 06Bottle after a month at rest, having checked the gravity has not moved.
The two instruments this recipe needs
Every number on this page came from a hydrometer reading and a pH reading. Without those two you are following a recipe rather than making a wine, and the sulphite figure in particular is meaningless without a pH you have actually measured.
Measuring
Hydrometer and trial jar
SOLIGT Triple Scale Hydrometer and Glass Test Jar for Wine, Beer, Mead & Cider - ABV, Brix and Gravity Test Kit
$18.98
Tracks the ferment from must to dry. The gap between your starting and finishing gravity is the only reliable way to know the alcohol you actually made.
Measuring
pH meter
Apera Instruments AI1113 pH Calibration Buffer Solution Kit (7.00, 4.00), 8 oz. Each
$18.00
The most important instrument on this page. pH decides how much of your sulphite is actually protecting the wine, and dosing without knowing it is guesswork.