Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Eating and Drinking => Homebrew => Topic started by: New shoot on July 05, 2010, 20:20
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I made rhubarb and red grape (with juice out of a carton) last year as that was OK, plus made raspberry, but it was a bit sweet. I'm thinking rhubarb will add a nice edge but anyone tried it or even better, got a recipe?
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I`m a very amateur winemaker but i would of thought less sugar or a stronger yeast would be the answer to the oversweet raspberry wine.
I do not know if it is possible to blend finished wines to balance them, if so it might be worth making a separate batch of rhubarb which seems to be renowned for its acidity( calcium carbonate at the ready) and mix the two.
I do like a glass of sparkling raspberry wine (even if sweet) and have a couple of demijohns bubbling away now. :)
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The sweetness of a wine depends on the amount of sugar you put in and if you give the yeast enough time to convert it to alcohol and CO2 - of course a yeast will reach its limit of alcohol and then stop, leaving any extra sugar to make the wine sweet or very sweet (depending on how much sugar is left) - a dry wine is produced by not giving the yeast more sugar than it can cope with (this includes the fructose already present in the fruit) and leaving it long enough for the sugar to be converted.
If your wine is 'too sweet' then it's because you either put in too much sugar for that particular yeast, or you have not left it long enough. Nowadays you can get 'super yeast' that can reach upto 21% alc by vol :happy: (if ideal conditions are met - acidity, temperature, etc,).
As for rhubarb & raspberry.... sounds o.k. - though I might go for rhubarb & vanilla (using real vanilla pods) should taste like rhubarb & custard!, so maybe should be made slightly sweet?
Good luck. :)
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Personally I would er away from using rhubarb - I tried making rhubarb wine once and it left you with a taste in your mouth like someone had sprayed hairspray in!!
I'm no expert but I think you have to be careful using rhubarb!
Sara
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Hi Sara - I did go for it in the end and have used rhubarb, red grape juice and the last of the raspberries from last summer. It's a lovely colour and smells encouragingly of raspberry as well as the rhubarb so we'll see ;)
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Personally I would er away from using rhubarb - I tried making rhubarb wine once and it left you with a taste in your mouth like someone had sprayed hairspray in!!
I'm no expert but I think you have to be careful using rhubarb!
Sara
Something must have gone wrong here; we have made gallons of rhubarb, and it's always been one of the best country wines I've tasted. Are you using a crushed Campden tablet along with the yeast and nutrient? This not only takes away the red colour, but also gives a very nice "Hock" taste.
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Just an update to say I've racked off the Rhubarb, raspberry and red grape tonight into a clean demijohn and am currently sipping a glass of leftovers and it's not at all bad........hic :D
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Personally I would er away from using rhubarb - I tried making rhubarb wine once and it left you with a taste in your mouth like someone had sprayed hairspray in!!
I'm no expert but I think you have to be careful using rhubarb!
Sara
I've made rhubarb wine a couple of times, and its quite nice! A very pale Rosé
Strangely enough, this last batch of wine I made, the carrot wine with 2lb of sugar to a gallon was very sweet, but the blackcurrant and apple (made with apple juice which was quite sweet) and 2lb of sugar was very dry, but I mixed some of the sweet with the dry and it tastes really nice!!