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Mead is a staple in our homebrew routine, and we’ve been making honey wines for over a decade. When it was time to brew another batch with rhubarb, I of course reached for the honey and started a bubbly honey-based batch of homemade rhubarb mead.
But wait…what if I want to taste the rhubarb, just the subtle delicious tangy notes of rhubarb, without the distraction and complexity of honey? Thus, why not. It’s time to make a rhubarb wine.
For my rhubarb mead, I left the whole chunks of rhubarb in the fermentation vessel for the duration and filtered just before bottling. Rhubarb wine called for a different technique, where I actually juiced the rhubarb by immersing it in sugar for several days. The sugar drew out the rhubarb juice, along with much of the beautiful red color.
The result was a lovely pink brew, with plenty of sweetness to balance out the tang.
I started with a full gallon of rhubarb chunks, and at the end, I had about half a gallon of rhubarb juice. More accurately, I had about half a gallon of raw rhubarb syrup, since there was so much sugar in there you could almost stand a spoon in it.
I strained out the solid rhubarb pieces, and they still had quite a bit of flavor. The juice that had been removed was replaced by sugars, and they’d lost much of their bulk. They made a passable rhubarb candy, and my rhubarb harvesting assistant loved that there was a child-friendly byproduct of the whole rhubarb winemaking endeavor.
Instead of traditional narrow neck demijohns, I used my new favorite brewing vessel, a wide mouth one-gallon jar equipped with a waterlock.
I used the same setup for brewing dandelion wine earlier, and I was amazed at how easy it was to clean the whole thing. No tiny flower petal particles stuck in the fermenter after racking. Brilliant!
In the case of rhubarb wine, it means that I can toss all the rhubarb and sugar into the jar and cap it for juicing. The rhubarb is then strained out, and the juice is put back into the jar. The main benefit is that I only covered one thing with rhubarb and sugar, and I had a lid to keep the ants out of it while the sugar extracted the juice.
Feel free, of course, to extract the juice in whatever container you have, and then pour it into a traditional narrow-necked fermentation vessel. If you don’t have quite enough rhubarb, you can always make a small batch, using the same basic technique that’s used for one-quart batches of mead. Just divide all the ingredients in this recipe by 4 to make a super tiny 1-quart sampling batch.
Beyond the pile of rhubarb, which you should be able to harvest from a few healthy plants, you’ll also need some equipment for this recipe:
- One Gallon Fermentation Vessel with Airlock and Stopper (either Traditional or Wide Mouth Jar Version)
- Brewing Siphon and tubing – For moving the wine from one container to another without disturbing the sediment. This will allow for a much clearer finished rhubarb wine.
- Yeast Nutrient – Yeast cannot live on sugar alone, they need a number of micronutrients to do their important work. Grapes naturally have these nutrients, but other fruits don’t. If you’re making fruit wine, it’s always a good idea to add 1 tsp of yeast nutrient per gallon.
- Winemaking Tannin – While grapes have plenty of tannins to give a wine body and pleasant mouthfeel, rhubarb doesn’t. Adding a bit of tannin will create a much more pleasant, balanced wine. It doesn’t take much, usually around 1/4 to 1/2 tsp per gallon.
- Wine Yeast – Believe it or not, much of the flavor in a finished wine comes from the choice of yeast. Some produce volatile compounds that bring out fruity notes. Others like the champagne yeast I’ve chosen, produce a more neutral wine that ferments well in all conditions.
The end result is a light and bubbly sweet summer wine with a good bit of natural carbonation. (This Premier Classique yeast is also a good choice for rhubarb wine.)
If you’re new to winemaking, I’d suggest reading this primer on making small-batch wines to help get you started.
Rhubarb Wine
Ingredients
- 1- gallon rhubarb, chopped
- 3 lbs sugar
- 2-3 quarts water, to fill
- 1/4 tsp tannin powder
- 1 tsp yeast nutrient
- 1 packet yeast
Instructions
- Chop the rhubarb into 1/4 inch slices. Place the chopped rhubarb in a large bowl, glass jar or bucket.
- Cover with sugar and stir to coat. Allow the sugar to extract the rhubarb juice for 2-3 days.
- After 2-3 days, there will be about 1/2 gallon of rhubarb juice or rhubarb syrup. Strain the juice/syrup through a fine mesh strainer and measure the juice.
- Wash the remaining rhubarb chunks in enough water to make just under a full gallon of liquid. Strain again and add the rhubarb water to the fermentation vessel almost fill it up, leaving a bit of space for the remaining ingredients.
- Add the winemaking tannin and yeast nutrient and stir to dissolve.
- Dissolve the yeast packet in a small amount of lukewarm water and allow it to bloom for 5 minutes before adding it to the fermentation vessel.
- Allow the rhubarb wine to ferment at room temperature for about 6 weeks. If you choose, rack the wine into another fermentation vessel after about 2 weeks, leaving the sediment behind. This will result in a less cloudy finished wine.
- Once fermentation is complete, use a siphon to bottle the wine leaving behind any sediment. While you can drink it immediately, it's better if you can bring yourself to wait at least a month.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
More Winemaking Recipes
Looking for more easy winemaking recipes? Try any of these:
Would it work to juice the rhubarb first in a slow juicer, and then add the 3 pounds of sugar, stirring to dissolve? I always have the worst time with fruit flies, so I’d like to avoid having sweet nectar encouraging them to swarm.
Thanks!
I can definitely understand the fruit flies. You could definitely juice the rhubarb and then add the sugar.
I would like to try to add some blueberries to my rhubarb wine. I haven’t made rhubarb wine before so why not jump right in with altering the recipe, right? lol I see that many recipes call for campton tablets. What are these and are these necessary?
Of course. LOL. Camden tablets are used to completely end the fermentation and stabilize the wine before bottling. They are not necessary and many people choose to avoid them to avoid unnecessary additives in their homemade products.
I started a batch of rhubarb mead and the rhubarb started to mold on top!! I threw the whole batch out! Suggestions??
You may want to try a fermenting weight to keep the rhubarb under the liquid.
If you use a lid with an airlock the gases given off by the fermentation should push the oxygen out and keep things from molding. Also, remember to be as sanitary as possible.
Thank you for the recipe! I am in step one and ended up taking a lot of rhubarb out of the freezer so am doubling the batch. I have a lot of liquid like half of a 5 gallon bucket (with the rhubarb still in) I might end up with more than a gallon of the juice, do I just top that off with the water after rinsing the rhubarb so I have just under the 2 gallons since I doubled the batch and what can I do with all the leftover rhubarb chunks?
Yes it should be fine to do that. You could try making rhubarb candy with the leftover rhubarb chunks.
I racked from one demijon to another after 3 weeks, it’s now been 48 hours since I did this and there’s no sign of any bubbling in the airlock anymore should I add fresh yeast and nutrient? Before racking it was bubbling every 15-25 seconds. Thanks!
I am just now seeing this comment. What did you end up doing? How did the wine turn out?
I am so excited to be trying this for the first time! There’s a lot of rhubarb in the Yukon (Canada). I’ll post if it’s a success.
Yay! Keep me updated!
I’m making this wine now, following these directions but subbed a cup of black tea for the tannins. I racked it after the first two weeks and it has now been an additional 3 weeks. I noticed a thin, white, film on the top of the wine. I opened it up to take a look/smell to see what’s going on. It smells strongly of rubbing alcohol. Has the wine “gone bad”? Is there anything I can do for it?
Thank you for any insights!
Gently scoop off anything that’s floating and rack it again into a clean container. The smell (intensely of alcohol) is normal, so long as it doesn’t smell of vinegar. That will fade as it ages/matures and the other flavors come into balance.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate your response!
Ok, are you ready?? I’m about to blow your mind………….
I made grape jelly last year. I have some left over. We don’t really eat jelly much.
Can I add this to be part of my must???? Good idea right?? 😉 hit me back girrrrlll.
I have actually added jelly to my wine batches in the past (chokecherry jelly to top off a batch of chokecherry wine that wasn’t quite full). The flavor was good, but it came out super cloudy. If you do try it, you may need to add a good bit of pectic enzyme to clarify the wine, if a cloudy glass bothers you at all. (It’s cosmetic though). Enjoy!
How would you feel about heating the rhubarb and sugar with extra water to melt the sugar more and extract more flavor from the rhubab?
Sounds like a fine plan!
Can you freeze the rhubarb until you have a gallon or until the rest of the items arrive. No more then 2 weeks?
Don’t want the rhubarb to go by.
Faith
Yes, that’s a fine method. Freezing actually helps release the juices, so it’ll actually help to have it frozen for a short time before making this recipe. Make sure you keep all the liquid in the bag when you defrost it out though, that’s the good stuff. Good luck!