More Rhubarb!

Rhubarb wine.  Here goes!

3kg Rhubarb

2.6kg sugar

Left to soak for 3days

Strained to separate out the syrup. 

Smells deliciously fruity!

Then the remaining sugar is flushed out with cooled boiled water (hot water releases the pectin, which we don't want). The liquor is made up to 10 litres (and some more because the specific gravity was too high).

Camden tablets added to kill off any wild yeast.  Then, two days later (yesterday), I added the white wine yeast.

Now there is very little fruity smell. The last time I made this (probably 20 years ago), the liquor was a beautiful pink colour. Not this time. Still, let's hope the flavour will emerge from all of this pummeling and dilution. 

I'm supposed to leave it alone, apart from a daily stir, for five days while the yeast grows aerobically.  I might give it a little longer because this is double-quantity.

The airlock is there so I can see if anaerobic digestion has started - I don't think is necessary at this stage. Thank you to my neighbour, Rob for spurring me on with some old demijohns and bits & bobs.

Disclaimer: if you start following this recipe before we know the results, you're a bigger fool than me.

Everything's Coming up Rhubarb

Working from home this week, and for the foreseeable.  Today is the first really sunny day for quite some time. The veg plot is a sun trap, which Pippy called 'Spain' for its warmth. I've rarely sat out here midweek, but I can see now why Pippy loved it - to get out of the house and into the sunshine and birdsong.

Rhubarb

General tidying This afternoon. I'd left piles of brambles ready to be collected in the green wheelie bin, emptied on Wednesday.  Checked in rhubarb forcing - it's about double the size of the unforced crowns.

No sign of seeds germinatibg in the greenhouse yet.