Topic: Recipe wanted

[DavidW]

I’ve just picked and frozen a few bags of rhubarb and gooseberries, is there any wine recipe where I can combine the two to make a nice wine.


Thanks
David

[jennym]

Fill a bucket with chopped, washed rhubarb and washed gooseberries. Add boiling water to cover. (Do not try and cook or boil up the fruit first) Leave until cooled to blood heat. Add yeast ( I use dried baking yeast). Stir in, loosely cover, leave for 3 days. Mash up as with a potato masher as much as you can. Strain off the liquid into a fresh bucket, put the fruit debris on the compost heap. Add 2 kg of sugar to the liquid and stir until dissolved. Decant into demijohns, (I get 2 per bucket). Add bubble traps and leave for at least six weeks. Decant off into bucket, discarding sediment. Rinse out demijohns, put wine back in and add 1/2 kg sugar to each one. Leave 3 weeks. Result is like champagne.

[Fingle....]

is that safe ? wont it explode ?

[jennym]

No - because I leave it in the demijohn and pour it direct! It's so good it doesn't last long...
Seriously though, if you want to bottle it you can wire the corks down. Or you can pasturise it to kill the yeast, its not fizzy then, and then bottle it.

[adrianhumph]

Hi David, :D
                   Do not under any circumstances bottle this using the above method. If you  do you run the risk of exploding bottles everywhere If you want to make a sparkling, wine you must only use proper champagne bottles,. these are much heavier than ordinary bottles, after all the pressure in one is greater than in a trye ona double decker bus. Also it is very important to know the amount of unfermented sugar that is present, so that you reduce the risk of excess pressure. Ideally go to a home brew shop & get a book on the subject of making sparkling wines. I stress DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE A BEGINNER AT WINEMAKING.

                                                   Adrian.

[jennym]

Sorry, sorry, sorry - it IS essential to use stout champagne bottles if you are going to cork them.
I don't cork the demijohn, just leave the bubble trap in and usually friends and family demolish the lot pretty quickly.
I find that wine making is pretty easy but then I only use fruit (or parsnips) that I've grown and my criteria are low - taste and alcohol content - I don't expect it to taste like grape wine, just to taste nice. I try to get around 12% alcohol, and don't mind if it's not crystal clear, although it usually isn't bad.
If I do bottle the wine, I don't kill it with campden tablets (can't afford all that anyway) I just pour the lot into my preserving pan, cover it with tin foil (no lid) and bring it slowly up to pasteurising temperature, keeping it there for 5 minutes. This kills the yeast and stops any secondary fermentation and doesn't affect the alcohol content as long as you bring the heat up slowly and don't boil it.
Jenny