I did my first racking today, even though the recipe said to wait until it
started to clear. But it's been over a month since I started and thought
that it should be taken off the sediment.

The wine is sweet, yet tart. It's almost syurpy in texture. You can really
taste the rhubarb. It was a beautiful pink colour, but when I racked it with
pot met all the colour was stripped away. Too bad. From the colour and
sweetness, I was thinking a zinfandel-type wine was in the making.

Here's my procedure to date if anyone's interested:



Rhubarb Wine

30 lbs frozen rhubarb
14 litres cold water
1/2 tsp potassium metabisulphite

17 lbs finely granulated sugar
4 litres boiling water

450ml Realemon juice
2 tbsp yeast nutrient
1/2 tsp tannin
2 packages wine yeast


NOTE: If using pre-washed and ½" pre-cut frozen rhubarb (which is MUCH
easier to crush), be sure to thaw in a container since juice is sure to leak
from the bags.

October 10, 2003
Crush in a small container in small quantities with a piece of sterilized
hardwood. Divide equally between two primaries. (30 lb of rhubarb produced
22 lb of juice and 8 lb of pulp). For each primary, dissolve ¼ tsp potassium
metabisulphite in 1 litre of water and pour over rhubarb. Add an additional
6 litres of water to each primary. Stir. Cover primaries with a towel and
let sit for three days, stirring daily.

October 12, 2003
Dissolve 17 lbs of sugar in 4 litres of boiling water. Allow to cool.

Strain rhubarb through a nylon straining bag and squeeze as much liquid as
possible from the pulp. Discard pulp and return juice to a single large
primary. Stir in cooled sugar water, lemon juice, nutrient, and tannin.
Split equally between 2 glass carboys, pitch a package of yeast into each
and fit with blow-off hoses.
(When yeast was pitched, batch was at 70', so I put the heating coil around
them. There ended up being no foaming, so airlocks would have worked in lieu
of hoses.)
Starting TA was 7.0
Starting SG was 1.092

October 26, 2003
When fermentation settles down (5-7 days), set aside in cool place until
wine begins to clear.
(Been busy with work. Neglected wine, so heating coil was left on until
today. Wine is at 72/73 F. Airlocks put on instead of blow-off hoses. No
sign of clearing yet. Minimal activity in airlocks.)

November 16, 2003
Rack. SG is 0.994. Add ¼ tsp of pot met to each batch by dissolving in a cup
of wine first. Re-rack to fill an 18.9 litre carboy, five 2 litre pop
bottles, and one 1 litre pop bottle. Airlock put on carboy, caps put on pop
bottles. No sign of clearing yet, but thought wine should finally get off
the sediment.
(Wine is tart, yet sweet, somewhat syrupy in texture. Rhubarb flavour is
prominent. Pot met stripped away the beautiful rose colour!)