When I saw Ginny B’s recipe for Rhubarb Champagne on the Accidental Smallholder forum, I knew I was just going to have to try it!!
1 lemon cut up small
20 cups water
3.5 cups of sugar
11 tbls white wine vingar
3.5 cups of rhubarb cut up smallput all together in large container and stir twice daily for 4 days. strain and bottle in water/juice bottles ( must have tight fitting screw lids ) keep for about 2 weeks, then chill and enjoy … open tops slowly !!
Well it seemed simple enough, so one day last week, I set to work. The chickens wanted to help of course, and quickly hoovered up the couple of pieces I dropped when posting them through the neck of the demijohn (don’t know if hens eat rhubarb, but I wasn’t quick enough to stop them unfortunately!).
Coincidentally, the hen at the back of this picture is actually called rhubarb, so I guess I should forgive their curiosity!
The recipe was really quick to follow – just add everything to the jar, and leave to mingle for four days, after which it looked like this.
I’m a bit concerned that there was only minimal bubbling, but there was some, so I’m hoping there is enough yeast to continue the fermentation a bit whilst its in the bottles – only time will tell!
The next stage was to strain the mixture through a clean cloth, ready for bottling. I didn’t have the proper gear for doing this, so instead used our stainless steel vegetable steamer, which turned out to be absolutely perfect!
So there it is! So far, it tastes very sweet, with bags of rhubarb flavour, and a slight hint of ginger beer. I’ve left the bottles to mature for a few weeks longer, and as long as they don’t all explode, will report back on the results in due course!!
An Outdoor Life 