The sediment will taint the wine if it's left in the demijohn too long, so it's time to siphon off the good clear stuff into a bucket & discard the yuck.Once the clear wine has been safely siphoned through the tube into the bucket, the next stage is to de-gas the wine - when CO2 gas is locked in the wine, it is said to affect both the taste & appearance of the wine, although it does dissipate over time.
De-gassing wine involves shaking it all about vigorously & splashing is back & forth between demijohn & bucket a number of times in order to release any carbon dioxide gas present.
The wine ends up back in the demijohn with a teaspoon of potassium sorbate & a crushed campden tablet - a belt & braces measure, these chemicals stopping any possibility of further fermentation in the bottles.Any sediment should appear & settle out quickly, & it will be ready to bottle in a couple of weeks.
Oh - do remember to have a taste, but don't be surprised if its not perfect at this point - it will need a good six months in the bottles where further magic will transform it from simply alcoholic fruit juice into something really rather good.
Beautiful colour - sort of like diluted Ribena but with a very grown up 'punch'. Can't remember what you said the booze percentage was?
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading about the rhubarb wine making process. I have never tasted rhubarb wine, but it does have a very nice color and I am sure it is delicious.
ReplyDeleteMust rack my wine - repeat after me...!
ReplyDeleteThat is an amazing colour! I seem to remember that we filtered our wine before bottling some times. Some contraption like a funnel with a filter paper and some white chalky powder to take away the impurities. A wine of that colour deserves to be sparkling clear! Hope you enjoy it, but not all at once.
ReplyDeleteIt's 13.5%, Bilbo, and now ready to bottle - time to fiddle about with steralising bottles & corks.
ReplyDeleteFor a home wine maker, it's a good one to start with, Keewee - it doesn't take an age, clears well without much faffing about, and tastes good too! Shame I can't do a 'taster-net'!
Not my favourite job, either, Flum - although once you're set up you can rack a whole lot of batches with little extra fuss than just the one.
They don't always clear as easily as the rhubarb wine, Matron - and I have resorted to using finings before, although patience is generally all that's needed.
Thanks for posting the rhubarb wine process. Really helpful. I'm now at the bottling stage. I used red grape concentrate instead of white to get the nice pinky colour. If you are interested, have a look. http://www.didithinkorsaythat.co.uk/?p=142
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you found it useful, Kelly!
ReplyDeleteOddly enough, I opening the first bottle of this wine just yesterday evening. Very light and fruity!