Rhubarb - Oxalic Acid Noobie

Good-luck with your batch. I've made rhubarb wine, and I prefer to add chalk (calcium carbonate) to the batch, but that is me. Some people don't mind. You can always try it one way this time and a different way the next. Darlene Wisconsin

My recommendation would be not to chalk. The oxalic acid is an integrated part of being a rhubarb. If you remove it you will miss an important part of what makes rhubarb such a wonderful wine. As for the health concern, unless you were to drink excessive amounts af the wine (always a danger!) it shouldn't be of concern.

I have 4 G of rhubarb wine in secondary, now 5 month old. I freezed, crushed, soaked with pectic enzyme, strained, adjusted and fermented. I.e. no heat was used. It now has an extremely fresh fruity aroma, and a nice, but not too dominant, taste of rhubarb. It will be a very good "white" wine (although it is pink!).

regards Martin

I tend to agree with Martin on the chalking advice, seeing oxalic acid as part of rhubarb's individual flavour profile.

I feel that the issue of toxicity is nothing to worry about provided only cold extraction of the leaf petiole is used.

For more, see

Ben

LOL!!! Another chalker!!! I keep a pack of sticks in my supply tub..... :-)

(calcium carbonate) to the batch, but that is me. Some people don't

I don't chalk mine, and it tastes great. I think the bulk of OA is in the leaves, which is why they say they are poisonous. Dan.

Thanks for the response to the post concerning rhubarb. It's quite appreciated.

Well it's PINK! What a surprise.

Steve - Noobie Oregon

Yep, sometimes the color you think it will be isn't what it is. I thought pumpkin wine would be orange, it is a light yellow, watermelon wine is sort of yellow - not pink, my pepper wine is on the yellow side too, not green...surprise. Darlene Wisconsin

So the stalks basically aren't poisonous in wine, then? I was pretty sure you can't eat the leaves, so I don't see why they'd be used in winemaking..

A last addendum. I make a 5 gal ( imp) batch of rhubarb every couple of years, using the young freshly grown variety that becomes available early spring in Yorkshire -- there are growers who have huge sheds where the rhubarb is "forced". When I was a boy we used to put old bottomless buckets, upended and filled with straw over the dormant plants in winter to help speed up the early development. During the WW2 years it was a treat to have a stick of young fresh rhubarb with a small bag of sugar for dipping.

I never add chalk -- the Oxalic acid being, I feel, an essential ingredient of what makes a good rhubarb wine.

Using fresh young rhubarb mine is always a delicate shade of pink.

I always wash. chop and freeze the rhubarb and then go into the fermentation process, find that freezing obviously help a lot with juice extraction. The leaves are NEVER used

As other who make it regularly will also agree it is an excellent "blender" with other wines lacking in finish and takes on the attributes of other wines in an extraordinary way.

With regard to Oxalic acid, I was told on here about a year ago that as a diabetic I should be aware of its dangers to my health but never got any details of that. Asking at my monthly diabetic forum, I have had no adverse comments made by doctors or their staff.

In answering posts I often add asides which, I feel, add to the interest of the main topic without being directly OT as it were!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Correct - the stalks are okay to make wine out of - the leaves are poisonous to humans. I didn't think the poster was talking about eating the leaves; I thought we were talking about oxalic acid. When our dog was little, he ate a bunch of rhubarb leaves. I called the vet, and the vet said not to worry. I didn't; the dog was fine. Darlene Wisconsin