Rhubarb Juice Recipes

HOMEMADE RHUBARB JUICE

Steps:

• Combine rhubarb and water and cook until rhubarb is soft.
• Drain, discarding rhubarb, and add the rest of ingredients to the juice.
• Stir until sugar is dissolved. Put hot juice into jars, seal and cold pack for five minutes.

RHUBARB WINE RECIPE

Steps:

• Wash the rhubarb sticks and cut them into half-inch, or thinner slices. Place these pieces in a clean, sterilized tub and pour in the sugar. Stir it well, and then cover the bucket with a clean towel or plastic wrap and leave for at least 24 hours but up to three days.
• After that time, the sugar will have pulled the moisture out of the rhubarb, creating a rich pink syrup.
• Bring four quarts of water to a boil, hold it there for five minutes, and then allow it to cool to lukewarm. While it's cooling, make a large mug of strong black tea with some of the water and allow that to cool too.
• Pour the lukewarm water over the rhubarb and sugar. Stir well to dissolve any of the sugar at the bottom of the tub. Pour the liquid through a strainer* into another clean tub. Discard the rhubarb pieces (or use them to make rhubarb pie).
• Pour the tea into the rhubarb liquid.
• If you want to know exactly what percentage of alcohol your wine is at the end, take a reading with a hydrometer. This is optional but will give you a better idea of what your wine is like in the end. You'll probably get a reading of about 1.1.
• Next, add yeast and yeast nutrient to the rhubarb liquid. Stir well then cover the tub with a clean towel and allow it to sit undisturbed for five days. If you want to be more professional in this step, you can use a primary fermenting bucket with an airlock. Fermentation will be pretty violent in this stage though so it can get messy with one.
• At the end of the five days, rack the liquid through a sterilized hose from the tub into your clean demi-john. The way I do it is to set the tub on a kitchen counter and the demi-john on the floor. If you don't have an auto-siphoning tube, place one end of the siphoning tube in the tub, then suck on the other end until the liquid begins coming through. Hold the end of the tube over the demi-johns' opening so that it flows inside. You could put it inside too, but be careful to not let the outer surface of the tube touch the inside of your demi. There will be germs from your mouth on the end.
• As the liquid flows into the demi-john, make sure the tube doesn't suck up the mucky residue at the bottom of the tub. If a small amount gets in that's fine, but the less you get in the better. If the liquid doesn't come up to the bottom of the container's neck (and you're aiming for a dry wine) you can fill it up to this point with water that's been boiled and cooled.
• Once the liquid is in, fit your drilled cork into the demi-john. Pour a little boiled but cooled water into the airlock's chamber before fitting it into the cork.
• Leave the wine to ferment in a place that's at least room temperature, if not warmer. The temperature that the wine should be during its fermentation varies depending on the type of wine yeast you're using so look at the sachet for this information. You can purchase an LCD thermometer strip to put on your demi-john but I point the thermometer gun I use for soap making at it to take regular temperatures.
• When your wine gets fermenting, you'll know it by the blip, blip, blip, of the water in the airlock. It can get annoying when you're sleeping, so keep it out of earshot while you get your zzz's. Fermentation can take a few days to start, so keep an eye on the temperature of the room/wine and be patient.
• It will take about 4-8 weeks for fermentation to complete. By this time, the airlock may only be releasing a bubble of glass every minute or so or none at all.
• Rack the wine from the demi-john into a clean tub. Like before, avoid sucking up the sludge at the bottom. It's basically the remains of yeast and will make your wine look and taste horrible.
• Add a crushed Campden tablet to it. Campden tablets contain sodium or potassium metabisulfite which stops mold and bacteria from growing in your wine and spoiling it during the aging process. Adding it is not optional.
• Siphon the wine into another clean and sterilized demi-john. If the wine doesn't come up to the neck of the bottle, top it up with simple sugar syrup*. Too much oxygen touching the wine during aging can adversely affect the flavor of the wine. Make sure to add potassium sorbate too, so that any remaining yeast doesn't start fermenting the added sugar. If it does, you'll likely have a mess on your hands with the bung popping out during the aging process.
• Fit a cork and then allow it to age for about six months. During this time it should be kept in a dark place at a constant cool temperature and the demi-john stored upright.
• After six months, the wine will be pale golden in color, and probably quite dry (unless you added sugar syrup). If you use the hydrometer to measure the liquid's specific density again, you can now work out the alcohol content. It's likely that you'll get around 0.998 in this second reading, making the wine about 13.39% alcohol (if your initial reading was 1.1). If you want to leave it this way, you can skip the next section.
• Have a taste, and if the flavor of the wine is too dry for your liking, you can sweeten the wine with a rich simple sugar just before bottling it.
• Dissolve 1 cup sugar in 1/2 cup of boiling water. Boil for a few minutes to evaporate a little of the water. Allow this strong simple sugar syrup to cool to room temperature.
• Rack the wine into a clean tub then add the sugar syrup and the potassium sorbate* and stir well. The sugar will sweeten the wine, and the potassium sorbate will ensure that the yeast doesn't rise from the dead to devour the sugar. If you leave the potassium sorbate out, your bottles of wine could eventually explode. Take another hydrometer reading if you'd like to work out the alcohol content
• Siphon the wine into clean and sterilized wine bottles and cork. You could technically drink it immediately but it's better to let it age a month or longer.

STRAWBERRY RHUBARB JUICE

Steps:

• Prior to making this recipe, remove the strawberries from the freezer to thaw. They are ready to juice with the rest of the ingredients when they are halfway thawed out.
• Wash fresh produce and weigh ingredients.
• Quarter the lemon (leaving skin on) and place directly into the press. If you don't have a juice press, peel the lemon and juice with the rest of the ingredients.
• Grind remaining ingredients together and press.

RHUBARB JUICE

Steps:

• Clean and rinse the rhubarb thoroughly and cut them into smaller pieces.
• Mix the rhubarb, sugar and water in a saucepan and heat it up to boiling point. Continue boiling for approximately 15 minutes.
• Pour the rhubarb, sugar and water mix through a strainer down into a large bowl. In this step it is difficult to extract all the pulp using only the strainer. If you want a completely clean juice you can use a tea towel (or similar) as a strainer. Use a spoon to squeeze out the last juice from the rhubarb.
• Clean some bottles using boiling water to make sure they are completely clean and that all bacteria are gone. This will extend the shelf life. Pour the concentrated juice on the bottles and keep them refrigerated.
• When serving the juice simply mix the concentrated juice with water or sparkling water in the ratio 1-4. Of cause this can be adjusted as you like.

RHUBARB BARS

Steps:

• For the bars: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F with a rack in the middle.
• Grease and line a 9-inch square baking pan with parchment paper. Cut enough so there are wings hanging over the sides of the pan for when it's time to remove the bars!
• In a food processor, combine the flour, almond flour, granulated sugar and salt and pulse to combine. Add the butter, egg white and rosewater, if using. Pulse until the mixture clumps together into small to medium clumps of dough.
• Pour the dough out into the prepared pan and press evenly all around the bottom with a measuring cup or the back of a spatula until smooth.
• Bake until the crust is just set and the edges are light golden, 15 to 18 minutes. Remove to a rack to cool. Reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees F.
• For the filling: Combine the rhubarb in a medium saucepan with water just to cover (about 1 1/2 cups water) and 1/4 cup granulated sugar. Scrape in the vanilla bean seeds and add the pod. Simmer until the rhubarb is falling apart, about 10 minutes. Cool, then strain and discard the solids. (See Cook's Note.)
• Add 1/4 cup of the reserved rhubarb juice to a small mixing bowl. Add the cornstarch. Use a small whisk or fork to combine until smooth and there are no cornstarch lumps. Add the rhubarb slurry to the saucepan with an additional 1/2 cup of the reserved rhubarb juice. (See Cook's Note for uses for any extra juice).
• Whisk in the eggs, yolks, salt, remaining 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar and 2 tablespoons lemon juice. Cook, whisking constantly, over medium heat until the mixture begins to simmer and thicken and bubbles pop to the surface, 7 to 10 minutes. Whisk in the zest, then the butter and coconut oil a little at a time. Whisk in just enough food coloring to make a salmon pink color, 2 to 3 drops.
• Pour the filling mixture over the cookie crust and bake until the edges are set, but the center is just a tiny bit jiggly, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove to a rack to cool completely.
• Once cooled, remove the bars from the pan. With a sharp knife, cut into 16 squares, wiping the blade after each cut. (You can also trim the edges for a cleaner look.) Dust with powdered sugar before serving.
• For longer storage, refrigerate between layers of parchment in a sealed container.