Sweetening the Rhubarb Wine

 A few days ago, I picked up two bottles of Sweet Reserve from +Jim Miller at the St. Albert Wine Kitz store.  He also offered some thoughts about rhubarb wine and it's extreme acidity.  I learned that it can be advisable to add chalk to the must, just to neutralize the acid.  (Now, why have I never seen that in any posted recipes for rhubarb wine?)

Sweetening the rhubarb wine.  Carboy, bottle of sweet reserve,
wine glasses with different amounts of reserve (sweeter from
left to right), measuring spoon, and notebook)

This morning, I got to work on sweetening my rhubarb wine, which was too dry and acidic to enjoy.  Using a wine thief, I removed approximately 250 mL of wine and placed it in a measuring bowl.  Then I poured out 1/4 cup (62.5 mL) into each of four wine glasses.  Using a 1/2 tsp (2.5mL) measuring spoon, I added different amounts of sweet reserve to each glass, stirred each, and then tasted them all.  Here are the results:

 

Glass #2 was the winner.  The addition of 5 mL per 62.5 mL of wine is a 0.08 added volume equivalent.  Using some algebra, I determined that I needed to remove 840 mL of wine from the full carboy, and replace it with an 840 mL of sweet reserve.  This step went smoothly.  I stirred up the new mixture with my plastic mixing 'stick', and sealed the carboy with an air lock.  My plan is to let it sit for a few days just to make sure it's stable, and then I will clarify it.

Just for fun, after sweetening, the specific gravity was 1.010.  (I haven't worked it the exact amount yet, but this was a LOT of added sugar.)

Happy Canada Day!