Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Rhubarb Rye

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jtratcliff

jtratcliff

Supporting Member
HBT Supporter
Joined
Feb 7, 2013
Messages
2,256
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1,348
Location
Pasadena
Recipe Type
All Grain
Yeast
S-05
Yeast Starter
no
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter
no
Batch Size (Gallons)
6
Original Gravity
1.055
Final Gravity
1.012
Boiling Time (Minutes)
60
IBU
22.1
Color
12.4
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
7 days @ 65 F
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
14 days @ 65F
Tasting Notes
nice tartness from the rhubarb complements the mild spiciness of the rye
Fermentables

Total grain: 13.000 lb
Name Amount % Color
2 Row 7.000 lb 54% 2.0 srm
Rye Malt 3.000 lb 23% 5.0 srm
Munich 1.500 lb 12% 9.0 srm
Carared 1.000 lb 8% 20.0 srm
Special B 8.000 oz 4% 160.0 srm



Hops

Name Alpha Amount Time IBU
Fuggles 4.5% 0.500 oz 60 min 5.5
Cascade 6.0% 0.300 oz 30 min 3.4
Columbus 17.5% 0.300 oz 30 min 9.9
Fuggles 4.5% 0.500 oz 20 min 3.3


Misc in Secondary

1 Vanilla bean (split and scraped)
5 lb Rhubarb (chopped, frozen & thawed)


Mash at 154 F for 1 hour.

Rack onto vanilla bean & rhubarb after primary fermentation finishes. Secondary for another 7-14 days.


This has a nice ruby color and crisp, tart flavor. You can tell it is rhubarb but it doesn't over power. It needs a little bit of time to condition. Early tastes (after only a few weeks in the bottle) were a little vegetal. Give it at least a month or two.

Very refreshing summer brew.

I've only made it once and it didn't last long enough to tell what happens with age. It was a hit with my German wife and her German friends (auf Deutsch ist: Rhabarber Roggenbier).

I couldn't find a good rhubarb ale recipe so I pieced together something from other fruit beers and rye ale recipes. I'd never done a roggenbier and liked the alliteration of Rhubarb Rye.

This was probably the 1st recipe I came up with kinda on my own. Looking at the hop schedule a year later, I'm not sure what I was thinking ... but it came out tasty!

I went with S-05 since i figured the rhubarb would hide most the yeast character anyway, so why not use something clean. And more importantly, I had some in the fridge :D

I thought I'd share, since my rhubarb is about ready to pick. I've ordered the ingredients and will make it again soon.

View attachment RhubarbRye.xml
 
Thanks for the post! I too have found an odd fascination with the alliteration of this combination. I boiled my version this eve and only after happened to stumble upon this. I was looking for a 'farmhouse' style with a rhubarb addition, although I'm really using that term as justification to throw whatever the hell I want in the pot. Where I ended was about half-way between an american ale and american wheat (too dark to be wheat, not bitter enough to be an american ale... says beersmith). My recipe:

Extract & steeping grain
0.25 lbs Aromatic Malt
0.25 lbs Crystal 10
0.5 lbs Carapils
2 lbs Bavarian Wheat DME
1.5 lbs Rye LME
3 lbs Plain Light DME
0.75 oz Centennial @ 60 min
0.5 oz Cascade @ 20 min
0.5 oz Centennial @ 10 min
0.5 oz Cascade @ 0 min
0.25 oz Centennial @ 0 min
Wyeast 1272

I regret not getting a half pound of honey in here, but I forgot to pick up when shopping today. Next weekend I should have plenty of rhubarb to pick from the garden to add to the secondary. I was thinking of chopping the rhubarb and steeping in 1/2 gallon of water. I'm curious what thoughts you may have on this technique. I'm really only motivated to do this for the sanitation benefit. Did you feel 5 lbs was about right from a flavor perspective for a 5 gallon batch? Many thanks!
 
Recipe looks good to me. Your base beer won't be as reddish as mine, so maybe you'll some subtle color from the fruit.

I just re-brewed this recently. Racked on to rhubarb a few days ago. I only had 3 lbs or so this time so I hope it's enough. I thought the 5lbs last time was a good amount. It wasn't subtle at all but you didn't pucker up from the rhubarb either. When formulating the recipe, I went with the suggestions from other fruit beers of about 1 lb of fruit per gallon of beer

Not sure about the steep. I've only done this and a cherry wheat with fruit, so I'm no fruit beer expert :)

Only concern you might have is the hot steep setting the pectin and giving you a hazy beer. Not sure if rhubarb has much pectin but the freeze/thaw method breaks the cell walls without heat, so pectin is not an issue. I think you can also get an enzyme (pectinase?) to get rid of the pectin. Look at other fruit beer recipes here to get an idea of what can work.

I might try just running the rhubarb thru the juicer next time. Maybe avoid the vegetal flavor that takes a while to condition out. (wish I would have thought of that a couple of days ago!). I tend to start sampling my beers a week after bottling, and this one really did take a month or so to lose the hint of veggie.

Good luck with your brew. If you decide to steep, let us know how it turns out!
 
Solving for the red color was awfully clever, I wouldn't have come up with that. Thanks for the note, i did some fruit beer research and found at least one opinion that steeping under 150F and under 30 min will not cause a pectin haze in fruits with higher pectin levels. Rhubarb is relatively low to begin with, but I'll tool around some more and may just end up using a pectic enzyme out of paranoia.

I'm gathering that you relate the vegetal flavor to time it takes for the chopped stalks to break down.... meaning juicer = shorter time to clear? I'll buy that logic. Puree it is. Thanks again jratcliff.
 
Yeah, the carared & special B offer a darker color. My final color (after adding rhubarb) is a nice reddish hue.

I don't get too bent out of shape, myself, with a little haze. I'm happy if it taste good. Although when I a pour a crystal clear glass, I'm sure to point it out to those around me :)

I do no-chill BIAB, I'so m always kinda stoked when one of my brews bursts a homebrew myth about clarity.

It occurred to me while posting earlier, that the vegetal taste might come from all the fibers in the chopped rhubarb and that the juice itself might not have that particular problem.

Too late for this year's batch, but next year (or later this year if I get a good 2nd harvest) I'll definitely juice. Might need less rhubarb all in all, as well. Maybe even add the juice at bottling instead of secondary? Although how to figure priming sugar amounts might be tricky. I'm sure there must be some fermentable sugars in rhubarb.

I'll update here about the effectiveness of the 3lbs in my current batch. Be sure to post back with results if you decide to steep (and/or start a new thread). There doesn't seem to be a lot of useful info around on using rhubarb.
 
I just re-read Yooper's rhubarb wine recipe. She chops the stalks and freezes. Then pours her boiled sugar water over to thaw and let's steep for a couple days. Then Pulls the rhubarb. Adds pectic enzyme (and the rest of her ingredients) and let's stand for 12 hours before adding yeast. So pectin might be an issue.

But she still uses the freeze/thaw even with the steep.
 
I just bottled this year's version with only 3lbs of rhubarb. Very tasty. More subtle rhubarb flavor and no vegetal taste in the final half bottle left over at the end.

I also added the vanilla bean a few days late (forgot to add when racking onto chopped rhubarb). Much more pronounced vanilla flavor than i remember from last time. have to see if it hangs around after bottle conditioning.

I'd say 3lbs works well.
 
Just a quick follow-up. I decided to boil a cup of DME reduce temp to 150 and steep 5lbs of blended Rhubarb in wort for 20 min. My thinking here is that the embedded DME would really get the yeast working over the Rhubarb, though I have no scientific basis for that thinking. The result of this I'm hesitant to share. 5lbs of rhubarb occupies a lot of real estate in a 5 gallon carboy. With the renewed food source, by morning my airlock and about a half pound of rhubarb had shotgunned out and onto the floor. I sanitized and replaced and had one more round of this behavior by about 5PM. I know I need a blowoff tube, but I'm pretty sure I'd just have had slightly less of a mess in this case. Either way, provided that I remain infection free, I should be able to give a taste review on the ~4lb addition in a couple months.
 
I thought I'd check back to see if you'd gotten curious and opened a bottle or a few yet? I kegged this weekend and had a pretty bizarre experience. After completing siphoning and getting that last little bit into a glass to taste, I was setting the glass down and the open keg fell over on it's own. A 45lb keg, with no stability issues and toppled without notice. I managed to save about 1/2 the batch. Now that I know I have supernatural forces working against me, I am sure that I'm on to something here.
 
aww man... 1/2 a keg? That hurts. Gotta be evil spirits.... `Course erebody knows them haints don't like the rhubarb.

I have indeed been sampling the latest batch. I have to say, I think 3 lbs might be better than 5. Still plenty of upfront rhubarb tartness but much less vegetal aftertaste. The aftertaste is still there slightly but much less prevalent than I recall from last year. The stronger vanilla at bottling has mellowed and I haven't really noticed it.

All in all a nice refreshing summer beer. But not if you don't care for rhubarb. It's definitely a rhubarb rye, not a rye beer with some rhubarb flavor.

I almost took a photo the other day to post here but thought I'd wait for it to clear a little more. It's been in the bottle only since 6/30.

My notes show: pitched yeast 6/5, racked onto rhubarb 6/11, bottled 6/30

I'm saving some for an Oktoberfest party. So this time I'll have a little better idea how the rhubarb flavor holds up after few of months.

How's they rhubarb flavor on yours? Did the steep bring it out? Curious whether you get a "cooked" taste or not. Next time I think I'm just gonna run the stalks through a juicer. All the Chopping and freezing and then losing a ton of finished beer to the rhubarb trub... Gotta be an easier way :)
 
One final note here for anyone who may stumble across this thread. Do NOT puree rhubarb. Let alone that those stringy threads catch in every valve and other piece of equipment, the last gallon of this batch was sludge. It's tough to get fruit into a carboy, but don't give in to short cuts. On a positive note, v2 is in the primary.
 
Jtratcliff, My apologies, I just now saw your response. My batch was delicious. The volume I was able to harvest after some accidents was hugely popular on a family vacation. Not a drop survived.

I'm working to improve the recipe a bit by adding honey malt, crystal 60 and upping the rye. I brewed last weekend, but only have about 3 pounds of rhubarb to add to the secondary. Hoping to still have the pronounced rhubarb flavor at that volume as you experienced.

Cheers!
 
Glad to hear that your almost-lost-batch was a hit. I found that my 3 lbs of Rhubarb were plenty. Still loads of rhubarb flavor 4 months later. And my recipe has double the rye you gave for your version 1, so I think you have room to tinker with the rye amounts to find your sweet spot.

I'd be interested to hear what you think honey malt brings to party when you taste v2. Rhubarb is so distinct, I wonder of the honey flavor can peak through. I don't really notice the vanilla in mine.
 
I brewed this again with a few modifications...

Grain bill is the same as the OP. Used harvested Nottingham instead of US-05. Secondaried on only 2 1/2 - 3 lbs of rhubarb. Biggest change was the hops schedule (to something more sane):

23.5 IBUs of CTZ @60
4.2 IBUs of Fuggles @30
2.0 IBUs of Fuggles @10

The rhubarb is the primary flavor here, so no sense blowing too many hops. For my AA%s, this was 1/2 oz of CTZ, and 1 oz fuggles (1/2 at 30 1/2 at 10). I also forgot the vanilla bean, again. I don't really miss it.

This time I got no vegetal flavor from the rhubarb. Even when sampled after only a week in the bottle. Not quite ready... Hasn't cleared much yet and is still a little foamy. But the head lasts forever and leaves great lacing.

2015-08-11 15.57.16.jpg
 
Nice plug for your book. Made me chuckle, especially seeing as I have friends who desperately trying to get published for fiction.
I think I might try this come next May, when my in-law's rhubarb comes back after the wife and I pulled it out last year. That root system was so deep, I know thy will have at least 4 pound come up by next April.
Question; how well do you think this would work as a braggot? Reading this made me think that a lower ABV braggot (6-7%-ish) may be a good version/remake. Thoughts?
 
FattyLumpkins said:
I have friends who desperately trying to get published for fiction.
Click to expand...

Fiction is a ***** right now... Especially literary fiction... Publishers are throwing all their money at Celebrity written stuff... When you're paying $20 million advances to actors/athletes/politicians, there's not much left to throw $10K advances to unknowns. Getting an on-line following via blogging or what-not can help.

FattyLumpkins said:
how well do you think this would work as a braggot?
Click to expand...

I've never tasted a braggot. I've only ever made a couple of meads (and one was a BOMM). I know that @Yooper has a recipe for Rhubarb wine, though.

The thing I like about this beer is that the spiciness of the Rye can still be tasted underneath, even though the rhubarb is front and center.
 
Whipping up a 1 gallon test batch of this soon. Going to be altering this slightly for the ingredients I have in the fridge and adding some strawberries to boot :D

Subbing a little less Crystal 150 (or a touch more Crystal 45) for the Special B and Northern Brewer in place of the Columbus. Have about a pound of rhubarb and a pound and a quarter of strawberries. Should be completely overkill. :rockin:
 
Let me know if you get a vegetal flavor from the 1lb/gal of rhubarb... I found that 5lbs in 5-6 gallon batch left a distinct flavor that needed a few months to age out. But half that amount of rhubarb left me plenty of rhubarb flavor in the final beer but no vegetal flavor.... Even after only a couple weeks of bottle conditioning.
 
bucksox said:
Are you still putting the rhubarb in cut and frozen with your last batch?
Click to expand...

Yup... didn't make a batch this year since our rhubarb got neglected and didn't produce much... But I've always done the "chop and freeze" method...

Chopping makes it small enough to get the rhubarb into a carboy and also exposes more surface area of the stalks to the beer during secondary. While freezing cause the water in the stalks to expand, bursting the cell walls and letting more juices escape....
 
Just a note... I made this recipe again this past year, but due to blistering LA summer heat, only had about 1-1 1/2 lb of rhubarb.... for a 6 gallon batch.

I didn't feel that this amount gave enough rhubarb flavor. You could taste that it was there, but not as prominently as in the batch w/ 3 lb of rhubarb.

On the other hand, life got in the way and this batch sat a few weeks too long in the fermenter and was slightly oxidized. So I don't know for certain if the real issue was oxidation or not enough rhubarb. But for now, I still think the sweet spot is about 3lbs for a 6 gallon batch.
 
This beer is amazing!
I brewed as a partial mash, subbed the fuggles, increased the rhubarb, added wheat, and dropped the vanilla bean. It was delicious and crystal clear when chilled. (Unfortunately there is condensation on the glass in the photograph.)

It also took 2nd place for vegetable/herb beer at a local competition even though it was hard to pick a base style for this one. I will be making variations of this beer again.

Thanks JTRATCLIFF.

rhubarb rye.jpg
 
TrialandError said:
This beer is amazing!
I brewed as a partial mash, subbed the fuggles, increased the rhubarb, added wheat, and dropped the vanilla bean. It was delicious and crystal clear when chilled. (Unfortunately there is condensation on the glass in the photograph.)

It also took 2nd place for vegetable/herb beer at a local competition even though it was hard to pick a base style for this one. I will be making variations of this beer again.

Thanks JTRATCLIFF.

View attachment 609531
Click to expand...

Very Nice! Congrats! I've thought about submitting this to local comps, but never quite got around to it...

How much rhubarb did you end up using? Still trying to hone in on the sweet spot...

I really like the combo of rhubarb & rye. I don't think the hops choice matters too much due to the rhubarb. Anything earthy should work... Maybe nothing too citrus-y or piney?... What hops did you end up subbing with?
 
OK... I have this one going again right now... 30 min. left in the boil...

Didn't have any carared in the stock pile, so I subbed w/ some crystal 40 and a bit of black patent.
Also upped the rye and munich:
5lb 2-row
5lb rye
3 lb munich
.5 lb C40
.25 lb special B
.25 lb black patent

Columbus for bittering(24IBU_, fuggles for flavor and aroma (10m 1.7 IBUs, & 5min 0.p IBUs).

Still dialing in klarstien AiO, so only hit about 70% efficiency.

Will pitch some S-05 and add 3lbs of rhubarb after a week
 

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