Grandma's Rhubarb Champagne Recipe (no yeast)
So many people have commented that rhubarb champagne reminds them of their grandmother, and the odd bottle exploding in the shed.
That's the thing about rhubarb champagne. It isn't new. It was in a lot of Australian kitchens a generation or two ago and then it quietly disappeared for a while. It's a skill we're bringing back now alongside ginger beer and wild sodas, but a lot of people have already tasted it. They just haven't made it themselves.
It's a simple recipe. Rhubarb, sugar, lemon, apple cider vinegar and water, and nothing artificial in it. There's no yeast to buy and no starter to keep alive on the bench. The wild yeast already sitting on the rhubarb does the work for you.
What you'll need
- 3½ cups rhubarb, cut up
- Juice of 2 lemons
- 3½ cups sugar (I only use 3, and honestly it's still sweet)
- 12 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, roughly ¾ cup
- 4 litres water (filtered)
How I make it
Cut up the rhubarb and put everything in together. I use a big glass jar with a teatowel over the top.
Leave it for three days. I stir mine every day.
After three days, strain the mixture from the jar and bottle it. Leave about 3cm of empty space at the top of each bottle so the pressure has somewhere to go, and hopefully nothing explodes.
Then leave the bottles for 1 to 3 weeks depending on the temperature. I burp mine every day (opening and closing the bottle to release pressure) and have the odd taste test as I go so I know when it's ready to pop in the fridge.
Seriously it's that simple to make a beautiful homemade fizzy rhubarb drink.
Be careful when you open it
This is the part I'd pay attention to more than anything else in the recipe.
Rhubarb champagne builds pressure, and it builds it faster than you expect. Initially I stored mine inside in the kitchen, I burped the bottles every day and it became very fizzy very quickly. I opened one bottle after only two days to burp it and it overflowed everywhere, it was then moved to the shed where the lower temperature slowed down the fermentation process.
I recommend using rated glass bottles for carbonated drinks or you can reuse plastic drink bottles if you prefer. Once your rhubarb champagne is to your taste pop your bottles in the fridge ready to enjoy.
Open them carefully, over the sink, and expect fizz.
How I drink it
Even with the sugar reduced to 3 cups, I still find it quite sweet on its own. What works for me is pouring it about half and half with soda water. That takes the edge off the sweetness and it's perfect.
The sugar is what the natural yeasts and bacteria feed on and is what creates carbonation.
Important notes worth knowing
The apple cider vinegar isn't a mistake. People ask about this one. It's not there for flavour so much as to help set the conditions for the ferment and lowers the pH so the bad bacteria doesn't grow. You won't taste vinegar in the finished drink.
Don't fill the bottles to the top. The 3cm gap isn't optional. It's the difference between a bottle that copes with the pressure and one that doesn't.
Warm weather speeds everything up. If you're making this in summer, keep a closer eye on it and burp more often. Somewhere cool is your friend.
It's forgiving. Like most ferments, this one doesn't need you to be exact. I don't measure the rhubarb precisely and it's always worked.
The Ginger Beer recipe is the natural next step. You'll find that and other recipes on our blog.
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