Rhubarb Juice

Several of my rhubarb loving friends have suggested rhubarb “syrup” to add to lemonade to make rhubarb lemonade. I was watching a YouTube video the other day and the lady said she used to add sugar to the juice to make the syrup but now she simply cans the juice and if she wants it to be syrup, she will sugar when it’s time to use it – no need to can it with all that sugar in it.

This morning I cut rhubarb and ended up with 5 pounds, which I put into the steam juicer and got almost 3 pints of juice.

I’ve been freezing the rhubarb and probably have enough to get me through til next year’s crop so I may be able to harvest enough to extract another 3 pints of juice before it’s time to stop pulling it.

I load the chopped rhubarb up on the freeze dryer trays, stack it in the freezer and once it’s frozen, each tray has enough rhubarb for two bags, which I vacuum seal and stick back into the freezer. Those will mostly be used for rhubarb crisp, muffins, etc.

Rhubarb isn’t something I grew up with so I knew nothing about growing it. When I first started, thanks to a friend sending me some starts from her rhubarb, I read as much as I could and I kept reaching that I shouldn’t cut it after the end of June but I’m hearing from lots of people that it’s ok so long as the stalks aren’t dry and dense. As of today, it seemed fine. I’ve been watering everything in the garden like crazy.

I ended up with this left after the juice was removed. I planned to put it in the compost bin but I feel like there’s a better use for it. I’ll have to think about that.