Chamomille Wine from fresh flowers

[wildhair]

I seem to have an abundance of chamomile in the garden this year. It's EVERYWHERE! I have found a couple recipes made with dried flowers, but has anyone got a recipe using fresh flowers? I'm gonna pick a bunch and dry a lot of it, but I'll vacuum seal and freeze a bunch,too.

 

[Arne]

I have not tried fresh flowers, but lets give a shout out To @Jericurl or @BernardSmith. see what happens. Arne.

 

[Jericurl]

Are you wanting to do wine or mead?

I've found a good rule of thumb to be anywhere from 1 to 2 pints of fresh flowers per gallon.
Fresh chamomile tends to be fairly strong imo, so I would start with 1 pint of flowers in primary and see where that gets you.

eta: As you have an abundance of the flowers, take 1 pint of fresh flowers and steep them in one gallon of water for a bit. See if the flavor feels strong enough, etc.

 

[wildhair]

I had planned on wine - never made mead. I had heard that you could over-do the chamomile pretty easily and that the flavor and bouquet can get stronger after bottling. 2- 4 cups of flowers per gallon sounds like a good base line. I picked 4+ qts. of flowers, vacuum sealed and froze them right away @ 8 cups per bag.
There isn't the concern with the chamomile stems or leaves like there is with dandelion wine, is there? I use the stems and flowers and leaves when I make tea, but with wine? No funky flavor caused by leaving a few stems?
Any flavor additions you might recommend? Citrus zest or golden raisins, lemongrass, maybe?
Thanks, you gave me a good place to start.

 

[Jericurl]

I had planned on wine - never made mead. I had heard that you could over-do the chamomile pretty easily and that the flavor and bouquet can get stronger after bottling. 2- 4 cups of flowers per gallon sounds like a good base line. I picked 4+ qts. of flowers, vacuum sealed and froze them right away @ 8 cups per bag.
There isn't the concern with the chamomile stems or leaves like there is with dandelion wine, is there? I use the stems and flowers and leaves when I make tea, but with wine? No funky flavor caused by leaving a few stems?
Any flavor additions you might recommend? Citrus zest or golden raisins, lemongrass, maybe?
Thanks, you gave me a good place to start.

You will want to use the same items (stems, leaves, roots, etc) that you would use in making a cup of herbal tea. In this case, a small bit of green probably won't matter too much, but I don't think I would use any leaves or stems.

 

[AliMac]

John Wright's book "Booze" has lots of recipes that can easily be adapted for different ingredients. I have found it very useful as a starting point and have adapted the ginger, parsnip and dandelion recipes successfully.
Here is a link:
Booze

 

[wildhair]

Thanks! Looks like an interesting book - I'll have to check that out. I found one extremely basic recipe using fresh flowers in Steve Krause's book - Wines from the Wild