Whats brewin’?

[Maui Joe]

A farmer offered to give me a bunch of "Lavender" to try and make a wine from. Has anyone made a herbal wine? I never did and was wondering how is comes out?

 

[bcritter]

I have Peach, Jalapeno, Pinot Grigio,South African Pinotage Cabernet,Cabernet/Merlot,Watermelon


Bill c.

 

[Hippie]

Bill, tell us more about the watermelon please! Do you like it? Beg. SG? Yeast used? How much fruit or juice to start? ETC. Thanks!

 

[Texas Rose']

I have a plum mead going and a Chenin Blanc from concentrate.-- I am also interested in the watermelon wine. I've got a couple of watermelons growing nicely in my garden and thought they might be fun to turn into wine! More info, please!!

 

[bdavidh]

T. Rose,


Check out the fruit wines section, there's a thread devoted to watermelon wine.

 

[Maui Joe]

PM,


You mentioned that you did a "lemon balm" herbal wine and it came out ok! I friend offered me some fresh "Lavender" and I was wondering what if...never made a herbal wine yet. Care to relate on the wine base, etc.? Thanks.

 

[Maui Joe]

CW,


I dehydrated some watermelon and I could not believe how sweet the fruit is! It came out tasting like "cotton-candy" with so much sweetness to it, I will admit that it found a hidden tooth cavity!Edited by: Maui Joe

 

[Hippie]

Hhmmm......dehydrated watermelon. How do you do that? In a standard dehydrator thingy? Sounds like candy to me. I would think you can grow them year round there. Do you have enough property there to grow fruit?

 

[Maui Joe]

CW, ya, I do that with extra bananas, papaya, mango, etc. I did not grow the watermelon, other farmers share extras and give-a-ways.

 

[MedPretzel]

Maui,


I've made a few herb/flower recipe, and I have usually followed terry garey's recipe, but some of them turned out too intense for me.


For fresh lavender, I would definitely use about 4 cups of loosely packed flowers per gallon. If you have tons of it, try another one with 5, and another one with 6 cups. I made a chrysanthemum wine with 6 cups of flower petals and I thought I would keel over -- that's how strong the taste and smell were. I imagine something similar with lavender.


I ahve started a lavender wine with dried lavender. It's fermenting right now, and it smells great. I substituted about a pound of white, granulated sugar for some light brown sugar, and the smell is just fantastic. I think it gives the wine a little something. We'll see how it turns out in the end.





Hope this helps!





Martina

 

[Maui Joe]

The lavender oil is great. It has such a peacful "calming" attitude about it which is "quite pleasing." I find it very interesting but I admit I am abit apprehensive in doing a "herbal" experiement until I threw this thought out there. After hearing from you, maybe I'll give ita try soon. Much thanks for the info!

Martina, did you use a "white grape" base and a good water, etc.? I am assuming that we just use the flowers and buds, excluding stems, etc.?

 

[Maui Joe]

MP, thanks for the info. The Lavender sounds more interesting to me now. Please let us know how it turned out.

 

[MedPretzel]

The lavender oil is great. It has such a peacful "calming" attitude about it which is "quite pleasing." I find it very interesting but I admit I am abit apprehensive in doing a "herbal" experiement until I threw this thought out there. After hearing from you, maybe I'll give ita try soon. Much thanks for the info!

Martina, did you use a "white grape" base and a good water, etc.? I am assuming that we just use the flowers and buds, excluding stems, etc.?

Sorry I'm just answering now, MauiJoe. I've been a little sidetracked lately, so I'm sorry for the late reply.


For my lavender wine, I used no concentrate base -- the base will be lavender. CountryWine discourages the use, and so I thought I would try it out that way. It still smells wonderful -- even after 2 months. I am very excited about it. It hasn't shown signs of clearing, and so I think that maybe I might add some fining agents to it. I am not very familiar with them, so this might be an experiment. (just like all my wines!!!)


For my chrysanthemum wine, however, I did use a purple-grape base. It turned out to be rose, and, if I may say so myself, it won a 1st place in the county fair here, so it's pretty good at least.

I also have made a marigold wine, using a purple-grape concentrate. Sorry, CW.... I think it tastes pretty good, but I only have 2 bottles left and I'm going to try and save them for at least another 6 months.

yeah, right.


This year, I've been toying with the idea to leave the grape concentrate out of the recipe because of CW's suggestions. I don't know if the wines will have enough body, but we will find out at the end, I guess.





Again, I'm so sorry for the delayed response!



martina

 

[MedPretzel]

Oh, I simply used tap water and I just used the petals of the chrysanthemums and marigolds.





I bought the lavender from www.oldtimeherbs.com and I can only recommend buying herbs there. They are very quick to ship and very reasonably priced.

 

[Maui Joe]

MP, much thanks for sharing!

 

[Chief]

That is my number one reason for bulk aging. It seems that once the wine gets in the bottle, it is "fair game" and they do not get a chance to bottle age.

I'm with you George. I won't bottle any thing unless it's at least three month old. I built a new wine cellar. If mention it to any one they want to "see"


I think the best version is when my daughter and grandaughter help me bottle some wine. My daughter was filling a case with wine and my grand-daughter said: He wanted to age that wine before giving it away." My daughter replied: It'll age at my place just as good as it does here."


Chief

 

[sundee]

hi this looks like a pretty active forum soo i need some help from all u wine makers PLEASE......................... i would like to buy 5 gallon glass carboys new (hopefully) but as cheap as possible, they dont have to be new but clear in color..........................


i have searched high and low and cant seem to find any if anyone has any for sale please email me or give me a call at (918)635-5233 or email me at [email protected] or if you guys have a website that i caan buy them............. thankyou so much sundee

 

[greenbean]

Sundee,

This is a wine making supply website. This forum is just part of it.

Geocorn is the owner he can tell you all you want to know.

 

[geocorn]

Sundee,


5-gallon glass carboys are all over the net. I think my prices are at the low end, but the real cost is in the shipping. The good news is that it costs about the same to ship 2 as it does 1, so if you order in multiples of 2, the shipping cost on the second carboy is vertually nil. If you would like a quote, please give me call at 866-417-1114.


By the way, thanks for the kudos, Greenbean.

 

[greenbean]

Anytime