Lavender Wine

Today I made Lavender wine!

1Kg Sugar

2LT Water

85 Lavender Flowers (2 stems I forgot to remove)

1 Lemon squeezed

1/8 tsp of Tannin

1 tsp of Yeast Nutrient

Boil the water put in the lemon and sugar. Poor over Lavender flowers, Tannin, and nutrient.

Let cool.

Add 2LT of fermenting white wine of your choice (I had a riesling going at the time.)

Top up to 4.250 in primary.

Starting Gravity - 1040! Oh my that is not right.

So I added some more water, and some more water, and some more water. I have the SG down to 1010 which I think is too high as well. God knows how much liquid is in the primary right now, I expect I have somewhere near 6LT. It tastes pretty good sweet and full of lavender.

Lessons learned. Don't wing it calculate it! I followed a recipe for 3.8LT and up scaled it to 4.5LT by adding 10% more sugar and lavender flowers.

Tasting Note

Well well well. You don't need all that candy sugar and hops to have a belgian flavor. All you need is some yeast from a bottle of Chimay Blue.

This (both the Chimay, and Number 17) is a great beer. I wish I could say that it was something that I had done, but truth be known with the exception of using that cup of yeast siphoned off from No. 16 I have been keeping in the fridge I did nothing different than one of our bog standard beers.

The beer itself is dark amber in color, light, and has a wonderful effervescence. More to come as it ages ...

Tasting note ...

Well well well that was good. So very very good. Kind of one dimensional but definitely in the belgian camp. I can't wait for another 6 weeks as it was only two weeks in the bottle.

A simple brew ...

Number 18 was a very different brew.

We got a 1.5kg can of some lager or another.

and 1kg of dextrose malodextrose (to give it a nice head the label said)

Added 100g of crystal malt

15g of Motueka (7.8%) at the start of the boil

7g of Golding (5.3%) at the end of the boil

tsp of irish moss

Couldn't tell you how long we boiled it for as I was preoccupied doing something else.

1035 SG

Time will tell ...

tasting note

Really we are not suppose to discuss tasting on the day we bottled. But Gerry got a mouth full when he siphoned it to the primary (I think he does that on purpose) so I poured myself a wee glass out of the primary.

Wow that was great. The belgian yeast really changed the character of the brew. I can't wait to see what it tastes like in a few weeks.

note to self

don't carry a carboy whilst walking on a wet grassy slope. And if per chance you are let your bum hit the ground in lieu of the big glass bottle that shatters so very spectacularly.

No problem here

Was a very good brew.