It took me about two days and a few trips out to the backyard for lilac blossoms. Luckily i have more than enough lilacs even after giving away better than half of what the new yard came with...
After picking, i soaked them in the sink. A few insects came spluttering up from the water, they went outside.
Salad spinner
This is what 16 quarts of sorted lilac flowers looks like... they are in a 5 gallon stock pot.
My recipe is for a 5 gallon batch. I found a few online and i'm sort of taking from a few of them to come up with my own. Its for fun, so its just as much experiment as anything else.
I'm starting with 3 gallons of water to boil:
A watched pot never boils, so no peeking!
When it gets hot enough and hubby (who forgot to buy the sugar i sent him out for) gets back ...
The sugar...
The recipe i based this on calls for 12# of sugar. So i measured out 2 pounds and then just dumped in two whole 5# bags.
Boil...
Add flowers
Will they all fit?
Barely!
I added a cup of lemon juice to try and get a good acid balance. I will have to taste it to adjust it later.
Allow to cool for 24 hours
Add a "do not disturb" note
That's it for the next 24 hours...
After that, its the yeast and the other 2 gallons of water that needs to be boiled then cooled.
Sprout report for the replanted seeds:
Tomato, Empire Hybrid- 1
Tomato, Siberia- 2
Tomato, Black from Tula- 4
Cucumber, Summer Dance- 5
Cucumber, Alibi- 6
Summer Squash, Sundance- 5
Winter Squash, Long Island Cheese- 2
Winter Squash, Red Eye- 2
Acorn Squash, Carnival- 5
Melon, Hales Best- 2
Melon, Rocky Ford- 4
Watermelon, Pony Yellow- 5
Watermelon, Tom Watson- 3
Tomato, Yellow Pear- 5
Ornamental Eggplant- 4
Salsify, Sandwich Island Mamoth- 5
Half Bush Bean, Appaloosa- 1
and lo and behold... one of the Zsa Zsa peppers is shouldering up. I guess this is the way things go when a seed company names a plant variety after a diva. Apparently this pepper requires heat. Not "does better with" but must have.
Off to finish reading "Root Cellaring"
2 comments:
Nice tutorial! I don't drink wine, but I really like the thought of the flowers in other drinks. I had lavender soda. It's not the taste that's so great, its just the cool idea of drinking flowers. Makes you feel pretty inside. LOL
What I DO enjoy is fruit juice kefir. Have you made any yet? I wonder about flowers in that... Something else to try when I've got the rest of life under control. Any day now, I'm sure!
~Faith
I haven't tried the fruit juice keifer yet, i had to put my grains in for a long nap when i started locarbing again. I can add the milk kefir back in when i get closer to goal. I hope it won't be long, i enjoy it.
I bet what i have so far of the wine would make good fruit kefir. Right now its basically a very sweet lilac extract of sorts.
I need to plant some highly scented rugosa roses so i can make stuff out of those petals.
My sister and i were talking about lavender the other day, we are both hooked on it. I never knew there was lavender soda, i'll have to look into that. I know there is lavender ice cream and gelatto and i want to try that too!
I probably won't be able to drink this lilac wine unless it is very dry, but i know plenty of places where it will make a novel gift.
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