Damiana ~ Any Clue?

Apparently as a liquor it is well respected. I have multiple ounces of it.I would like to make a strong herbal wine using my Damiana, say along the lines of a dandelion wine or what have you. I'm thinking of brewing a strong Damiana tea, using table sugar and letting it ferment like a SMASH but a Single Herb And Single Sugar...a SHASS!

Anywho. If anyone around here has some mexican roots I'd love to here any advice, or even those who've made herbal wine before. I cannot find any info on damiana fermentation.

I'll use yeast nutrients assuming there won't be much in the damiana for my yeasties. Also I'll be campdening my tea as the damiana has been chilling in a rolled up foil bag in a hippy shop for God knows how long.


http://www.damiana.net/

If a mod could move this to the kombucha/tea section maybe I'd have more luck?

If funds allow, I'll use honey instead of sugar but for an experiment it seems a bit much. A price difference of $30 for a shot in the dark

However, I will add some chamomile and smell around what else might mix well with the taste of damiana. I'll make some teas and see which one takes the cake, then scale it up, add sugar, ferment. :rockin:

I'll use this thread as it's diary.

For wild brews I combine different yeast habitats into a medley (foggy blueberries, a raw apple skin, a dried cannabis flower, dried rose petal, persimmon top with stem, etc.) in a mason jar with cane sugar and warm water and let the stronger yeast take over and develop in that environment with herbs, sugar, wood, etc., usually the next day I have a bubbly starter with all the nutrients it needs, ready to add juice.

Anyway, one time I noticed there is visible yeast on damiana, so I decided to add it to a starter with blueberries, water, and sugar. I've repeated this 2-3 times and what I keep finding is the damiana might have an anti-fungal effect, or is at least delaying the start of fermentation quite a bit. It seems to strip the blueberries of its yeast bloom quickly and the fermentation never starts. In this case I salvaged it by adding a scoop of honey - raw honey is an incredible, super fermenter, it has all the nutrients and yeast needed on its own to start any fermentation, I highly recommend honey if you want an easy wild starter, you don't need anything else.

In subsequent attempts I added damiana in primary fermentation, it worked fine, but I still felt it was killing off the yeast and it wasn't getting as strong as it should, and there was sweetness left behind. Also, the minty peppery flavor of the damiana became an almost black licorice and very minty flavor, like Fernet, or like mouthwash mixed with Jagermeister, it was a pretty bad flavor. Finally, I basically "dry hopped" with it, and that was the sweet spot, leaving the end cider with a slight minty edge and a strong damiana effect. Warning this beverage is a strong aphrodisiac, and competitor to Viagra lol. I'm doing one of these boner ciders right now, which is what led me to your post. I was searching to see if others observed this anti-yeast effect when brewing with damiana.

Like most herbs, dry hop in secondary works great.

Informative post but I do not think you will get a response as he hasn’t been online here since 2014