So continuing my last post - I can't figure out how to add text after an image for just one long post so I'm doing it this way...
Once the water was boiling I let it go for a few minutes to kill anything I could in there. I used my well water for this and it does have an iron eating bacteria in there which is impossible to remove even with bleach shocking the well 6 times. But that's another story.
I tossed the flowers into the water instead of running the water over the flowers. Not sure if this will make a difference but dealing with oils from flowers can be tricky when it comes to heat. So I was worried a bit. After forcing the flowers under the water with a big spoon I let them sit for 48 hours. This I believe is very important. The "tea" takes time to come together and rushing this is a means for failure. So take your time!
The tea ended up looking like a translucent purple/gray liquid. After 48 hrs I strained the entire batch into a large nylon mesh bag hanging inside a 7 gallon bucket with spigot. I squeezed out the bag and ended up with a tight ball about 6" in size. Talk about shrinkage! I tasted the liquid and to my surprise it tasted very decent and was aromatic too. But here's the thing... When I started this, the boiling aroma of lilacs was just horrible. I mean seriously not right to the nose. I did everything to hold myself back from tossing this disaster right out the door. It was the girlfriend who convinced me to push through it. I was not happy over loosing a possible 10 pounds of sugar again. Oh well I figured and I just let nature take its course. Glad I did !!!! Well so far anyways
The must went into a 7 gallon conical tank. I started off with 5 gallons of tea. I made a syrup with 10 pounds of sugar which brought the total to 6 gallons of must. I did a specific gravity reading and was at 1.082. I left it alone there figuring I was going to add a box of golden raisins for the ferment later and I believe it adds a little sugar. I've been a bit of a stickler about not trying to go over that magical 1.090 mark since making a batch of Strawberry Rocket fuel by mistake. Again another story...
I titrated for acidity and with any flower wine they don't add anything much beyond flavor so you'll need to adjust that. After getting a .45 reading on a 10ml sample, I needed around 120 grams of acid blend to get this to 5.75. I was short 30 grams of acid blend so I substituted citric acid there. And here's the magic part for me - remember that gray/purple liquid tea I had? It changed color to a nice pink!! I kid you not. This looked exactly like pink grapefruit juice here. Wish I took a picture but I didn't think I'd be posting here and I was into working on the wine and Pink Floyd was playing on the sound system. I was in the zone I guess... I tasted this "mess" before I called it a day and was totally taken back by the flavor. I should also mention I added 1 1/2 teaspoons of tannin. I've never tasted anything like this and although I'm not a wine connoisseur at all, the flavor just screams lilac.
My biggest concern now is keeping the flavor from being ruined. I say that because I made a big batch of Dandelion wine two weeks ago using the same setup and methods I just described. Picture follows below. It tasted like a very strong honey and it was simply out of this world to me at least. Well that's before fermenting and using golden raisins for body in the wine. It lost or changed flavor after adding a box of raisins and fermentation. Maybe that's normal but it would be a shame to loose so much Lilac flavor.
I'll come back to add to this post when I have more to share
edited to make these pics smaller..
