Adding dry Hibiscus flowers
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TheBrewingMedic
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Boil and must should never be in the same sentence unless youre making a bochet lol. It sounds like youre already done with primary which all boiling will do to your mead is evaporate all of the alcohol you've worked for off.
That being said, since you are done with primary you have a couple options, if youre worried about something funky on your hibiscus you can either rinse it off a little then add it dry hop style, the alcohol in the mead will kill off anything trying to be sneaky and live on it. or you can make a tea of the hibiscus, then you can control the strength, plus if you use a hot extraction (boiling water) you can have peace of mind about sanitation if you feel you need it.
That being said, since you are done with primary you have a couple options, if youre worried about something funky on your hibiscus you can either rinse it off a little then add it dry hop style, the alcohol in the mead will kill off anything trying to be sneaky and live on it. or you can make a tea of the hibiscus, then you can control the strength, plus if you use a hot extraction (boiling water) you can have peace of mind about sanitation if you feel you need it.
Glad I saw this post...
I had the same notion to use hibiscus flowers (I'm addicted because of Trader Joes hibiscus cranberry juice!).
My question is, what about making an elixir/liqueur using some cheap vodka and adding the flavoring in the secondary (or at bottling)?
I haven't gotten very deep in the multitudes of knowledge/experience on this site, so forgive me if this has been covered ad-nauseum.
I had the same notion to use hibiscus flowers (I'm addicted because of Trader Joes hibiscus cranberry juice!).
My question is, what about making an elixir/liqueur using some cheap vodka and adding the flavoring in the secondary (or at bottling)?
I haven't gotten very deep in the multitudes of knowledge/experience on this site, so forgive me if this has been covered ad-nauseum.
So you are talking about making an extract just like people do with Vanilla beans. I do this with mint myself. For mint I take fresh mint leaves and fill a "Prego" or spegetty sauce jar up about half way and fill the rest with cheap vodka. Shake well for 1 min every day for about a week or two. Then let it sit for about 1 - 3 months. In that time most of the flavor gets leeched out. I am sure you can do this with Hibiscus. Now I have yet to try concentrating the liquid but to save on volume I have read you can take the extract and put it on a low simmer and slowly evaporate off the liquid to about half the original volume for a more potent extract. I would expect you would not want that tempature anywhere over 150*F.
