I've done some experiments with Lavender, mostly for meads, but I have been planning to do a Chocolate Lavender Stout (there's a lavender farm that I officiated a wedding at years ago, and they have a cafe where there entire meal has lavendar in some form. And the most amazing thing there was the dessert which was a chocolate lavender brownie with vanilla lavender Icecream.)
Amazing flavors.
The best way that I have found to infuse lavender into things is something from Molecular Gastonomy that I stumbled on and now use for quite a few infusions for beer and mead making called "Nitrogen Cavitation" I've made amazing Lavender infused meads, used it to make my own amazing orange extract for beers, made my own gin infusions and also made hop extracts to add to the keg.
I demoed it on the brew bubbas podcast a couple years ago. You can listen to it
here. It will autoplay.
Basically it is a "mechanical" method of quick infusion of organic materials into liquids or liquids into organic material (like quick pickles/Meat marinating) using a whipped cream dispenser (which you can get online or at bed bath and beyond) and nitrous oxide "whippets" to rapidly burst open the cell walls in the organics, force the liquid into the cells and vice versa, then after a minute or two, and doing another "burst" with a whippet you then release the pressure which pulls everything apart, and then you strain it out to separate the the liquids and the solids, then, for brewing/mead making you then add that to whatever you're using it in.
(I usually use these infusions/extracts in the keg or post fermentation (secondary or end of primary) for beers or with meads at bottling time. If I'm making a gin, or other infused spirit I'm usually just making enough to bottle it all in a small bottle or for a cocktail.
Now the liquid you use as a "base" for the infusion is up to you. If I'm flavoring a mead then I use a small amount of that mead and make a strong infusion which I then add to the bottling bucket when bottling.
I've also used plain boiled or bottle water as an infusion medium. I've also used a small amount of the beer I'm adding the infusion to. If I'm infusing a spirit, like making a flavored rum, then I just used that liquor.
Some other "base" liquids that I've tried are boiled sugar water/simple syrup- but it will ferment out.
Priming sugar at bottling time- This works great to add more flavor at bottling. Boil and cool your priming sugar, infuse it and add it to your bottling bucket- I've done it with ginger.
Lactose "simple syrup"- Boil up a solution, like you would priming sugar of lactose and water, and flavor that, and add it to the keg or fermenter. Lactose doesn't ferment out, so you will have a sweeter infusion- this works great for using Chocolate Nibs in a milk chocolate stout... it sweetens the chocolate and adds a bit of milky creaminess.
Maltodextrine Simple Syrup- same as above, but with some body and partial fermentability.
My favorite medium to use is a neutral spirit. If you can find everclear that's great, or even "moonshine" but most of the time I just use vodka, I usually just use cheap vodka that I run a couple passes through a brita water filter.
The good thing about vodka is that it will sanitize whatever the organics you're infusing into it. So you don't have to do any other pre-sanitization preparation of whatever the ingredients are.
Either way I ALWAYS soak the disassembled whipped cream maker in a container of starsan.
Before I get into specifics of how I do this, let me explain how I figure out how much I will need in the finished product.... I experiment, then scale up. (You will go through a lot of whippets doing this, so look for a good price on large amounts of them.)
What I take is a measured amount of base liquid and a small measured amount of the ingredient. And I add them together and cavitate them, and taste... if I like it, the I scale the amount I need up....
So for example if I'm bottling a gallon of lavender infused mead, I will take a measured amount of the mead. Let's say 4 ounces of mead, and 4 grams of lavender. I'll do the infusion and drink it.. If I like it then I know how much lavender I will need for my batch (in this case it's 1 gram of lavender/1 ounce of mead for a total of 128 grams of lavender.
So knowing how much I need for my overall volume I need then to make a concentrated extract. So IIRC my whip cream dispense holds a pint of liguid, so I will usually start with that as my base (in fact rarely have I needed more than that to flavor a 5 gallon batch.)
I'll put that volume in the whipped cream dispenser, then I'll put as much of the "ingredient" as I need into it, and do the process as outlined in the podcast. Basically hit it with one whippet, shake it for a minute, release the whippet and add another, shake for another minute, then vent and strain (with a sanitized strainer) into the keg or a sanitized measuring cup.
If I can't get ALL of the ingredient into that container, like with a lot of hops for instance) I will strain the old solids out from the liquids, put the liquid back into the creamer, add MORE ingredients and then repeat the process again, making a really strong extract.
(I've also with some things done this process, put everything in mason jar and add MORE ingredients, or different things and do a normal extraction for letting it sit for a week- This I find works great with citrus peels and some hard spices, it give more depth than just a straight cavitation or a straight jar infusion) This isn't necessary for lavender, just something for other ingredients... playing around is fun.
Then I strain it and add the infusion to the beer or mead I'm making it for.
This method works great for just about everything.... It really works with lavender because it doesn't alter the delicate oils in that or other soft herbs.
Also because it's a gas other than oxygen you don't run the risk of oxydizing whatever you're adding it to. You CAN do this with co2 as well, some people (including in labs) do infusions like this with regular kegging setups (with a lot of pressure) in corny kegs but with co2 it will carbonate whatever you doing, which you don't want if you're making a still mead, wine or spirit, but there are threads on here about people carbing booze infused fruit for parties.
That's an overview of how to do it, there are pictures in my FACEBOOK gallery here, of doing it with citrus and cocoa nibs, you can check it out
here.
Some specifics for working with lavender- first you really want to use "Culinary Lavender" the differences are explained
here. You can find it sometimes in the spice aisle of most grocery stores, but a small jar is going to be pricey, so you could look for a lavender farm in your area, look online or look at a farmer's market.
What I would do to figure out how it's going to work is, if you already don't have a version of your wheat beer ready and drinkable is find a commercial version you like, take a bottle of it, use 4 ounces of that, and maybe a quarter teaspoon of the lavender, and do an infusion, then scale that amount up to your final beer batch. If you know a commercial beer you like, and can find a clone recipe for it, then you then also have your base recipe for when you make your own.
I know this sounds complicated, and you have to buy a whipped cream dispenser and whippets, but I found that this works best for lavender, even better than straight soaking in vodka would. It's easy to test the amount ahead an scale it up, and you might find that you'll use this method for making a lot of infusions for future brews.... or cooking.
Honestly it's the ONLY way I'll make orange flavored beers ever again.... just using straight peels doesn't work as well, I do a mixture of dried peels from the homebrewshop and fresh peels, and I do a cavitation, then strain that out, and put the liquid in a jar with more peels and let that sit for a week. I get a lot of orange flavor that way.
Anyway I know it's involved, but I think it will be the best way to make a great lavender wheat beer.
If you are interested in knowing more,
here is the original article by Dave Arnold of the International Culinary Institute that I stumbled upon... the comment section is as fascinating and informative as the article itself.
Also you can add a little at a time so you don't overshoot and add too much.
