Lavender flower help

[Bezron]

I'm making a blackberry wheat that originally called for lavender flower at flameout. Since it was out of season (as in, my local specialty spice shop and Whole Foods were both out), I cut it from the recipe. The wheat is very pale initially, and then was racked onto blackberry puree to give it flavor and color just yesterday. Went to the in-laws today and my MIL pulls out this 5 pound bag of organic lavender that she got on Amazon pretty cheap and offers it to everybody, so I grabbed a cup or so.

Question is, should I add it to the current beer or just wait until the next recipe? I'm thinking of either measuring out a bit and dropping it in a weighted muslin hop bag or boiling up a tea from it and dumping that in the secondary tomorrow to give it 5 days' worth.

Any thoughts?

 

[WayFrae]

I think brewing up a lavender tea would be your best bet. I would just steep the amount called for in the recipe for 10 minutes and then dump that tea in the fermentor.

 

[bigdinosaur1337]

So I've done 2 lavender beers now - a wheat and an ale, the latter I currently have on tap. The first beer was based on a beer by Black Rocks Brewery in Marquette, MI called Honey Lav, and the latter based on a beer my buddy wanted to brew. My buddy wanted to do a Lavender, Honey (malt), and Lemon Zest ale with the lavender being complimentary. In each beer I just did a flame-out of .25oz (5gal batch) at 180*F for 30min. First beer turned out spot on - as far as my buddies brew, he thinks the lavender is still too dominant. Granted, the malt bill on the latter was lighter - I'd listen to the advice I've read, be as frugal as possible. I've never added to secondary, only flameout but for my palate, I love lavender in beer so I enjoy it.

 

[jtratcliff]

+1 on the tea... You'll get more flovor that way, I would expect. If you just dry *erm* lavender? You might get some aroma but probably less flavor.

 

[Colorowdy]

You could make a tincture and add it to taste during packaging.