patientheron
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- Aug 13, 2013
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Purity? Abundance? Fertility? Forget that! Let's make the Lotus Leaf a symbol of home brewing.
In all honesty, I felt pretty impatient this year waiting for my blackberries to ripen and was desperate to start a wine. I came across a few 'tea wine' recipes, like green tea with ginger and teabag wine of all sorts, but that never really appealed to me. Then I walked into my kitchen and hanging from the wall was a bag of dried lotus leaves that I bought months ago for a Chinese feast I put on at the house. Bingo!
For those of you lucky enough to have a Chinese store nearby you should be able to find them hanging up somewhere in an aisle. To use them in cooking you have to rehydrate them in boiling water for about an hour. After that they can be used to wrap various fillings or rice for steaming. They impart a lovely floral aroma to the food and give an authentic look to your dishes. If you can't cook you might as well look the part! The added benefit of this is that the water you've rehydrated the leaves in is basically a lovely flavoured infusion, similar to green tea, with a sweet floral taste. Some green teas from Vietnam are indeed processed with lotus flowers to add this aroma. I bought a bag of about 12 for around £2/3.
This is my first experiment so I don't have much of a recipe. My brew has been fermenting vigorously for 3 weeks now and I've just racked it for the first time. SG was 1080 and I'm at 0998 already. It will most likely be very dry so I intend to back sweeten with white grape juice at some point. At the moment (not to put anyone off) it smells like a cheap white table wine. The taste is pretty similar so far but it has an orange sweetness too it and a surprising amount of body. I'm confident this will taste really lovely with a little maturing and the addition of grape juice.
If anyone wanted to try it I would suggest infusing 4 lotus leaves per gallon for at least an hour or until the temperature is cool enough to pitch the yeast. The leaves themselves are large, so you'l need a decent sized bucket for them to sit them in and it's worth moving them around every now and again. The leaves contain tannin so no need to add that. The best way to get a feel for how you want to proceed would be to taste the infusion beforehand so you're aware of the flavour. For me, a dry wine would suit it best.
Updates to follow.
:hat:
In all honesty, I felt pretty impatient this year waiting for my blackberries to ripen and was desperate to start a wine. I came across a few 'tea wine' recipes, like green tea with ginger and teabag wine of all sorts, but that never really appealed to me. Then I walked into my kitchen and hanging from the wall was a bag of dried lotus leaves that I bought months ago for a Chinese feast I put on at the house. Bingo!
For those of you lucky enough to have a Chinese store nearby you should be able to find them hanging up somewhere in an aisle. To use them in cooking you have to rehydrate them in boiling water for about an hour. After that they can be used to wrap various fillings or rice for steaming. They impart a lovely floral aroma to the food and give an authentic look to your dishes. If you can't cook you might as well look the part! The added benefit of this is that the water you've rehydrated the leaves in is basically a lovely flavoured infusion, similar to green tea, with a sweet floral taste. Some green teas from Vietnam are indeed processed with lotus flowers to add this aroma. I bought a bag of about 12 for around £2/3.
This is my first experiment so I don't have much of a recipe. My brew has been fermenting vigorously for 3 weeks now and I've just racked it for the first time. SG was 1080 and I'm at 0998 already. It will most likely be very dry so I intend to back sweeten with white grape juice at some point. At the moment (not to put anyone off) it smells like a cheap white table wine. The taste is pretty similar so far but it has an orange sweetness too it and a surprising amount of body. I'm confident this will taste really lovely with a little maturing and the addition of grape juice.
If anyone wanted to try it I would suggest infusing 4 lotus leaves per gallon for at least an hour or until the temperature is cool enough to pitch the yeast. The leaves themselves are large, so you'l need a decent sized bucket for them to sit them in and it's worth moving them around every now and again. The leaves contain tannin so no need to add that. The best way to get a feel for how you want to proceed would be to taste the infusion beforehand so you're aware of the flavour. For me, a dry wine would suit it best.
Updates to follow.
:hat:
