How to Make Lavender Flower Wine in an Oak Barrel: Primary Fermentation.

How to Make Lavender Flower Wine in an Oak Barrel: Primary Fermentation.

Wine making involves three main stages:

Primary fermentation - the flower/fruit/leaf is steeped in water with yeast, sugar and other ingredients.

Secondary fermentation - the vegetation is removed and the 'wine must' (the liquid part) is fermented in demijohns. When yeast fall to the bottom of the demijohn the wine is racked - that is the clearer part of the wine is syphoned off the dead yeast cells to the flavour and clarity of the wine.

The third stage is maturation in corked bottles. Once the wine has cleared and no more yeast is deposited, the wine can be bottled and stored on the side. The wine will mature and age in the bottle.

In this video we show you how to proceed from the primary fermentation in the oak barrel to the secondary fermentation in demijohns. We cover how to care for the wine during the primary fermentation in the oak barrel.

We have used a 10L oak barrel so we have doubled a standard 1 gallon recipe. You will see that the 10L barrel will give enough wine must for 2 demijohns - each demijohn gives about 6 bottles of wine. To make a single demijohn at a time, the 5L barrel would be sufficient.

You can read about the oak barrels here and buy them: naturalspasupplies.co.uk/shop-2/barrels-of-oak-…

The primary fermentation begins with gathering the ingredients and bringing the equipment together.

I will give a 1 gallon recipe for my lavender wine.. So if like me you are using the 10 L barrel, you will need to double the quantities in the recipe.

1.75 L lavender flowers (discard the stalk and stem to which the flowers are attached)
1 lemon
1.1 L white sugar
Yeast nutrient (I used several figs)
1 x tin of white grape concentrate (this helps with flavours and helps the yeast along and I had a tin which needed using up!)
I also added a carton of grape juice.
Water to fill up the barrel to the neck. (Our water has been purified in our clay amphora. If you don't have a clay amphora, use bottled or boiled water)
Wine yeast (1/5th of a sachet)

Put the lavender flowers in the wooden barrel. Heat a few liters of water with the lemon juice and dissolved the sugar in it, added the figs, the grape juice concentrate. Pour it hot over the lavender flowers and put the lid on the barrel. The barrel will retain the heat and the lavender flowers will release their wonderful flavours and aromas.

After a few hours add the carton of grape juice and top the barrel up to the neck with suitable water. Check that the contents are at blood temperature and sprinkle to yeast on top. Put the lid on the barrel, but not the press, as the yeast needs plenty of air to start with. You can place the wooden press which comes with the barrel on top of the vegetation layer to help keep it submerged once the yeast has fully hydrated.

Now twice a day, agitate the surface of the barrel contents. We do it carefully with the press. The idea is to make sure that all of the vegetation stays wet and exposed to the action of the yeast.

Leave the lavender flowers with all the ingredients in the barrel for 7 days. Then we strain the liquid part of the brew off all the vegetation and the wine must is transferred into demijohns with air locks. I will need to make sure that the air locks do not dry out and top up with previously boiled and cooled water as required. We will also 'rack' the wine several times. Racking involved transferring the wine to a new demijohn with a syphon, leaving the sediment (dead yeast behind). That way the wine will develop the best flavours. I will rack a wine whenever I see 1cm or even less of sediment.

I will typically keep the wine in the demijohn for 6-9 months, racking it several times before it is bottled. Finally, when no more yeast falls, you can bottle the wine. We use good quality corks which are still sold by the pint. You will need a lever operation bottle corker, you can't do it by hand! Lay the wine bottles down on their side and try a bottle after a few months.

We generally make a 'strong recipe' - that is with a very generous amount of fruit, flower or leaves. It makes a wine rich in flavour and aroma with the normal alcohol content.

We like the powerful flavours because we have started adding water to the wine we drink. We think that it is a good way to avoid some of the detrimental dehydrating effects of alcohol consumption and we don't miss out on flavour and enjoyment!

We think of wine making in the same way that we think of cooking. Use your senses and instincts.

Make award winning wines by using an oak fermenting barrel. Bring new depths of flavour and subtle nuances into your wines and make healthier wines which are faster to mature!