Hibiscus help

[Rogers5791]

Hello everyone.
I recently started making wine just a few months ago and i am now planning to go all in .
I first made a wine kit Kenridge Trilogy thats aging now. I am currently fermenting a peach wine that is watiing to clear. This weekend like many of you I am planning to double down wih more.
I have a kit that arrives later today of a Merlot/Cab from Kenridge classics.
I hope to be posting often here and have really enjoyed reading up all the great ideas and opinions on the forum.

Now for the question. I have some dry hibiscus flowers and found the receipe listed below. I plan to make 6 gallons. Do I just multiple the listing below?
The acid blend qty and nutrient seems a bit much?
any other receipes for this you can send I would like to see what else is available. I plan to start in tomorrow.

Thanks in advance for any help

2.0 oz. (57 g) dried hibiscus flowers
2.0 lbs. (0.91 kg) sugar
7 pints (3.3 L) water
1 1/2 tsp. acid blend
1 tsp. yeast nutrient
1 pkg Red Star Côte des Blancs wine yeast

 

[Stressbaby]

I've made lots of wine from tropical hibiscus. Most wine recipes call for H. sabdariffa instead, which is supposed to make better wine. With that caveat...

Most recipes have you pour boiling water over the flowers, then remove them when cool. It is important to limit this exposure. Hibiscus flowers have a lot of mucilage. This is a polysaccharide which has two important consequences. First, it is fermentable by yeast, which means that after the sugar is fermented you get this extended sort of secondary fermentation which can last for weeks. Second, it can make the wine almost syrupy in thickness. Think "body" but in the extreme. So follow the recipe carefully and don't overdo the flowers.

Hibiscus in my opinion benefits from a second element for flavor. I've used citrus, ginger, grape concentrate, and the leftover cake from a pressed fruit wine such as blueberry. One of my favorite hibiscus wines is Costa Rican Hibiscus, the recipe is here. I used 2t acid blend per gallon. Standard nutrient dose is 1t/gallon, so you are fine there.

To answer your question about batch size, yes multiple everything up except for the yeast.

 

[Rogers5791]

Stressbaby
thanks for the feedback and pointers. Thats exactly what i was hoping to understand prior to starting.

The Hibiscus i picked it up in Chiapas Mexico. I did some research to confirm and I believe it to be H.sabdariffa.

we use it all the time in our house to make agua de Jamaica. I cant wait to see how the wine turns out. I have exacly 12 oz available.

thanks again for the tips.

 

[Jericurl]

Everything looks good, but you should also add some pectic enzyme in there. Hibiscus definitely needs it.

I see you already make the tea. It's fantastic, isn't it?
You will find that adding some hibiscus to some of your other wine blends can be awesome as well.
I made a version of Skeeter Pee that was really more of a hibiscus lemonade. It was largely gone less than a month after bottling.

 

[Rogers5791]

Hello
thank you. I am making the basic receipe tonight. Can you tell me how much Petic Enzyme you would add to a 6 gallon version?

 

[Jericurl]

Hello
thank you. I am making the basic receipe tonight. Can you tell me how much Petic Enzyme you would add to a 6 gallon version?

It's usually about a 1/2 tsp per gallon.