My wildest - Day Lily JUICE! I'm going for it!

[BigDaveK]

Brief back story - last year I made Day Lily wine. The flavor in primary was wonderful and I harvested more Day Lilies like crazy, vacuum sealing and freezing. With time though I became - shall we say - less than enthusiastic about the flavor of the Day Lily wine.
Fast forward to 2 weeks ago. I defrosted a pack of Day Lily flowers intending to add them to a new wine just for color. (I'm really getting tired of shades of amber in many of my country wines!) I was shocked to see an incredible release of liquid. And look at that color!



It tasted VERY fruity. Great berry fruit flavor but it was as though all the sugar was removed. Everything I've read says flowers don't have sugar - I'll vouch for that! I cleaned out the freezer, defrosted, and ended up with almost exactly 1 gallon of Day Lily juice. @winemaker81 , @Rice_Guy , @David Violante , (and others I forget, sorry) this ties in with How Much Alcohol Is In My Wine and nonfermentable solids - the SG was 1.026 with zero sugar! My expected ABV would have been way off if I hadn't taken that measurement before adding sugar.



Good active fermentation at 58F. Transferred yesterday.
It smells like a wonderful grape wine!
Taste? A Burgundy with a hint of blueberry and cinnamon. Wow!
100% Day Lily juice. Definitely unique. Can't wait to see where this goes!

 

[FlamingoEmporium]

Wow, nice color. I’m going to have to look into some flower wines since there will be little or no fruit this season due to hurricane. But plumerias took a hit too, and I have half the plants I used to. Maybe some hibiscus. I’m going to have to see what’s in the bottom of my freezer too.

 

[BigDaveK]

Wow, nice color. I’m going to have to look into some flower wines since there will be little or no fruit this season due to hurricane. But plumerias took a hit too, and I have half the plants I used to. Maybe some hibiscus. I’m going to have to see what’s in the bottom of my freezer too.

Those darn hurricanes. Bummer. Sorry.
I hope to redo some of my flower wins from last year and I'm thinking about doubling flower quantity. Ease of harvest will play a big part.

Yes it is great color. BTW, it stains just like grape juice.

 

[Clover]

I made a daylily wine from fresh, double daylily orange flowers last year. The color is orange - and I mean orange! It's gorgeous! The flavor out of primary was fruity, and cleared beautifully. Now, as I wait a few more months for it to bulk age, the flavor is still fruity but not as much. I'm thinking it isn't going to age well, but I could be wrong.

 

[BigDaveK]

I made a daylily wine from fresh, double daylily orange flowers last year. The color is orange - and I mean orange! It's gorgeous! The flavor out of primary was fruity, and cleared beautifully. Now, as I wait a few more months for it to bulk age, the flavor is still fruity but not as much. I'm thinking it isn't going to age well, but I could be wrong.

That's exactly why I harvested so much - the flavor in primary was wonderful. It just didn't hold up. I even had plans to make a batch with some vanilla and I was going to call it "Lily Vanilly".
I have a boatload of day lilies so I'll try something this year for sure.

 

[vinny]

I was going to call it "Lily Vanilly".

Would you TRY to have some fun, please.

 

[JustJoe]

At what point do you pick the flowers? Buds, just opened, starting to wilt?

 

[BernardSmith]

I gotta say that I am surprised that there was in fact so much sugar in those flowers, but a) bees make honey from the pollen and b) all other things aside, the plant stores energy for both its own growth and growth of seeds, and that energy is stored as either complex sugars (carbohydrates) or simple sugars glucose, fructose and sucrose) . Not a chemist, but to make the carbs available to the yeast you may have included some enzymes that could break down those complex sugars into smaller molecules the yeast can digest.
And I also gotta say, that the color of those day lilies is incredible.

 

[BigDaveK]

At what point do you pick the flowers? Buds, just opened, starting to wilt?

Open.
The buds can be be cooked or pickled, believe it or not.
If a flower is starting to wilt that means chemical changes are happening. I would not use flowers that have started to wilt.

 

[BigDaveK]

I use flour sack towels around the house and with my wine making to cover primaries or squeeze ingredients - tight weave and no lint. I mentioned earlier the juice stained. This morning I washed a small batch of these towels and I dyed the the whole batch. The white towel is for reference and how they're supposed to look. The thing on the white towel is a paper towel that snuck into the washer. What a hoot! I'm glad I washed these towels separately.

 

[BigDaveK]

I gotta say that I am surprised that there was in fact so much sugar in those flowers, but a) bees make honey from the pollen and b) all other things aside, the plant stores energy for both its own growth and growth of seeds, and that energy is stored as either complex sugars (carbohydrates) or simple sugars glucose, fructose and sucrose) . Not a chemist, but to make the carbs available to the yeast you may have included some enzymes that could break down those complex sugars into smaller molecules the yeast can digest.
And I also gotta say, that the color of those day lilies is incredible.

Nope, no sugar. Everything I read says flowers have no sugar except for a bit in the nectar. Remember a hydrometer measures density and not sugar content. It's easy to forget that since we're so obsessed with sugar. The density of the liquid comes from "other" things. I assumed they were non-fermentable solids and adjusted accordingly.