I haven’t blogged much about Lavender since the summer’s harvest…
After the 2015 harvest and after the lavender was completely dry in the drying room, I took each bundle and separated it by variety and usage. The separated bundles went into winter storage.
Now it’s time to begin to strip the lavender buds from the stem. This is all done by hand one bundle at a time…a labour of love as its very labour intensive.
Today I’m cleaning and grading culinary lavender from my true English Lavender varieties.
As I strip the lavender buds from each bundle I do this over a “Riddle”. This allows the buds to fall through and into a waiting bucket while sorting out some of the larger stems held back on the screen.
This may need to be done several times to catch as many stems as possible.
Next taking small amounts (2-3 cups) of the roughly graded culinary lavender I run it through an even finer mesh. While the riddle sifted out the largest particles from the lavender buds, this step sifts out the finest particles from the lavender. And I’m left with culinary lavender that looks like this:
Yes but still not good enough for the Lavender Hill Hippie! So I move up to a larger mesh strainer (smaller than the Riddle but larger than the first mesh strainer)…a size that allows the buds to fall through while holding back a little more of the bits of stems and leaves. Only after this stage is the Lavender Hill Hippie satisfied that its ready for market and when it looks like as it does in the photo below with very few to no stems and leaves.
I should mention that there is nothing wrong with some stems and leaves mixed in with lavender buds. All are edible. I just like to present the best product possible. There will be some bits of stem and leaves in Lavender Hill Hippie Culinary Lavender however following the above process the majority is removed prior to packaging for market.
AS EASY AS ONE ~ TWO ~ THREE
Purchase Culinary Lavender from the Rustic Lavender Boutique:
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