Elderflowers

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I seen a few Elderflowers appearing, unfortunately on the local 'Rat Island' right outside the bus station, so not planning on picking those, may have a strange essence.

Keeping my eye's peeled in Northampton for a good haul of them :D

For bottles I did ask about these, they could be viable, from a local 99p shop, plastic cork and a reusable cage, horrible non alcoholic drink inside though :D



viewtopic.php?f=40&t=39758
 
Is anyone planning on making a wine with their Elderflowers?

I am going to pick some this weekend and am planning on starting a nice wine in a spare Demijohn I have
 
sailaice said:
Is anyone planning on making a wine with their Elderflowers?

I am going to pick some this weekend and am planning on starting a nice wine in a spare Demijohn I have
Click to expand...

...erm... yes?
 
Regarding how much elderflowers to use in your recipe, mine calls for half a litre of flowers per gallon, lightly press down the flowers into a measuring container, does not seem like a lot to make 1 gallon, I have a load of flowers picked yesterday, waiting for 24 hours to be up to do the shaky bin bag thing, I'll probably have two washing up bowls full of them. What effect would it have to put 1 litre of flowers per gallon? twice the amount recommended.

Made some cordial yesterday, estimated it at 30 large flower heads per one and a half litres of water, I have it in a fermenting bin, seems like way too many flowers for the amount of liquid used, the must (if i can call it that) is choc full of flowers and sliced lemons so its quite difficult to stir. Is this how others are finding it, or have i gone overboard on the flowers? Is it possible to overdose the cordial or wine on the flowers?
 
I'm planning on doing both, like my rhubarb I have on the go, split at the yeast stage, one demi with Champagne yeast, one demi with standard yeast.

Aim on dong the same with elderflower
 
John46 said:
Regarding how much elderflowers to use in your recipe, mine calls for half a litre of flowers per gallon, lightly press down the flowers into a measuring container, does not seem like a lot to make 1 gallon, I have a load of flowers picked yesterday, waiting for 24 hours to be up to do the shaky bin bag thing, I'll probably have two washing up bowls full of them. What effect would it have to put 1 litre of flowers per gallon? twice the amount recommended.
Click to expand...

No idea, but pretty much every recipe I've seen says a pint of flowers to the gallon of wine (so that's a little more than your one ;) ).
 
LeithR said:
@divingdavey,
Yes, you need to add sugar once the fermentation has stopped but no stabilizers/campden tabs have been added, the yeast still needs to be viable in the wine. Adding a small amount of sugar as priming sugar will convert into Co2 and if you follow the route of bottling up, leaving the primed wine in the warm for a couple of weeks then moving into the cold for 2/3 weeks. This will put some fizz back into the Elderberry champers (just the same as for beer really).

You will also need to think about using bottles which will withstand pressure so you need PET bottles or Beer bottles. Re-using Champagne bottles usually doesn't work very well unless you put a fair amount of effort into it.
Click to expand...


Thanks, does that also mean that there would be sediment in the bottles, and if so is it easy to pour the wine off the sediment so that it's clear in the glass?
 
divingdavey said:
does that also mean that there would be sediment in the bottles, and if so is it easy to pour the wine off the sediment so that it's clear in the glass?
Click to expand...

Yes, there would be. And the tricky bit is going to be finding a clean fermenting wine yeast that will compact like good English ale yeasts do...
 
divingdavey said:
Thanks, does that also mean that there would be sediment in the bottles, and if so is it easy to pour the wine off the sediment so that it's clear in the glass?
Click to expand...

This is the issue that adds to the cost of Champagne and other 'traditional method' sparkling wines.

There is some info on this wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkling ... Disgorging

As I mentioned earlier, using the hollow plastic stoppers, you can collect most of the lees in the stopper and open carefully upside-down otherwise you would need to chill it down before opening to keep as much CO2 in solution as that is usually what disturbs the sediment.
 
I'm planning on making a 5 gallon batch of Elderflower Champagne.
Two years ago I made a batch but only using the natural yeast on the flowers. It was really nice and clear.

However, this time I going to do it with Champagne yeast to get an ABV of about 12%.

Taking an influence from the WOW ingredients my provisional recipe is like this (for 1 gallon):
15 elderflower heads
1 tsp citric acid
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 cup strong tea (I don't have tannin powder)
1 litre white grape juice
sugar to take gravity to 1.090

I was going to use campden tablets to kill off the natural yeast initially though.

I have a bottle of White Grape Juice Concentrate (250ml ?) from Wilkos and am planning on using this too.

So can I just multiply the above quantities by 5? I'm more concerned with things like the tea and the nutrients.

All advice gratefully received.

Matt
 
15 heads sounds very light to me... everything I've seen needs a pint of individual flowers per gallon - you would be nowhere near that from 15 heads.
 
Thanks Callum.
So I'll up that to 1 pint per gallon. I'm assuming this is 1 pint of forked-off petals.

Any advice on the rest of my recipe?
 
...erm... not really as this is going to be my first one!! :lol:

Not sure about the tannin though, will it be necessary for what should be a very light and fruity affair?
 
sailaice said:
Is anyone planning on making a wine with their Elderflowers?

I am going to pick some this weekend and am planning on starting a nice wine in a spare Demijohn I have
Click to expand...

I have three gallons I racked into DJs yesterday. A third of it will be back-sweetened, primed and put in champagne bottles.

If you're doing a non-sparkling wine, I recommend using honey rather than sugar as the flavour combination works really well. Ordinarily you would need a strongly flavoured honey for mead, but for this you want a mild one that will provide background to the elderflower rather than competing with it. The cheap 99p/pot stuff you get in some supermarkets is fine for this, just make sure it's 100% pure honey.


MadrikXIV said:
I seen a few Elderflowers appearing, unfortunately on the local 'Rat Island' right outside the bus station, so not planning on picking those, may have a strange essence.

Keeping my eye's peeled in Northampton for a good haul of them :D
Click to expand...

I know the Rat Island you mention :sick:

I know of a few places around the north-west side of Bedford, if you don't mind a bit of a drive. Alternatively there'll probably be loads along the Nene.
 
Tim_Crowhurst said:
sailaice said:
Is anyone planning on making a wine with their Elderflowers?

I am going to pick some this weekend and am planning on starting a nice wine in a spare Demijohn I have
Click to expand...

I have three gallons I racked into DJs yesterday. A third of it will be back-sweetened, primed and put in champagne bottles.

If you're doing a non-sparkling wine, I recommend using honey rather than sugar as the flavour combination works really well. Ordinarily you would need a strongly flavoured honey for mead, but for this you want a mild one that will provide background to the elderflower rather than competing with it. The cheap 99p/pot stuff you get in some supermarkets is fine for this, just make sure it's 100% pure honey.


MadrikXIV said:
I seen a few Elderflowers appearing, unfortunately on the local 'Rat Island' right outside the bus station, so not planning on picking those, may have a strange essence.

Keeping my eye's peeled in Northampton for a good haul of them :D
Click to expand...

I know the Rat Island you mention :sick:

I know of a few places around the north-west side of Bedford, if you don't mind a bit of a drive. Alternatively there'll probably be loads along the Nene.
Click to expand...

Was actually erm 'pleased' when we had the snow to actually spot a rat, well 2, so I feel confident in it's name, can't wait till they bulldoze that bus station and extend rat island, or give us even more empty shop fronts :D


Back on Elderflowers...
Currently watching the neighbours tree as they are starting to appear on there, but not many have turned white yet, hopefully it may go back to sunny so as to go for a wander at the weekend.
 
Elders are starting to blossom in my area too.

My daily routine has changed slightly while I'm doing a bit of work on my boat after my day job, and I'm traveling a country lane which I wouldn't ordinarily use.

Today I have spotted some prolific elders along that lane. I hope no-one picks the flowers because I have noted the location and would prefer the berries later in the year.
 
:lol: :lol: :lol:

I think I did OK...

I was sure I was going back out for more elderflowers because I wouldn't have enough.

4 pints!!! So that's going to be three gallons of champoo and a batch of cordial for the little people. :thumb:

Happy bunny!

Oh and the black bag trick is a belter! You need to leave them a full 24 hours though... :thumb:
 

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