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Just had a look at this wine again and I still have sediment floating about in it, when I pick a demijohn up and hold it up to have a good look at it I can see sediment swirling around, the bottom 1 inch seem to be full of it, I can't work it out I never had this with any of my other batches. I...

Thanks for your replies. I just racked the wine last night, only this time I used a funnel and a muslin cloth, as well as the usual syphoning equipment, the muslin cloth seems to have strained all the gunk out of it, it now looks lovely and dark, no floating gunk, tastes good as well. Cheers chaps.

Thanks Tony, I've made quite a few batches in the past 3 years, but never had "stuff" floating in the demijohns. I might rack it again and see how it looks after that.

Only been making wine for about 3 years, made some decent stuff though, mostly elderberry wine. Got a batch on the go now that I started in september last year, it looks ok, a nice dark colour, but instead of having all the sediment at the bottom as has been the case in my previous batches, this...

I had them stored in the shed, the recent good spell of weather put paid to them I reckon, they need to be in a cool place, just checked and the shed is actually 28c. Holding the bottles up to the light I can see loads of tiny bubbles rising to the surface, it looks like a bottle of pop thats...

Made some elderflower cordial about 10 days ago, amazed to find that all the plastic caps have blown off the bottles after they have sat for about 9 days. It would have taken some force because those caps are bloody hard to take off by hand. Has anyone else experienced this?

I now have 12 litres of Elderflowers in the freezer, all destalked. I made an adaption to the shaking bin bag method, I used a clear plastic bag, put about 6 big bunches of flowers in there, made it air tight by twisting the open end closed, kept twisting it to make the bag smaller, held the...

I picked a full bin bag last week, and made 12 bottles of cordial and 4 gallons of wine out of it, and still had two and a half litres of flowers left over to freeze. Just been out and picked another bin bag full, I'll bin bag shake it and freeze it. The cordial I made is excellent, been...

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...

Excellent, I came on here to ask how to collect the flowers, this seems like a great way to do it. On my many walks I have seen Elderflowers everywhere. I have two huge trees in my garden that are a mass of flowers, I'll be leaving them for the berries, while I go out and plunder all the trees...

I've been using this type of airlock for a while, but i never locked the centre piece down, I would leave it riding quite high in the water even though it didn't look right, I have two brews on the go and have now clicked the centre piece down, this definitely looks the right way to do it...

I will strain it into a demijohn. I got this recipe from a book entitled Wine making the natural way, it also shows the same recipe using honey instead of sugar. It also lists some of the medicinal properties gained from different wines, with nettle wine it lists, purifies blood, general tonic...

Sorry for the confusion, yes I used 4 lb of sugar for the 2 gallons, the recipe I followed gave instructions for just the one gallon, I doubled everything to make the two gallons. After doing some research on nettles, it seems they have more goodness and vitamins in them than spinach, and...

This was my recipe per gallon, made two gallons: 2 1/4 litres fresh nettle tops, washed, placed in bucket. 340gm chopped sultanas. strong tea, 1/2 cup. Juice of 2 lemons. Warmed 1 pint water, stirred in 2 lb sugar, then poured into bucket. Topped bucket up with 4 litres of cold water. Added...

The recipe I used explained it like this, gently press nettle tops into measuring jug. I used a 1 litre measuring jug, I filled it with nettle tops until it was over flowing and pressed them down, I probably put more than 1 litre in but I like to have a little bit too much than too little.

Just added the rest of the sugar, the nettle tops have all risen to the surface again now, its fermenting again nicely, thanks.

The recipe I used called for 2 lb per gallon, I'm glad you asked me that question because I've just realised I only used 2 lb of sugar for a 2 gallon batch. Would it be possible for me to add another 2 lb of sugar now or is it too late? it is in its 7th day of fermentation? The recipe I'm using...

Just made a batch of nettle wine, the fermentation started very well, and now on the 5th day it seems to have stopped. I have it in a fermenting bin, when the fermentation started, all the nettle tops were pushed to the top of the must and I could see bubbles by looking at the must through the...

I recently used some Young's super wine yeast from a tub, it was from 2011, didn't work, used some wine yeast from a foil sachet which was even older and that did work. From now on I will just buy new stuff, the problem with those Youngs tubs is that they are too big, they are OK if you are...

Thanks guys, from what I've read you're right, no sun at the moment I'll wait until it comes out, hopefully we'll get some this week.