Experimental Elderflower Cordial

[lockwood1956]

Approx 150 large elderflower heads (sweet smelling ones)
place in plastic bag overnight, shake to release florets (really does work)
Place in large pan, and pour over 10 litres boiling water and leave to stand for 24 hours. Strain the florets and dead bugs off, and make liquid back up to 10 litres if any lost.

Add juice of 10 lemons 5 grams vanilla sugar and 1kg of sugar per litre. boil for ten minutes and scrape any scum off that forms at the surface.

bottle and store cool, if storing long term, then freeze.

use to add at the very end of ferment (SG 1.010) or to sweeten wines after stabilisation. Will add a lovely Bouquet to the wine.

Pretty confident this will work well....but will report back (flowers picked yesterday) and sitting for 2 hours currently

[lockwood1956]

Might need more sugar....but 5 kilos is all i have at home at the moment, but can add more sugar later

[kampervan]

i do much the same flowers in water for 3 days with lemon juice then boil with 1 kg per litre.

[lockwood1956]

Decided to let it sit for more than 2 hours....24 more like, give me time to get more sugar tomorrow, to go to 1 kg per litre (original post amended)

[ukric]

"bottle and store cool, if storing long term, then freeze."

Could you not also use new Silvercrest pasteurisation machine/Jam maker? our would the temp ruin the flavour?

[lockwood1956]

Could you not also use new Silvercrest pasteurisation machine/Jam maker? our would the temp ruin the flavour?

hmmmm

not thought about that...will pasteurise a sample of it, and then next time we have a gang together we can run side by side tests..

good thinking dude


p.s. a lovely elderflower smell greeted me when I came downstairs this morning....very nice indeed

[David]

The elderflower cordial I make (WI Best Kept Secrets recipe) for drinking purposes is fairly close to above quantities, but if intended for late addition to a wine why not increase the elderflowers (less dilution of wine) and reduce the sugar so the 'cordial' has an SG 0f say 1.080? (and avoid SG calcs).

As for pasteurising ruining the flavour, after pouring boiling water over the flowers and leaving 24hrs, rather than boiling again I simply strain through a jellybag then pasteurise at 72°C for 20 mins (if you get the bottle fill level right any scum will rise to the top and be ejected) which should preserve more flavour/aroma than boiling.

[fatbloke]

The elderflower cordial I make (WI Best Kept Secrets recipe) for drinking purposes is fairly close to above quantities, but if intended for late addition to a wine why not increase the elderflowers (less dilution of wine) and reduce the sugar so the 'cordial' has an SG 0f say 1.080? (and avoid SG calcs).

As for pasteurising ruining the flavour, after pouring boiling water over the flowers and leaving 24hrs, rather than boiling again I simply strain through a jellybag then pasteurise at 72°C for 20 mins (if you get the bottle fill level right any scum will rise to the top and be ejected) which should preserve more flavour/aroma than boiling.

I'd have thought that if you've poured boiling water over the flowers, then if it's been done in hygienic conditions then the resulting liquor would have effectively been pasteurised anyway.........

don't forget, the pasteurisation method "a la milk" is because a) it comes out the cow, b) it passes through "the system" and c) it's then chilled in the bulk tank.

Whereas you've harvested the flowers in the first place, which, theoretically, gets the a) and b) phases out the way and the actual heat treatment is c), so if you follow the usual procedures for hygiene and sanitisation then surely it's already been pasteurised (especially if you sanitise the "containers" and then heat them (to retain the heat for the required amount of time) before putting the liquor in......)

regards

jtfb

p.s. as I'm sure that you'll have noticed, a second "pasteurisation" stage means a double heat treatment....... I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of degradation of the "cordial".......

[David]

I'd have thought that if you've poured boiling water over the flowers, then if it's been done in hygienic conditions then the resulting liquor would have effectively been pasteurised anyway.

No, because it's then left open to the air for 24 hrs whilst infusing. When pasteurising the liquid rises right to the top of the bottle and is then capped so when the liquid cools there is a vacuum in the bottle and no subsequent contact with air.

[lockwood1956]

Fab




great input giys

[Her Lushness]

Add juice of 10 lemons 5 grams vanilla sugar and 1kg of sugar per litre.

So that's a total of 100 lemons, 50grams vanilla sugar and 10kg of sugar in total for 10 litres is it?

[David]

I have a few questions:

1) As mentioned above about the strength of ‘cordial’ for flavouring wine:

An elderflower wine recipe that uses a pint of florets would require approx. 25 – 30 average size flower heads to yield those florets.

The elderflower cordial recipe I use requires 8 flower heads per pint and 1lb of sugar/pint, so that would require 40 flower heads/gall.

So topping up a fermenting wine with say 250ml of standard strength elderflower cordial would contribute (ignoring any greater impact from late addition) only 8% of the elderflower flavour/bouquet in wine made using 1 pint of florets/gall.

Is that enough?

2) If it’s intended to be used for topping up wine, why not use tartaric acid rather than (all that) lemon juice?

3) Again, if used for topping up wine, why not use grape juice as a medium for the elderflowers (rather than water which would dilute the wine)?

[lockwood1956]

Hi David

the cordial seems to concentrate the flavour and aroma, you are indeed correct that other ways "might" be better at providing exactly what is required. I think it is worth investigation and experimentation.

I will send you some of the cordial i make to mess around with if you wish...and you can give me your feedback as to how it was....this way we all learn.

[lockwood1956]

So that's a total of 100 lemons, 50grams vanilla sugar and 10kg of sugar in total for 10 litres is it?

oops

the juice of 1 lemon per litre (Pedant)

[David]

Hi David

the cordial seems to concentrate the flavour and aroma, you are indeed correct that other ways "might" be better at providing exactly what is required. I think it is worth investigation and experimentation.

I will send you some of the cordial i make to mess around with if you wish...and you can give me your feedback as to how it was....this way we all learn.

As I make elderflower cordial every year, and this is the year I've decided to make it's use one of my winemaking projects (I've been using up last year's cordial in wines for over a month now), I can easily produce some using your recipe as posted above, in addition to my own variants.

All I need to know is how much of your recipe that you add as a top up per gall?