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Elderflower 'Champagne', my recipe.

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  • Elderflower 'Champagne', my recipe.

    Further to my other Elderflower Champ thread, I opened the first bottle recently and the resulting wine is possibly the greatest success Ive had in almost five years of homebrewing. Flavour, balance, quality of bubbles, it was all there and all who tasted it agreed.

    Here is my simple recipe, I will be sticking to it for years to come.-

    This recipe makes 1 gallon- which gives you 4x 1ltr Bottles and a bit left over (which I discarded).

    What you need-
    15 Elderflower heads, use as little of the green stems as possible.
    500g Sugar
    1ltr Pressed Grape Juice (I used Morrisons)
    Juice of 4 lemons
    1x Bucket with lid
    1x Demijohn


    Method
    1. Dissolve sugar in hot water.

    2. Add the flower heads, lemon juice and grape juice to a clean bucket. Pour over syrup and top up with cold water to just over 1 gallon.

    3. Stir and leave to cool to just above room temp. Then add the yeast, cover and place somewhere dark and warm-ish. Check fermentation is working etc.

    4. Leave for 48 hours in total and then transfer to a Demijohn- removing all the flower heads. Fit an airlock and leave to ferment to dry. I then left it to sit for an extra week, this will gave me a clearer wine when I transfered it to the bottle.

    5. Rack wine to 1ltr plastic bottles (I use standard soda bottles, ginger ale etc.) adding one teaspoon of sugar (priming). Seal and leave standing upright. I used some extra strong PET bottle tops I got from a brew shop years ago and thought Id never find a use for, they fit perfectly.

    Leave for at least two weeks before opening. Enjoy.

    This was an experimentle gallon so I only have three ltr bottles left, wish I had made more, but theres always next year....
    Boo

  • #2
    Result!

    I'm glad someone is having success with this drink. I made a very tasty version of the low-alcohol elderflower-flavoured fermented water drink two years ago using the HFW recipe (NOT the one on the channel 4 web site though! ) The only trouble with it was that the sediment mixed thoroughly with the drink every time I opened a bottle.

    In an effort to a) reduce this and b) be a bit more controlled I have spent two years failing to make it using a beer barrel, with the idea that it would carbonate in the barrel and I could then bottle it without sediment.

    Last year both attempts I made were put in the barrel too early and the extreme pressure caused ten gallons of drink to leak from the tap

    This year I fermented to dry in the bucket, barrelled and primed and... absolutely no carbonation whatsoever. Presumably I didn't seal it properly. *sigh*

    Luckilly I have about 15 heads of elderflowers in the freezer, so I will have one more go this year and follow your steps instead. With any luck:

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