Now it's not the elder flower that sets off my hay fever, but I always put the two things together in my head now!
We use a rough and ready recipe for making this and I did a similar post on it when I made some meadowsweet champagne last year.
We harvest about 20 or more florets of elder flower that are fully opened and full of scent. In fact we probably used more than this because we got carried away picking!
Ingredients -
20 florets of elder flower
juice of 3 lemons
700g of sugar
wine yeast (sparkling if you have it)
Yeast nutrients
2 litres of boiling water
3 litres of cold water
We pour the boiling water on the elder flowers, add in the sugar and lemon juice and give it all a good mix.
Then add in the cool water, should make it about body temperature (if not leave it a bit longer to cool). Then add in the yeast and nutrients. We didn't have any nutrients so I might chuck in some raisins instead if things don't seem to be moving during the week. Last year I killed off some fast acting bread yeast to do the same thing but that is a high value product these days!
We'll now leave this to ferment for a week in a warm place (kitchen) before bottling it into plastic bottles (ones that can take fizz). Then when bottled leave it for a couple of weeks, burping daily before putting it in the fridge to slow the fermentation right down. This is a fairly low alcohol recipe and won't keep long once made.
It should be ready to drink after a week in the fridge! But be careful of the sediment in the bottle when you pour it out!
I used to make this and it's gorgeous. A real taste of summer...Before I knew about burping the bottles I had a bottle explode in the garage. It smelt glorious in there for weeks but the sticky mess was a nuisance.
ReplyDeleteThe mess is unreal! Blackberry wine over my tools once! What a mess!
DeleteI remember making Welsh mead with honey in big stone jars. One night the tops managed to seal themselves. In the early hours there was a loud crash. When we went down stairs the floor was awash with mead. The stone jars had blown their tops and necks off. Gone up in the air and knocked a glass fronted medicine cabinet off the wall. There was mead,glass and medicines every where. We smelt like a brewery for over a week and everywhere was sticky till it was scrubbed off. We had many a laugh about it, but never made the same mistake again.We floated a slice of bread and yeast on the mead to get the fermentation going ,I remember.
ReplyDeleteI think I must make some elderberry this year. Thanks Kev.
Kathy
Oh my gosh that sounds dramatic! I've had a few explode at different times. One was a batch of beer that started going off one after the other and throwing glass around the room! It's why I tend to use plastic now!
DeleteI still have some from 2018 in swing top bottles. Very refreshing.
ReplyDeleteLovely! Has it kept okay? Some does and some doesn't it seems.
Delete