my attempt at elderflower champagne

[NobbyIPA]

2 bin bags of elderflowers picked day prior
shaken up in ballooned up bin bags to remove the petals pollen
boiled up with a campden tablet
rinds skin pith of 10 lemons
100ml white wine vinegar
3.5 kilo sugar
in 15 litres of water for a minute or so to sterilise the sugar lemons etc
poured that into a fermenting bucket leaving the remains of the lemons behind
to that added another 6 litres of cold and chilled to 17c and added the mass off elderflower petals to it and stirred like mad to dispence the elderflowers
this is is now showing signs of fermentation as the fermenter is just about to start bubbling and the petals now look frothy



it looks a nice lemony green colour and smells fantastic through the blow off tube


13 brix 1.053

[fordpopular]

Tried a 2 year old bottle of this at a friends house last week and it was amazing,
the elderflowers around hear are nearly ready to pick so I will be giving this a try

did you add yeast or just rely on natural yeast?

[NobbyIPA]

re-racked today as not really fermenting
but bottled 2 litres of cordial out of it

it tastes out of this world drinking some now

the rest i filtered out to another fermenter with a pack of sparkling wine yeast rehydrated

[6470zzy]

re-racked today as not really fermenting
but bottled 2 litres of cordial out of it

it tastes out of this world drinking some now

the rest i filtered out to another fermenter with a pack of sparkling wine yeast rehydrated

I wish that I could get fresh Elder Flowers hereabouts One question for you, what is the vinegar for in your recipe?

Cheers

[NobbyIPA]

white wine vinegar makes more acidity saves on lemons you can also use citric acid to make it up
this was brewed to taste
started with 6 lemons then added more 10 in total then added white wine vinegar bit by bit till 100ml was added then it tasted beaut

[NobbyIPA]

just bottled up 21 litres tonight
did 1 litre with PHA® Varietal Topnotes cascade hop extract from simply hops

CASCADE HOPPED ELDER CHAMPAGNE

drank all of the cordial i made lovely flowery drink



used co2 caps so as to release pressure if need be