Allotments 4 All
Produce => Drink .... => Topic started by: Zoglet on March 24, 2007, 23:02:28
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How do I make this, any clues please?
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no idea, zoglet, sorry..someone'll know..you've reminded me though, I've got 5 lbs of elderberries in the freezer, just waiting to be made into wine
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Every year I say I will have a go - so I to would appreciate advice - this could be the year to have a go :o :o
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My recipe is basically an elderflower "tea" (but alcoholic, of course!).
Pick several large heads of elderflowers. Strip the flowers off the stallks until you have filled a pint jug. Empty into your fermenting tub, just cover with boiling water & leave to infuse for 3 or 4 days. (Add a crushed Campden Tablet on day 2 to kill off any wild yeast.)
Dissolve a 1 kg bag of sugar in boiling water & leave to cool. Strain the elderflower liquor, mix the two, pour into a gallon demi-john, top up to nearly a gallon & add wine yeast.
Ferment till done (gravity down to single figures), then rack. Best left for a couple more months before drinking, but basically it's a "young" wine.
I normally make 6 gallons at a time. It takes more or less the same amount of time to make and nearly as long to drink!
Trevor
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Thanks Trevor, I think I will give that a go later in the year! :)
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Thanks Trevor
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Just to add-If you can find
Recipes for Prizewinning Wines-Bryan Acton-SBN 900 841 16 8
I would recommend it-it`s been around for years and is probably out of print but the recipes work and the advice on winemaking in general is excellent
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How do you make Elderflower cordial. Had some of this at a reception and liked it. Also growing an elderberry tree on my allotment.
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Mum used to make Elderflower champagne - very tasty but inclined to explode.
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As usual A4A saves the day - in this case Trevor to whom much thanks! Out walking the dogs this morning I cam across some flowering elders and took the opportunity to collect some heads. Once home I googled for recipes. All the recipes for elderflower wine either included stuff I didn't have or required a pint or a litre of flowers. Being a simple soul I thought a pint was a liquid measure. Thanks for the explanation Trevor! Elderflower wine will be started once I've made the lettuce soup and raspberry jam!
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Glad to be of help. (I'd forgotten this thread!)
Don't push the flowers down hard into the jug; just shake it a bit so that they can settle.
And don't drink too much of it in one go!
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Well it's started now. I was amazed at the number of little black bugs per square centimetre. Also amazed that my paltry late season cull managed to amply fill a pint jug. There may be one or two little black bugs in there but I reckon between the boiling water and tomorrow's Camden tablet that I've got them covered! ;D ;D
The fragrance of the flowers when I poured on the boiling water reminded me of why I was doing this in the first place!! Sort of a Proustian petite Madeleine moment.
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Hi all,
Without wishing to knock the recipe ::) may I suggest that the resulting wine will taste a little thin , as it will be lacking in body (technical term ::)) I would add a litre of apple juice & a litre of grape juice & reduce the water content accordingly. This will give a more complex & fuller bodied wine, for a minimal extra layout of approximately £1.50p.
Adrian.
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There's plenty of body Adrian!! All those little black bugs! ;D ;D