Elderflower Wine 1

Started 9th June 2012

The trees are covered in elderflower at the moment. Elderflowers should be picked on a warm, dry sunny day when the flowers are all open. We've had some pretty cold, wet miserable weather recently, but the sun shone today so we picked the best part of a full carrier bag.

We want elderflower wine and elderflower cordial, so we started just the one gallon of wine today and used the rest of the elderflowers for cordial.

We've seen numerous recipes for elderflower wine, some using pineapple juice or grape juice. For this batch, we've chosen to to go with a very basic recipe for elderflower wine - it'll be good to have a normal elderflower wine before we start experimenting with different fruit juices in it.

Elderflower Wine 1
Ingredients:
3oz fresh elderflowers (snipped from stalks)
3.5lbs sugar
6 pints water
0.5lbs sultanas
6 tablespoons lemon juice
Grape tannin *
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
1 teaspoon yeast

* We don't have any tannin, so we used 1/2 cup of strong black tea

Step 1:
Snip elderflowers off stalks and put in bucket
Disolve 3.5lbs sugar in 4 pints water and bring to the boil then add to bucket (straight from the boil)
Put sultanas in a pan with 2 pints water and bring to the boil, simmer 20 mins, add to bucket (straight from the boil)
Add lemon juice to bucket
Cover bucket and leave overnight to cool

Step 2:
When cool, add tannin, yeast nutrient and yeast
Stir, cover, leave to ferment in a warm place for 5 days

Step 3:
Strain through a muslin bag or J-cloth into a demijohn
Top up with cold water
Fit bung and airlock, leave to ferment


Step 4:
When the wine has cleared, syphon into a new demijohn, leaving the sediment behind
Fit bung and airlock, leave for 2 months

Step 5:
Syphon off into bottles