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

Dried Elderflower Wine 1

Started 20th May 2012

We have a small packet of dried elderflowers which should make a couple of gallons of a nice white wine. You only need a small quantity of dried elderflowers to make a gallon of wine - depending on the recipe, anything from 1/2oz to 1oz. We've chosen a 1oz recipe. If making from freshly picked elderflowers, you'll need 6x the quantity of elderflowers.

We have made 2 gallons of this wine in separate buckets. We can't guarantee the quantities used are exactly the same, so the two gallons might turn out completely differently. Just have to wait and see.

Elderflower Wine 1
Ingredients:
1oz dried elderflowers
3lb sugar
0.5lb sultanas
8 tablespoons lemon juice*
1 teaspoon grape tannin**
1 gallon water
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
1 teaspoon white wine yeast

* we have citric acid - one teaspoon citric acid is equivalent to the juice of one lemon - information elsewhere suggests one lemon has about 3 tablespoons of lemon juice - therefore we are using 3 teaspoons citric acid
** we don't have grape tannin, so we are using half a cup of strong cold tea (no milk or sugar) instead

Step 1:
Put elderflowers in the bucket
Disolve sugar in boiling water and pour into the bucket
Simmer the sultanas in water for 30 minutes and pour into bucket
Add lemon juice / citric acid to bucket
Cover and leave for 24 hours

Step 2:
Add tannin, yeast nutrient and yeast to the bucket
Cover and leave for 5 days

Dried Elderflower Wine

Step 3:
Strain into demijohn
Fit bung and airlock, leave to ferment until clear

Step 4:
When the wine is clear, siphon the wine off into another demijohn.
Leave for 2 months

Step 5:
The wine should be clear now and the fermenting should have stopped.
Siphon off into bottles.