Selfsufficientish.com

Hiya, Im gonna try the ciderish recipe in a couple of days. The recipe says resealable bottles, do they have to be plastic or glass and soda bottles or not?

Also posted a question the other day but noones answered me about the recipe for the elderflower champagne. The recipe on this site says drink within a month & this other recipe says best left to mature for 6 months and can be consumed upto 2 years after making. Dont wanna have to drink it all in one evening (altho that could be a seriously good night ) but dont wanna leave it too long and find its gone off.
Link here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A593363

Thanks Wendy

People may correct me here but after reading through the recipe the link goes to it seems to me that all you are making is sweet elderflower vinegar.
The folowing is a recipe for elderflower wine that can be made into a sparkling wine.

500 ml Elderflowers not pressed down or 1/2 oz dried flowers
1.5 k sugar
250 g raisins or 140 ml white grape concentrate
3 lemons
1 teasp grape tannin
4.5 litres water
wine yeast and nutrient

Make wine as normal. When it has started to clear, and while there is still some sugar present, it may prove suitable to convert into a sparkling wine. A bottle containing some of the wine is stood in a warm place and lightly plugged with cotton wool. If after a week a slight yeast deposit has formed it is quite safe to transfer all the wine to champagne bottles which are either closed with corks well wired down or by screw caps similar to cider flagons. The bottles are stored on there sides in a cool place, and after six months or so should be sparkling and ready to drink. If on the other hand, when trying the wine out for its suitability for bottle fermentation, a heavy yeast deposit is noted the fermentation must be continued for a few more days, or even weeks, till there is less sugar in the wine. Then test again.

Hi Ray7,
Thanks for that but ive already made it following the recipe and have only 3 days to go until I can drink it. The recipe is the same on this site http://www.selfsufficientish.com/elderflowercordial.htm.

Has anyone else tried this recipe and can tell me how its come out please? Was it champagne or elderflower vinegar?

Thanks

I knew it to be elderflower champagne and I wrote that article. I kept it for a year and it seemed to get better with age. I used plastic and glass bottles although it kept better in glass and some of the plastic ones exploded. You can drink it after 5 days. I did not check with a hydrometer the alcohol content but I do expect that it would be very low. however after a year we did give some out and get some people drunk at at a food fair we attended, not sure how psycosimatic that was though.

The ciderish recipe is a strange one too, it never really tasted like cider more like vermouth. It is an old country recipe if you want something that tastes more like cider it is definetly worth looking about a bit more. I am not sure if I would try it again.

BOth the ciderish and the elderflower champers seemed to have the marmite affect on people. They either loved them or hated them and there was a fair few people who tried them.

I made some many years ago................I hated it but my dad quite happily drank the lot!

Nev

Thanks for the help. Had a try of the champagne yesterday and can definitely taste some alcohol in there - the taste from the elderflowers is lovely and sweet, not having tried anything with elderflowers before I was pleasantly surprised! It also turned out to be fizzy, is that normal and how does it do that (without wanting to appear stupid!! ).

Will perhaps search the internet for another cider recipe then as Vermouth always reminds me of underage drinking and nights bent over a toilet bowl!!

My elderflower wine had finished bubbling so onto the next stage with that and the cordial is sitting in a bucket doing its thing. Looking forward to being able to try some things with the eldervberrys at a later date.

Have serious amount of pumpkins growing this year (even tho noone likes them to eat!) and found an interesting recipe for pumpkin wine which gonna try, perhaps if it turns out well, I shall post it on here?

LOL at your description of vermouth drinking !!!!

YES PLEASE to your pumpkin wine recipe....

Hi Shirley

Here is the link for the pumpkin wine and loads of other too like parsley wine!!! Not sure on that one lol

http://www.red4.co.uk/recipes/drinks.htm

Wendy