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Aaargh!I have made 2 litres of elderflower cordial, and its started to ferment! (Though I've still drunk 1 litre). I'm a bit concerned about the second bottle...any ideas why it happened and what I can do to rescue it?

Best guess is lack of sterilisation. You could get some camden tablets (Wilkos or Tescos if you don't have a homebrew shop). or let it ferment out, hope that it's decent wine yeast and drink the resultant elderflower wine =P

Hmmm. How much sugar is in that cordial? It should be way over the point at which any self-respecting yeast would immediately give up the ghost. Ah well.

You could try a Campden tablet as Brewtrog suggests, but the sulphite taste may hang around for a while. Or you could heat it - pour it all into a pan and take it up to a little above 60 degrees C (death sentence for yeast) and keep it there for 10 minutes or so. If it's still active after that, it isn't yeast that's doing it.

I wouldn't have thought it was yeast anyway, given the sugar content.

Mike

Looking back, wine stabiliser (a mix of metabisulphite and potassium sorbate) would be a better idea that just campden tablet (sorry, had a few glasses of a friend's blackberry wine last night). As Mike says there'll be a sulphite taste for a day or two, but it soon goes.
I should have thought about pasteurisation, but so used to working with wine it didn't come up.

Thanks for your replies. this was a river cottage recipe, but someone suggested it was too sweet and to useonly 500 grams of sugar to the litre of water. I filled the bottles with boiling water and let them sit.I obviously need to be better prepared next time .off to buy Camden and other tablets :-)