Has anyone here tried making elderflower champagne? I just thought I'd give a heads up as elderflowers are almost done for this year so if anyone wants to make some get on it this weekend!
This is the recipe I followed: http://www.pastymuncher.co.uk/make-e...erflower-fizz/ I've slightly modified it below
- Go pick lots of full elderflower heads ideally on a sunny day when they are most fragrant. I used an entire carrier bag full with no problems so I guess the more the merrier
- Put 10 litres of water into a large container. If space is tight in the container put less in for now and top up at the end
- dissolve 1kg of sugar into the water - caster sugar dissolves more easily then granulated
- shake any debris and insects clear from the elderflower heads and immerse in the water
- Cut two lemons in half squeeze juice into water, grate the zest in and throw in the squeezed halfs
- add 4 tablespoons of white wine vinegar or cider vinegar
- stir gently and cover with a clean tea towel
- leave for 24 hours stirring occasionally
- Filter the brew through some clean cloth of some kind into your bottles. A funnel is a lifesaver!
Keeping the bottles somewhere warm like an airing cupboard will speed things up. Mine took about 1.5 weeks to get rock hard with fizz and I now "burp" them daily to prevent explosions. When you want to drink a bottle stick it in the fridge, this will deactivate the yeast and it will settle to the bottom of the bottle. The yeast is harmless but it's probably best not to shake things up too much.
The pressure in the bottles gets very high and if you're not careful explosions will happen! Fizzy drinks bottles are ideal as they're meant to cope with the pressure. I bought Asda 17p still water for mine (standard 2litre drinks bottles) so that I knew the water and bottles were very clean (essential to prevent mould). I've got 20 litres bottled up because 10 wasn't enough last year!
Feel free to experiment. The natural yeast on the elderflowers is quite delicate - it generates lotsa fizz but not a lot of alcohol because the alcohol kills it off. Some people use champagne yeast which makes the drink more alcoholic, but at the cost of using up more sugar and creating a "drier" drink. You could also experiment with adding different flavours - grate some ginger into the bucket, add some crushed mint or vanilla essence/pods etc.

