My Plot

Plot 46, Burnside Allotments, Cambridge



Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Elderflower wine - first attempt

It was raining loads today and was wondering what to do & then the post man arrived - through my letter box dropped a parcel - I only ordered the elderflowers yesterday & they arrived today - what fab service!
Well of course I had to get on with some elderflower wine!
This is what I did today:

Sterilised all the equipment I was going to use.
Weighed out the elderflowers (25grammes for 1 gallon of wine) & put them into the fermenting bucket.
Then to that I added a small can of grape concentrate.

Plus 3 pounds of sugar.
Added the zest of 2 lemons and boiling water up to the gallon mark on the bucket.
Gave it a good stir until all the sugar had dissolved.
Left it to cool (& made dinner - vegetable lasagne for daughter & beef lasagne for rest of us)
When the concoction was blood heat I then added lemon juice, a table spoon of strong tea, yeast nutrient, gave it a stir & then added the yeast, gave it another stir, took the specific gravity (1.021), popped the lid on & sat it by the radiator. I have no idea what the SG is meant to be and I averaged out the amount of sugar that the recipes used - they ranged from 2 1/4 to 3 1/2 pounds in the recipes that I have.

I have got 4 different recipes for elderflower wine, so have sort of guestimated & amalgamated them & therefore this wine is a bit trial and error!

2 comments:

Hazel said...

I've never made elderflower, but your ingredients/method feel 'right' to me - one point though - do you want to check your SG reading? I would expect a wine to (generally) start out at 1.080 - 1.100 (then finish at about 994, which would make a wine about 13%).

If your start SG is right, you'll still end up at about 990-996, but your wine strength would only be 3.5%, which isn't high enough for the wine to 'keep'.

I think that the reading of the hydrometer might be up the wotsit - they are tricky to read (not least as it always seems to me that you read them upsidedown!) - remember to give the hydrometer a twirl in the sample tube so it's not sticking to the side, or have airbubbles attached - (you can always take a pic of the reading for posterity!)

Emma Kitteridge said...

Hi Hazel.
I did wonder about the reading as it seemed a little low. But thought there was enough sugar in it. I will take a photo of the reading & post it on the blog.

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