Picking and Making

The elderflowers were picked away from the road, from a corner of the sheep field. These are two of the Jacob lambs!! The bucket is now covered and steeping away.

Elderflower champagne..Recipe...

I had a quick look at all the various recipes both in books I've got and on the net, then decided that I'd use one that I've used before which is really similar to the Ginger Beer recipe I use.

Pick the elderflowers and use them as quickly as possible, they must be fully open and preferably a nice bright day - today is perfect! For 8 litres pick about 50 flower heads. Use a clean bucket and shake the flower heads gently to get rid of bugs, pour 4 litres hot previously boiled water into the bucket and the juice and zest of 5 lemons and 750g white sugar or brewing sugar. Once the sugar has dissolved add the elderflowers. Top up with 4 litres cold water. Cover and leave for 2 days when you should check to make sure it is fermenting, if not add some champagne yeast at this point. Cover and leave for another week, then strain and decant into sterilised bottles - either swing stop bottles or plastic lemonade type bottles. Try and leave for two weeks. Chill well before opening and don't open over carpet!!!

Try this and post your comments....

Elderflower Champagne...

I wanted to create a blog that was a reflection of the shop and could inspire the making of lots of lovely things. So my first blog as I'm sitting on the sofa is to say that today > I will mainly be making Elderflower Champange! Well picking the flowers and starting it off. It's been really difficult to get citric acid this year (something to do with it being cut with certain drugs) so if you can't get it don't panic just use lemons, however I do have it in the shop. Will post recipe I decide to go with later today. So many to choose from......