Elderflower Fizz

[Capper20]

After watching HFW I decided to try this but used someone else's recipe as his nettle wine despite people saying was good actually wasn't, one of my mates was on the show saying it was good, after he said it was like pish. I digress.

25L elderflower fizz:

100g dried elderflowers from HBS
1 squeezy bottle of Sainsbury's woodland honey
Juice of 12 lemons
5Kg white sugar
1L of cold pressed tea bags
4 dessert spoons of vinegar
Champagne yeast
25 bottles of value tonic to drink with gin or pour down sink to be used to bottle it up.

Simples, honey in hot water then on to sugar, elders in a hop bag, lemon, tea and vinegar in fermenter and yeast on top.

Currently sitting in the bath with cold water and a tea towel on it to do evaporation cooling. Yeast starting to work and it smells pretty good. No photos, do a search on Google to see what it looks like, it's the same!

Refractometer said 19.2 brix which should be about 1.076 so if that fermented all the way then I'd have 10.1% ABV.

[shazza]

Two Points.
1.Wait just a few more weeks and use fresh flowers.
2.Do not use as much sugar.I love getting skulled as much as the next person(respect,shortie) but this beverage lends itself toward light,airy fairy,aromatic,refreshing drinking and so I would sweeten up only enough to attain 3%-5% alcohol.Cheers.

[far9410]

+1 to what shazza says

[Capn Ahab]

Two Points.
1.Wait just a few more weeks and use fresh flowers.
2.Do not use as much sugar.I love getting skulled as much as the next person(respect,shortie) but this beverage lends itself toward light,airy fairy,aromatic,refreshing drinking and so I would sweeten up only enough to attain 3%-5% alcohol.Cheers.

Also, this can be made using the wild yeast present on the fresh flowers, and in fact will be much better for it.

Per litre of brew:

1.5 heads of fresh elderflower (picked on a sunny morning apparently gives the best flavour)
125 g sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 tbsp cider or white wine vinegar
1 litre water (obviously)

Bung in fermenter and leave for about a week. Strain into secondary for a week or two more. Prime and bottle once fermentation is complete.

[Capper20]

Good advice, cheers. It's in the fermenter now so I'll see how it turns out. It's for wifey so if she doesn't like it then she can tip it.

[Capn Ahab]

Good advice, cheers. It's in the fermenter now so I'll see how it turns out. It's for wifey so if she doesn't like it then she can tip it.

I'd say at 10 % odd ABV it'll knock 'er socks off. I made it to the above recipe a couple of years ago (before I got seriously into brewing so no OG or FG measurements) and came up with at a guess a 5 % ish brew. It was very light and refreshing and had a bit of sweetness - perfect for wondering around St Pauls carnival on a hot weekend. I keep meaning to do it again, but beer seems to take up all my time and space now.