Name: Elderflower Wine
Yield: 4.5 litres
Ingredients: 20 elderflower heads; 1 kg sugar; 4.5 l water; 2 lemons; 250 ml strong black tea; 1 campden tablet; 1 tsp yeast nutrient; 1 sachet Lalvin D47

About this recipe

Easy homemade elderflower wine recipe for one demijohn (1 gallon). Twenty flower heads picked free in June, sugar and lemons, drinkable by Christmas.

Ingredients

elderflower heads20

sugar1 kg

water4.5 l

lemons2

strong black tea250 ml

campden tablet1

yeast nutrient1 tsp

sachet Lalvin D471

Method

1

Pick 20 heads on a dry sunny morning and shake out the insects

2

Strip the florets from the stalks with a fork

3

Pour boiling water over the florets and the zest of the lemons, cover, and steep 2 days, stirring daily

4

Strain through muslin into a clean bucket

5

Add the sugar, the juice of the lemons and the cooled tea, stir until dissolved

6

Add a crushed campden tablet and leave 24 hours

7

Add the yeast and nutrient

8

Ferment 5 to 7 days

9

Transfer to a demijohn and fit an airlock

10

Ferment out for 2 to 5 weeks

11

Rack off the sediment

12

Age at least 6 months

Brewer's notes

Pick on a dry sunny morning when the flowers smell of honey rather than cat, the smell tells you everything. Shake the insects out but do not wash the heads, the pollen is the flavour. Strip the florets off with a fork, the green stalks bring bitterness. The lemon and tea do the work the acid and tannin would in a fruit wine. Six months minimum, it starts as perfume and settles into something you would not guess cost pennies.

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