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We want to try this at the weekend but the recipes I have found vary in advice and quantities.

Any tried and tested recipes?
How is it best stored when fermenting?
What did you decant it into - glass or plastic?

just seen a thread on 'chat' about someone saying they had just made elderflower chamapagne, maybe you could ask on there how s/he did it?

That was me! That started the thread. I don't have any tips. I chose a recipe from the BBC because it was the least complicated I found

I have only just made it though so no idea if it's going to be nice or horrible. I bought some cheap Tesco plastic bottles of water which I'm going to decant it into. There is a possibility they might explode I suppose!

Recipe here

OOh thank you. I am going to ave a go at that recipe. It was one of the things I had always wanted to have a go at. You have just reminded me and this is the time of year. Thanks!! Let's compare notes later.

delicious - we make some every year.

Spicemonster that is amazing (well a bit anyway!) that is the exact recipe I chose and I was going to do the thing with value water too!

Perhaps we all ought to compare afterwards, if it doesn't turn out disastrously I imagine I will need some tips to perfect it... not that I am imagining a less than perfect concoction!

Oh yes we should definitely compare notes fizzpop! Actually I am wondering what would happen if I leave it slightly longer than 24 hours in the bucket as I'm going to be at work tomorrow morning when it's ready to be decanted and I think it's the sort of activity that really ought to take place after small children have gone to bed. Do you think it will be alright to leave it about 30 all in all?

Message withdrawn

If you're using glass bottles, only use champagne bottles with the dented bottoms, and ensure you wire the corks down very tightly. Otherwise you get burst bottles, shot corks and an awful sticky mess.

alternatively use fizzpop bottles - but these too can explode down the seam if its very fizzy.
Keep it in a cool place - no huge swings in temperature.
I stick to Elderflower cordial. It doesn't explode.

can you use screw top wine bottles ?

i'll be watching this with interest

can i use 2l fizzy water bottles?

No no no - it will start to ferment then

BANG!

big mess!

Must be fizz-proof bottles

I am using fizzy water bottles and keeping them in the shed which is quite chilly as it is outside and under a tree. <crosses fingers against explosions>

Oh bugger i've been saving them for weeks !

I'll pinch the value water idea then

I posted a recipe int he recipe secion on here the other day, I'll go and get it and post it here

28/05/2009
Make your own bubbly with this elderflower champagne recipe from River Cottage Spring

Makes about 6 litres

Ingredients
About 24-30 elderflower heads, in full bloom
2kg sugar
4 litres hot water
Juice and zest of four lemons
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
A pinch of dried yeast (you may not need this)
Method: How to make elderflower champagne
1. Put the hot water and sugar into a large container (a spotlessly clean bucket is good) and stir until the sugar dissolves, then top up with cold water so you have 6 litres of liquid in total.

2. Add the lemon juice and zest, the vinegar and the flower heads and stir gently.

3. Cover with clean muslin and leave to ferment in a cool, airy place for a couple of days. Take a look at the brew at this point, and if it’s not becoming a little foamy and obviously beginning to ferment, add a pinch of yeast.

4. Leave the mixture to ferment, again covered with muslin, for a further four days. Strain the liquid through a sieve lined with muslin and decant into sterilised strong glass bottles with champagne stoppers (available from home-brewing suppliers) or Grolsch-style stoppers, or sterilised screw-top plastic bottles (a good deal of pressure can build up inside as the fermenting brew produces carbon dioxide, so strong bottles and seals are essential).

5. Seal and leave to ferment in the bottles for a further eight days before serving, chilled. The champagne should keep in the bottles for several months. Store in a cool, dry place.

^^ thats the one i had my eye on

Worzel That sounds delicious, maybe I'll have a go too. I usually just make elderflower cordial, but my parents used to make champagne. It was supposed to be non-alcoholic.

Is it ?

I had kind of hoped for a bit of a kick

I think it's very low alcohol. I saw that recipe worzel and rejected it on the grounds it was too complicated

Its not complicated, and yes it can get a little bit alcoholic.

Yes but MMB - have you seen how very, very easy the recipe I posted is to make? It's all relative!

My mum did. It exploded spontaneously in the cupboard. She terrorists had come to get her.

She thought

anyone made cordial?

Brilliant. I was going to start a thread on this very subject.

Zanz1bar- would love avice about cordial too

Oh look I had saved this thread from [http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/food/558696-i-ve-made-elderflower-champagne-and-it-s-gorgeous last year]]

thread from last year

Ooh thanks NR

I used a fab recipe that was in the Guardian a couple of years ago. I used brown, glass screw top bottles, which I got through work from a chemical suppliers (read: I had some in the back of my car from site work and they didn't see their way back into the store cupboard). You can get those glass bottles with flip top stoppers from Ikea, I'm sure they are only about £1 or so.

Matthew Fort's Elderflower champagne

Like what my Granny used to make. A truly miraculous drink: the delicate flowers contain enough yeast to produce their own natural spritz. The murky, non-alcoholic fizz with its ineffable flavour of muscat was one of the haunting memories of my childhood.

36 elderflower heads

1 lemon

680g caster sugar

2 tbsp white-wine vinegar

4.5 litres water

Make sure there are as few insects as possible on your elderflowers. Put them in a clean bucket, along with the juice of the lemon, its rind without any pith, sugar and vinegar. Add the cold water and leave for at least 24 hours. You may have to stir it from time to time, to dissolve the sugar. Strain into sterilised bottles. Screw on the tops (or do whatever you have to do with the tops - I have some old-fashioned lemonade bottles with those flip-over caps). Leave for two weeks. Check the fizziness from time to time and let off any excess build-up: you don't want the precious bottles exploding like bombs.

What I am intrigued about is the quantities of sugar to elderflower heads and how much it all differs.

Perhaps I will try a different recipe and then can get some idea (a virtual tasting ) of what difference it makes.

I made the recipe with few flowers earlier on and plan to to the HFW one in a few days, the recipes seem to differ loads don't they !

Yes it's weird isn't it? I wasn't at all sure that my heads of elderflower counted as large, so I put about 6 in, rather than 4. Mine is all bottled up sitting in the shed now so I shall report back in a few weeks

In the thread that nr linked to, someone gave a tip about how to stop bottles exploding so I have done that.

The roof has collapsed on my shed so i've decided to store them down the side of my house in the alleyway, it's pretty cool down there ( under an elder tree ironicially !)

I hope it's nice, my fiance was most confused about what i was up to earlier on so i'd be nice to surprise him with a half decent tasting brew.

I wonder how different then 2 drinks are.

Did you read the bit about some flowers smelling of cat wee and some smalling like bananas while you were doing your research ?

I found 2 bushed with flowers which smelled completly different neither like pee or fruit confused !

I have never come across elder that smells of bananas sadly - I think it all smells of cat wee to be honest

lets hope it tastes better eh

I make cordial - am going into school to make it with the yr 2/3 class nxt wk.

i'm going to have a try at the gorse wine they made on river cottage. as soon as i can get it dept to unblock the website....

Spicemonster did yours look frothy before you bottled it ?

Mine just looks like still water, i don't know if i should add a pinch of yeast or leave it for a bit longer than 24 hours.

help !

No, not at all Worzsel. It looked like wee actually

Apparently, as long as you didn't wash the flowers (you didn't did you?), the flowers cause the fermentation process to begin. Am slightly worried by the sludge of sugar left at the bottom of the nappy pail I used to mix mine in as I have a feeling that the sugar turning to alcohol is quite critical.

It's going to be an anxious two weeks

I didnt wash it atall, nor did i pick off any bugs (i realised earlier on) so there should be lots of flavout

I am going to bottle in it a bit then.

I was massivly impressed with 12p bottles of water from tesco.. if it works the whoe concoction will have cost me less that £2 !

Mine still doesn't appear to be doing much

My brother convinced me that we should try making this and I think we've dicovered Elderflower Vodka ! :0

Ooh hello Worzsel. We opened a bottle last night and it was slighty disappointing. It was fizzy but very, very slightly and it tasted just like elderflower cordial! Whether or not it will become more exciting as the summer progresses I don't know. Have you tried turning your bottles over and back up again to see if there's any bubbles (assuming you don't want to open one to test)

Watch out guys and make sure they are actually elderflowers...also I don't think there are any about right now! HOTH has a secret ginger beer recipe. I have prevented him from using it to date as apparently it does get a bit out of control...

Lol Spacehopper there was plenty of Elderflowers around in June when this thread was born

My Elderflower champagne was yummy. I stil have 2 bottles saved !

My only problem with it was that it wasn't really alcoholic enough [piss head].

I'm Worzselmummage BTW.

I'd love the Ginger Beer recipe if you've got it

My Mum has been telling me tales of a Ginger Beer Plant that they used to share between the neighbours or something...