Bottle Green Elderflower Wine

[mrfrosty]

The girls at work asked if i could turn a bottle of BG Elderflower cordial into wine and i said sure so they gave it to me (given to them by our customer). I've made a lot of WOW and variations on the theme, but not a wine with a straight cordial. Does anyone have a recipe they would use, or the maths to work out how much sugar i would need to make up a gallon??

Thanks Rob :)

 

[Moley]

Can you please tell us the ingredients labelling and the sugar content of the cordial?

There should be a “carbohydrates (of which sugars)” per 100ml or per serving, and how big's the bottle or how many servings?

 

[mrfrosty]

Cheers moley, right the detail:

500ml bottle
Carb 5.6g per 100ml
Of which sugars 5.6g per 100ml

Ingredients
Sugar
Cotswold spring water
Citric acid

Hope that's enough

Thanks

Rob

 

[Moley]

Well that sugar content is low enough as to be almost irrelevant. I think I would keep that fairly light, around 12% abv, so an OG around 1.085 = 230g sugar in the litre, 1 gallon = 4.5 litres, 4.5 x 230 = 1035g total sugar required.

I would suggest a ‘Basic White’ and use the cordial to top up after the whoosh.

To explain:
1 litre white grape juice
1 litre apple juice
Pectolase, cup of black tea, method as a WOW.

From the numbers on my Tesco juices, that would give 156 + 114 = 270g sugar plus 28g in the cordial. 1035 - 298 = 737g sugar to add - call it 750g.

2 litres of juices + 750g sugar into your DJ, add water to the base of the shoulder, general purpose wine yeast + nutrient, shake it well, fit airlock and leave for about a week, add your cordial - that way you will retain more of the elderflower flavour than if you put it in from the start.

 

[mrfrosty]

Hey Moley you've done this once or twice before haven't you? Thanks very much for all the info, I'll get on to it as soon as I can find an empty demijohn

Rob :thumb:

 

[moke]

sorry to necropost on my first post - i've been reading / using advice from this forum for a while now, but only just needed / compelled myself to post...

i think the info is slightly arwry in this thread - i'm pretty sure that the figures in the post about the sugar content are wrong by a factor of ten - the carb / sugar breakdowns shown on the bottle of ginger and lemongrass cordial i'm looking at are stated as a dilluted 1 to 10.

therefore, i reckon 500ml of cordial is 72g of of sugar in my bottle.

if that was the case, any advice on how much sugar to add? or indeed, would a single carton of white grape do it? i think it will make a cracking stones style ginger wine to make a whisky mack / moscow mule with - it carries a fair kick as a cordial.