elderflower champagne

[king martin]

im planning on making some elderflower champagne from this recipe..

http://www.pastymuncher.co.uk/make-elde ... ower-fizz/

only thing is elderflowers are not in season so was thinking about using dried flowers from ebay (youngs).

will the natural yeast still exist in them? if not, will it work the same if i chuck some wine yeast in?

also, do i need to use actual champagne bottles or will lambrini work? i know straights wont take the pressure, but wondered about lambrini as its not bottle fermented but carbonated?

plastic bottles may pop also i think?!

im not starting for a couple of weeks as i still have a batch of wine on the brew...

 

[Wez]

Hi KM, welcome to the forum :)

Plastic PET bottles are very strong and can take lots of pressure, you'd be safe with those.

You might find that the aroma you are after is not as great with dried elderflowers, but worth a try, would be interested to hear how it goes :thumb:

 

[king martin]

thanks for the welcome.. :

PET bottles you mean pop bottles?

do you think i will have to add extra yeast to it?

ive just been reading elderflower champers can be a bit weak... maybe ill chuck extra sugar in and ferment it out for longer before i bottle it..

 

[Wez]

Yep PET bottles like Coke bottles are good.

I'd add more yeast, I believe youngs do a champagne yeast :)

 

[king martin]

ive read it only comes out to about 3 or 4 percent... could do with doubling that really...

ive mainly only made wines from kits before and added extras to them to experiment..

do you think if i double the sugar up and bottle it after say 3 days this should work? i dont want to bottle it too soon and risk it all exploding everywhere!!

ive also heard using pop bottles and filling them 3/4 full works... if you squeeze the air out before you do the top up too.

 

[Vossy1]

ive read it only comes out to about 3 or 4 percent... could do with doubling that really...

I'd want to tripple it for Champagne :drink:

 

[dmrevis]

I want to try this in the summer. Would the basic recipe also work with other fruits, substituting elderflower for peach, strawberry, cherries etc?
A bit of mildly alcoholic fruit "fizz" would go down nicely on hot summer days i think.

 

[king martin]

i think the elderflowers just "flavour" the wine so probably would work.

i had an explosion when i went to open one of the lambrini bottles i used to store it in... it blew the cap off and the entire contents hit the ceiling!

i opened them all outside after that.

:drink: