Elderflower Sainson with Cordial

[JT_Brews]

I have an urge to make an Elderflower Saison and don't want to wait for the trees to bloom. My idea is to add 1 litre (2 bottles) of Bottlegreen Elderflower cordial at the end of the boil. The recipe is attached. I'm out of pale malt so the recipe is not exactly how I would make a saison normally, I'm using Munich Light while trying to keep the colour/maltiness low.

My question is really whether this will work or is it just a waste of cordial and won't give a noticeable flavour? Thanks!

Edit: Thinking about it maybe 1 litre isn't enough and I'd need 2, but that makes the sugar portion of the fermentables very large. Hmm.

 

[jMac]

I don’t see why it wouldn’t work, but I don’t know how strong a flavour the cordial has compared to fresh elderflowers . I have a feeling it may even be a stronger flavour. Just remember to include the extra liquid and sugars in the cordial in your calculations if you’re keen on precise measurements.

Have you thought of using dried elder flowers?

Another alternative, if you want to maintain the elderflower flavour that may be lost during primary fermentation is to use the cordial as part of your priming solution (adding extra sugar as necessary - as a litre of cordial is only about 50g of sugar).

 

[jMac]

Another alternative, if you want to maintain the elderflower flavour that may be lost during primary fermentation is to use the cordial as part of your priming solution (adding extra sugar as necessary - as a litre of cordial is only about 50g of sugar).

Actually, ignore that. Just noticed the figure I used for sugar content was per 100ml diluted 1:10. That means there’s actually about 50g per undiluted 100ml. A litre would be far too much to prime with!

I’d go with your original plan as an experiment and then if at racking you think it lacks in the elder department, use 200-250ml (or to whatever your preferred level of carbonation) of extra cordial to prime.

 

[JT_Brews]

Yeah may as well give it a crack!

 

[Slid]

To get an idea of what 1 litre of cordial would be like in 23L, you could add a measured amount of cordial to water in the same 1:22 proportion - so 10ml cordial to 220ml of water?

The usual advice on using cordials is that they tend to have some sort of infection suppressing additive that can be boiled off, so you might want to check this out, even adding as a priming agent.

 

[Slid]

Or you could brew a saison and add the Cordial when you pour it out into the glass.
Lager and Lime or Blackcurrant cordial used to be popular with some, usually youngish people, about 40-45 years ago.
It could start a trend!

 

[JT_Brews]

I brewed this yesterday, adding the cordial in the ferementer because I completely forgot to add it during the boil. The wort tasted quite elderflowery so hopefully that will carry over. For some reason the OG was a whopping 0.009 points higher than expected - 89% vs expected 75% efficiency - and I'm normally pretty consistent with efficiency. Could the cordial really have 2x the sugar they state on the bottle? Something's fishy anyway.