Elderflower wine & what to top up with ???

[Jibber]

Hi everyone,

I've been lurking for a while & just getting back into homebrew after a 15 yrs break. I've made a couple of the WOW's & they are looking very promising, even my skeptic dh has been impressed with the initial tastings :

I've made a 1 gallon batch of Elderflower wine that seems to be turning out nicely but its only bottled two weeks so early days.

I have now put on a bigger batch that is coming it at approx. 17 litres after straining off the flowers into a fermenter, my question is this what can I top it up with to get it closer to the 20 Litre mark & will it be ok in a 5.5 gallon fermenter even if its not topped up?

I originally used approx 3.8kg of sugar & 14L of water, this gave me an OG 1.09 & when I transferred it to the fermenter 5 days later its now at 1.02.

Any help would be much appreciated xxx

 

[Damsonite]

Elderflower & Orange might seem a practical answer and would probably work well? Two wines, both with delicate flavouring seems to make sense...not sure about acidity, though? Blending's tricky at the fermentation stage as you're looking to combine flavours that compliment one another without one overpowering another, but you'll not yet know how a specific wine's going to develop. Might be best just to bung and extra half Campden tablet in to be on the safe side then let it do its' stuff and rack as normal, then look at it again a month or so down the line so that your pallate can do the decision making? Alternatively, buy a few dried elderflowers and get a couple of litres going separately on the side to add in a couple of weeks time or whatever. If you make a habit of targetting a 6ltr mark rather than a 4.5ltr mark when you're making stuff and adjust any recipe accordingly then ferment the surplus on the side in a smaller vessel you'll then have sufficient to use for topping up purposes on the main volume.

 

[Jibber]

Thanks for the response Damsonite.

I will remember to adjust the receipe next time to get near to full capacity. I forrgot to mention I also made an Elderflower cordial would this be any use for topping up as similar flavour or do you still reckon leave well enough alone for a while ?

 

[Damsonite]

You could of course use that, though if it's straight unfermented cordial then it'd represent an addition of sugar to the wine, so you'll have to measure the S.G. of the cordial then compare with your wine S.G and adjust accordingly. Check temparature, too - the two should be the same before mixing. Also, if that cordial's super sweet and condensed, too much sugar in one go as an addition (possible with a large volume) might conk out your active yeast in the wine, then you've a stuck wine problem which can turn out to be a lot of work. It might however be desirable; I'm not very experienced with elderflowers but I'd have thought that too much alcohol in such a wine might mask the delicacy of the flavour, so if the elderflower wine's already well on it's way and approaching the end of the ferment, it might work nicely so long as the wine's then stabilised.

 

[Jibber]

Thanks for the info Damsonite, I've diluted the cordial to 1.002 as per current fermenter reading & made up approx 3 litres which is currently warming up in my hotpress as we speak. I will add it gradually over the next few days :pray: To think people use that handy space for sheets & towels :grin:

Just another question if you don't mind, I was thinking of adding in a tin of white wine enhancer to give a bit of body, is it too late to do that now & in your opinion does it add much to the finished wine?

Thks again

 

[Damsonite]

Not sure what white wine 'enhancer' is, to be honest?

Dependent on your yeast tolerance to alcohol, and assuming that the stuff hasn't finished fermenting yet, in theory you could concoct an on-going brew with additional sugar sources, extra nutrients and yeast by drawing off about half of the volume of ready-fermented must, treating that as separate entity to be racked and bottled/drunk in the normal way and then replacing the missing volume in the original brew with fruit juice/pulp/sugar syrup. I'm doing that with an experimental gallon of orange wine at the mo - now on it's third cycle of fermentation, but it's a lot of hydrometer work!

If however it looks like your wine's almost fermented out then a large addition of sugar in one go'll probably knock out your yeast as it'll have probably achieved close to its limit already.

 

[Moley]

Not sure what white wine 'enhancer' is, to be honest?

Pretentious marketing name for Grape Juice Concentrate.

To be honest it's something I've never used as it always seems so ruddy expensive for how little you get, where any recipe calls for GJC I usually mince in some raisins.

 

[Damsonite]

@Moley...Ah right. Ok well I thought about suggesting sultanas to add body as I'd be of the same mind - I don't like concentrates because even if they market the things as 'pure', manufacturers tend to provide the very bare minimum of information on their ingredient lists to satisfy Euro-marketing criteria....in other words, if something's labelled and marketed, for example, as 'orange juice from concentrate', fine, but concentrate from what exactly? Certainly all the concentrate-derived juices that I've ever tasted seem to have an unidentifiable background flavour that certainly ain't from fruit!

So yes, to add body, dependent on the main ingredient, I'd also use either minced or chopped raisins or sultanas, but in the case of flower wines very often the original flavours are so subtle and delicate that even the flavour of sultanas might overpower them.

@Jibber... Did you add any tannin into your original mix - a mug of strong cold tea for example? And how about citric acid?

Suppose it depends on what you want to achieve as an end result; most flower recipes lend themselves to light dries or medium dries and I can't say that I've heard of a flower wine made as a dessert type wine that's been successfuly bottled and laid down for any length of time without loss of flavour.

I should think if you're planning to lob in some grape concentrate then you'll also have to be prepared for stabilising in case the additional sugar does conk out your yeast - personally I'd leave it alone if it's tasting ok, and you can always stabilise then carefully sweeten to taste later on if the wine comes out a bit too dry. Go a step further with an elderflower (and the right bottles and stoppers) and it'll make a fine champagne-type wine with a bit of messing about.

 

[Jibber]

Thanks for the info guys. I took your advice Damsonite & left out the concentrate (wine enhancer) my wine has finished fermenting & is currently clearing. Had the all important first taste, purely so I could report back of course & I was very impressed its a lovely dry white with a subtle elderflower flavour. Really looking forward to gettting this bottled & of course having a proper tasting of it. I had added tannin & citric acid at the beginning. I also put in potassium sorbate when it was completed. I'm not sure I'm ready for the Elderflower Champers yet after all the reports of popping bottles etc maybe next year :)

What surprised me was it didn't seem like it needed time in the bottle to mature & seems very drinkable now. Does this sound right ? I always thought, probably wrongly, that fruit wines needed to be stored for at least six months or does this mainly apply to reds ?

@ Moley how much raisins do you use per gallon / 5 gallon batch ? Would I only do this with red type wine?

 

[HLA91]

I'm not Moley but, where a recipe calls for say 1/2 pint of concentrate you can sub in 250g of raisins or sultanas. Generally raisins for darker wines and sultanas for white but that's not set in stone. I think that's right.

HLA91

 

[Moley]

I think that's right.

Sounds fine to me :thumb:

 

[Jibber]

THanks HLA91 & Moley I'll try the raisins or sultanas next time