Elderflower wine

[awalton007]

Hi all I wanna make elderflower wine I'm gonna use the black bag method

Do u all have any recipes for about 15 litres worth.

I have the bog standard super wine yeast by youngs

Or an elder flower fizz just a demijohn of that

Thanks in advance

 

[LeithR]

Morning,
You will find that the recipe for 15 L of wine is pretty much the recipe for 5L multiplied by 3 so for Elderflowers you will need 3 pint etc...

You don't need to multiply the yeast by 5 as most yeasts are sufficient for 23L batches.

Good luck with your project :thumb:

 

[Tim_Crowhurst]

Here's the recipe I used for my elderflower wine this year:


3L white grape juice
1L apple juice
2.6kg sugar
0.5kg raisins (liquidised in 1/4 pt water)
juice & grated rind 5 small lemons
6 bags rooibos
2 tsp each yeast nutrient, glycerine, yeast extract, pectolase
1 sachet champagne yeast
1.6L elderflowers

I brought a gallon of water to the boil and poured over the sugar, raisins, rooibos bags, lemons, nutrient, glycerine, extract and pectolase in the primary, stirred well so the sugar dissolved and left for an hour. I then removed the rooibos bags, and added the juice and enough water to bring it to 3gal, then left to cool. Once it had cooled to room temperature I pitched the yeast. I left for five days, then took out 2L of must, brought it to the boil, and poured over the elderflowers to sterilise them, then once they had cooled I added to the primary and left for a further 5 days. I then strained into sterilised DJs and added airlocks.

Adding the elderflowers late in the process should (in theory) mean you get more flavour out of fewer flowers. That said, with the number of elderflowers there are this year you could easily just add more at the start. It's certainly simpler that way!

 

[awalton007]

Do u have the recipe for the 5 litre one. Please

 

[Tim_Crowhurst]

Do u have the recipe for the 5 litre one. Please

1L white grape juice
900g sugar
175g raisins (liquidised in 1/4 pt water)
juice & grated rind 2 small lemons
2 bags rooibos
1 tsp each yeast nutrient, glycerine, yeast extract, pectolase
1 sachet champagne yeast
1pt elderflowers

Same instructions

 

[awalton007]

What's rooibos. I don't want champers I just want plain wine. So can I just use normal wine yeast?

 

[Tim_Crowhurst]

What's rooibos. I don't want champers I just want plain wine. So can I just use normal wine yeast?

Rooibos is another name for redbush tea. I use it because I prefer the flavour to ordinary black tea.

Champagne yeast can be used for still wines as well as sparkling, and is a good general-purpose yeast for white wines. It has a high tolerance for acidity as champagnes are generally quite acidic wines, and whites in general tend to be more acidic than reds to account for the lack of tannins.

Because it has a high tolerance for alcohol, it is easy to turn a still wine into a sparkler if you used a champagne yeast. (This is also true of any other high-alcohol wine yeast, of course). My 3 gallon batch of elderflower must will become 2 gallons of wine (which I'll stabilise and leave to mature in bulk) and 1 gallon of champagne (which I'll prime, condition then leave to mature in the bottles). I'm also intending to do an experimental 2 gallons of rosepetal wine, each gallon using a different yeast (neither of them champagne yeasts) but in both cases I'll make 4 bottles of still wine and 2 of sparkling. The intention is to find out the different flavour characteristics of the two yeasts.

There's no reason why you shouldn't use a different yeast, of course. If you want a sweet table wine, champagne might be one to avoid. A more suitable yeast would be one with a lower tolerance for alcohol, so that it stops fermenting before all the sugar has been used up. That way you don't have to stabilise the wine when it reaches the SG you want. Unfortunately only one yeast manufacturer (Vintner's Harvest) actually tells you the alcohol tolerance of their yeasts, so if you want to try that you're limited to their yeasts. Fortunately they do have a good range.

 

[musher]

I started mine this evening and already it's trying to escape the DJ :shock:

1L white grape juice
900g(ish) sugar
A couple of handfulls of red grapes chopped
juice & rind 2 small lemons
1 tsp each yeast nutrient, pectolase
2pt elderflowers

I boiled the sugar in the grape juice & lemons, added some water & the elderflowers. All got slung on top of the yeast cake from a WOW with the grapes, pectolase & yeast nutrient. Bubbling started immediately and within a couple of hours elderflowers were escaping the air lock.