Strange Elderflower Infusion

[Merlyn]

Yesterday I picked elderflowers for this year's batch of wine and poured on the boiling water as I have done previous years. When I got up this morning I find that the infusion just smells of vegetation and not the strong scented elder smell that I expect.
The recipe I am using this year suggests adding grated lemon rind at this stage, I had no lemons so used limes instead. I'm assuming that's why it's now an interesting shade of dark green. 😞
Should I persevere or go pick some more flowers before the weather changes?

 

[Roddy]

If your pondwater (:mrgreen:) is a little light on elderflower aroma, I don't think that adding a few more would hurt, if you aren't too concerned about the green colour....

if you are, you might be as well to start from scratch and use lemon ? would be a pain though, how much did you put together ?

or just make up another batch as well, in case the first one doesn't turn out :)

 

[Merlyn]

I did wonder about adding more flowers. I used 4 pints in 2 gallons of water. Would I need to boil it up when I add more to kill off the yeasts? I quite like the green colour!

 

[Merlyn]

Unfortunately when I checked it this morning the dark green has turned dark brown but does now have a floral smell. I do want to add more flowers but just not sure about the boiling bit. Would it work if I strained off some of the liquid, booked it and immersed the new flowers for an hour or so then add them to the main batch?

 

[Roddy]

Hmm I'm a bit out of my depth now matey, more used to basic supermarket juice recipes....

Hopefully one of these guys will have something more useful to add 😀

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

[centurion50]

I had this with my first batch of Elderflower wine, after infusing it turned a horrid looking brown, smelt ok'ish but discarded it and started again.
When I picked the second lot I meticulously smelt each flower head, must've looked a right idiot, and infused within at least 2 hours, this time it was a lovely green colour and smelt lovely.
Bottled last weekend, couldn't resist it, had to have a taste, amazing , wish I'd made more now lol

 

[Merlyn]

The good news is that the lovely elderflower scent came back and it's fermenting away happily in my airing cupboard now. 😊

 

[centurion50]

Cool, I have a couple of bottles of mine in the fridge, tastes amazing,, enjoy :-)
I'm gonna do an experiment with elderflower and rose petal next, has potential to he a nice tipple :-)

 

[Merlyn]

Cool, I have a couple of bottles of mine in the fridge, tastes amazing,, enjoy :-)
I'm gonna do an experiment with elderflower and rose petal next, has potential to he a nice tipple :-)

I'd be very interested to hear how that turns out and what percentages of rose to elder you use.