Elderflower Champagne Homebrewing
A couple of weeks ago, before all of the Elderflower bushes suddenly went to seed, my lovely husband went out and harvested some elderflower while I had a mardy at home. (Can't remember why, think it was a combination of sleep deprivation and work!)
We used a River Cottage recipe which is just sugar, water, lemon rind and elderflowers. And I forgot to take pictures! Rather than just rely on the natural elderflower yeast, we added additional yeast to ensure that it was a very boozy elderflower Champagne.
We left the demi-john fermenting upstairs in our office for a couple of weeks which was a few days longer than required as Dave was working away, swanning around Germany for a week. Thankfully, while he was there, he collected a Humber of Grolsch style bottles from Heidelberg beer which have been great for storing the Champagne in.
First up was decanting the liquid from the lemon rind and elderflower infused demi-john and we used a ottling wand and the power of gravity to decant into a new, clean and sterile demi-john.
Then we boiled up some delicious sugar water to prime the Elderflower Champagne before bottling.
We mixed the sugar water thoroughly into the Elderflower champagne demi-john and then began bottling. It's a much easier job with an auto stop bottling wand instead of having to use your thumb! My advice would be to invest in one of these (it only flows when you press the wand onto the bottom of the bottle/sink/husband's face etc).
As seen in the picture above, it's also worth getting hold of a bottling tower to make drying the bottles a little easier. Cheap trick, you can also use the plate holders in a dishwasher tray if you have a dishwasher!
Above is the almost finished product. The bottles have been boxed and out into the office on our third floor which has a consistent 18-20 degree centigrade temperature. It's also covered to keep the light (and cats) away from them.
The first bottle should be ready for a taste in about three weeks so we'll let you know how it goes!
Do you measure the specific gravity to see the ABV? I always fail to do it on my brews. I remember after it has already started fermenting. What percentage do you normally get? I have never brewed with elder flowers but it sounds interesting.
Yeah, we always measure the ABV (well, my husband does as I always forget!). This one was supposed to be around the 5% mark but I guessed with it's excessive fermenting that it would be higher and it's come out at about 9%, probably from the natural yeast in the flowers and the additional yeast we added to ensure booziness. Had a taste from measuring the specific gravity and it was very dry. Will be interesting to see how it comes out in a few weeks! This is our first brew using elderflowers too.
That sounds like an awesome brew to me! I came across a batch of acacia honey recently and am thinking about making my very first mead soon. I've only brewed beers, so this would be my first step towards a wine like product. :)
Ooh let me know how it goes, mead is next on my list!
As a homebrewer...of beer...I have never heard of elderflower champagne. Have you made this before? Is it...drinkable?
We haven't made it before but millions of people have! Elderflower has natural yeast in it so lends itself well to brewing as a cordial or low alcohol drink. All we did was add more yeast and sugar!
Wow, this is awesome!! Champagne geek question here... any idea what the atmospheric pressure will be after secondary fermentation? Cheers from @steempub-trail?
Ooooh, that's a question for my techie husband who is currently asleep! He used some kind of online calculator to work out the measurements to prime the champagne for their bottle fermentation so it should be around enough to pop when we open but not enough to explode all over the house! I'll ask him for specifics later and get back to you on that one 😊
So well illustrated. Thinking perhaps I could add Elderflowers as a second ferment to the Kombucha I brew?
Possibly, it's hard to know how much natural yeast the flowers have though! It's also out of season now, we were just in time to get some.