For the first batch, I got in nice and early. The flowers are lovely and young. Actually picked at 6am, but it was a dry day, and they were lovely.
I used the BBC goodfood recipe as a starting point. It gives you the basic ingredients. But there are a few things wrong with this. There is not enough water for starters. This is a very stingy serving. Only 6 litres, it will not last much in the way of entertaining.
Last year’s champagne was nice, but it was missing something. For the second batch we added mint, but that did not fix it. After discussion we decided that apple and elderflower make a good combination. And we also had a bumper year of strawberries.
So the ingredients are – 15 mls wine vinegar, 15 mls wine, 800g sugar, at least 2 lemons, preferably 4, a lime maybe, an apple and some chopped strawberries – pre-frozen to make the release their juices, and some yeast. Oh and about 16 elderflowers – picked early before the bugs have taken all the nectar, but after the dew has dried.
Apple and the rind of the citrus are grated using the finest hole on the grater. Lemons and lime are juiced as well. Strawberries, just try and squish them. Don’t be stingy with the lemons. There’s not a lot to the elderflowers and the lemons do bring out the flavour nicely.
Put it all in a very clean bucket for about a week, with a cloth tied down to keep stuff out. Then sift through muslin, and decant into plastic soda bottles. Yes it has to be those bottles. The yeast will eat the sugar and release air, and if you do not have a powerful seal on your bottle, it will explode. I recommend burping the bottle every few days anyway – unscrew the cap very carefully so that it says shhh, but no liquid escapes.
My second batch was a lot more generous. I doubled most of the ingredients, but the elderflowers were getting old, so we didn’t get those lovely young flowers. I never doubled the sugar. I will taste before it goes to bottle, and add sugar if it seems too dry.
Learnings
More sugar. The recipe is 800g. Just dump in the full kg and see how that goes.
Less lemon rind. I did four lemon rinds in the second batch and that is too strong. Try with 1 or 2 max.
The longer you keep it, the less sweet it is. I started feeding it sugar 3 days before d-day. Might need to start a week before.
It really does not make much alcohol. The fluffy head simply did not happen.
Wash the muslin as soon as possible – eww!