Elderflower Champagne

Method

The Elderflowers

Collect your elderflowers, preferably on a sunny morning when they will taste sweeter. Make sure the flowers smell sweet before you pick them as this will affect the flavour of your finished drink. Always forage responsibly and leave plenty of flowers behind

Shake the flowers gently to get rid of any bugs and bits. For max flavour just lay them out on newspaper or a table and let the bugs wander off instead of shaking them - but don't wait too long or the flowers will lose their freshness and you are back to square one!

You need to remove the flowers from the stalks. The best way to do this is with either a fork or a wide-toothed comb. Alternatively, carefully cut them off. Discard the stalks

The Brew

​Sterilise the fermenting bucket and put the elderflowers, lemon juice and lemon zest into the bucket.

Boil the water and then pour in the sugar, stirring to dissolve the sugar.

Pour the boiling water into the bucket, over the lemony elderflowers

Allow the water to cool

If you want to kill any wild yeast for a more predictable result then add one campden tablet to bucket, cover and leave for 24 hours

Add the sachet of yeast to the bucket and give the mixture a stir

Leave it for 4-6 days, stirring at least daily with a sterilised spoon to break up any crust of yeast and flowers

Straining and Bottling

After 4-6 days the fermentation bubbles have slowed down and the liquid should be strained away from the flowers, fermented some more and bottled.

The trick here is to avoid explosions! The easiest way is to ferment in a demijohn or plastic bottles until ready, and then bottle the fizz until you are ready to drink it. Either way, you will need to let the gas escape while the wine is fermenting to avoid those exploding bottles.

Here's how:

Use a sieve or straining bag to strain the mixture into a sterilised pan or bucket, and then transfer into the demijohn or plastic bottles.

The demijohn's airlock will let off any excess pressure. If using bottles, you will need to loosen the lids to let off some gas when you see the bottles bulging too much. Don't let off all the gas - you want to keep some fizz. Best to do this over the sink anyway!

For fizz: transfer to bottles when fermentation has slowed a lot but not quite stopped and the top of the wine has cleared, after around 3-4 weeks. This will give you a sweet wine with some fizz. If you do wait a bit too long, try adding a little more sugar and champagne yeast to get things moving again.

​Alternatively for a stronger, flatter and drier wine you can let it finish fermentation in the demijohn or bottles, and leave it for up to 3 months before bottling.

When you are ready, syphon into clean sterilised bottles and store for anything from 3 months to 2 years before drinking.

Troubleshooting

My Bottles Exploded

This is a common complaint and it is likely to happen sooner or later if you use glass bottles so do be careful. There are a few ways to avoid explosions:

1. Let off some pressure every day - this requires a decent amount of attention to uncap the lid once a day and let some of the air fssss out. Don't release it all or you will get flat (but still drinkable) wine rather than fizz
2. Use plastic bottles! They may still burst if you don't watch them, but you will get some warning to release some of the pressure if they start to bulge
3. Use a demijohn/carboy with an airlock before bottling - this will release the gas but make sure you don't leave it too long or the wine will become a lot stronger and flat with no extra bubbles when the higher alcohol content kills the yeast. Transfer it to bottles once the bubbling slows down, but not when it's completely stopped because you still want some natural fizz in there. If you do wait a bit too long, try adding a little more sugar and champagne yeast to get things moving again
4. Stick it in the fridge - the cool temperatures will slow down fermentation so you will be safe until you want to drink it. You may see the same thing if you store the fermenting bin in a cool place; the lower temperature means the yeast aren't so keen to turn the sugar to alcohol and fizz so you will get a longer fermentation time

My Elderflowers Smell Funky

Use the flowers quickly or they will start to brown and smell cabbagey (or worse!) in which case you will need to discard the flowers and gather some more tomorrow unfortunately

My Fizz is Flat

Try adding some more sugar and champagne yeast - it is possible the original yeast was killed off by boiling water or there was not enough in the mix to get things going

My Fermentation Bin Went Mouldy

If you are feeling robust then try scooping off the mouldy flowers from the top of the fermenting liquid, add a campden tablet to sterilise the mix and then add some more champagne yeast. You might get lucky and save the batch

Questions and Answers

How Do I Identify An Elderflower?

Elderflowers grow on the small shrubby-looking elder tree (sambucus niger). Its leaves are small, oval pale to mid-green and grow in groups of 5-7. The leaves are arranged opposite each other on the branch. Elder flowers grow in distinctive sweet-smelling sprays (or umbels) of small white flowers

If in doubt, take a look in the library for a guide or read through the Woodland Trust's quick guide to the elder tree

Where Can I Find Elderflowers?

Elder is happy in a lot of different environments, growing in hedgerows and woodlands. It grows through most of the UK and Ireland, and the tree is native to Europe and the USA. It is cultivated in parts of Australia and New Zealand as well

When is the right time to bottle elderflower champagne?

The right time to bottle is after about 3-4 weeks in the demijohn or carboy, when the fermentation has slowed right down but not quite stopped bubbling. This will give you a slightly sweet, slightly sparkling fizz.