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It could be iron tannate - dark black green colour - elder stems would certainly contain tannin - perhaps your water supply has high levels of iron?

I found some more elderflowers and decided to make the cordial after the wine disaster- used the same container and water supply and it has worked a treat - will stick to making cordial and add it to sparkling wine for an alcoholic treat!

Thanks

Poochy

Hi

After the success with the elderflower cordial i have decided to give the eldeflower wine another chance. Seems to be working good so far but as this is my first attempt at making wine i just wanted some clarification on the recipe process. I have steeped the elderflowers and then strained, added sugar and yeast but it is now this bit i am not sure of, how long does it take for the mixture to stop bubbling before i strain and put in demijohn, am i looking at a day or so or many days?

Thanks for any advice

Poochy Pie

Well, I had to look up Andy's recipe to answer this one, and I'm still not sure what it all means

Right - you've steeped, strained, added sugar and yeast, and it's bubbling. I don't understand the recipe from here on in, but here's what I think. It's already fermenting, so it doesn't matter a damn whether it finishes that fermentation in the vessel you have it in or in a demijohn. The point is that it simply takes as long as it takes to finish. That could be in ten days, two weeks, a month ... it depends upon the temperature, and it isn't very warm at the moment.

Because it's already fermenting and you wouldn't want to slow that down, I'd leave it where it is, regardless of how long it takes, until you can see that the wine has stopped bubbling and is falling clear. At that point, you can gently syphon it off its deposit (don't try straining again at that point - it won't work) into a demijohn for maturing. I'd strongly recommend that you top the demijohn with an airlock rather than a bung - elderflower wine has a well-earned reputation for bursting back into life after a period of apparent dormancy.

Mike