Elderflower cordial advice

[JoseyJo]

Hello,
A couple of questions about elderflower cordial.... I have made 3 batches this year - I used almost the same recipe but slightly different methods.

Recipe - 20ish heads, 2 litres water, 1kg sugar (750g in last batch), 2-3 lemons.

Anyway - the first batch was good - I made the sugar syrup but cooled it before pouring into the flowers, as I've had them scorch in the past. Left 48 hours then strained. All tasted good and disappeared very quickly!

Second batch - I made as the first but left for just over 36 hours (accidentally!) and then strained and bottled. All seemed good, but it has started fermenting in the fridge! I'm not sure whether it's because I left it longer out of the fridge and open to the air before bottling? Or because I didn't add hot water to start (and the first batch was luck that it didn't ferment). Now I don't know whether to add wine yeast, stick it in a demijohn and let it turn into wine (will it be ok?) or let it ferment and drink as champagne (again - will it be ok?), or something else..... any suggestions?

Third batch - I steeped the flowers and lemons for 48 hours before straining and adding sugar, then heating until just beginning to simmer - my idea being that perhaps that would kill any yeasts etc. But now that one is cool I'm not sure it tastes as nice as the other - has heating afterwards altered the flavour or perhaps just older elderflowers (or less sugar)...

Anyway - any tips from seasoned cordial makers would be welcome!

[Green Aura]

Sorry, Josey, I have no idea. We don't drink cordial so I don't make any. I just thought I'd bump it up to see if anyone else can help.

[JoseyJo]

Thanks Green Aura.

I have decided the third cordial is fine - in fact my OH prefers it to the first lot, so maybe the difference is due to the sweetness.

The second lot is still fermenting away in my fridge... I keep releasing bits of CO2. I don't want to waste it, but not sure how it'll turn out. Because it was made to a cordial recipe it has a lot mre sugar and elderflowers in relation to water than the champagne recipes I've seen, so I suppose it'll either be way to sweet and syrupy, need diluting, or leaving to ferment out much more of the sugar....

[Green Aura]

Can't you make it into wine? More water, maybe a little yeast nutrient. My Dad used to make some splendid elderflower wine.

[ina]

It might turn into a dessert wine... More like a liqueur - could be nice, too.

[diggernotdreamer]

I collect old books on jams and country wines etc. I remembered I used this recipe a good few years ago and the results were a rather nice fizzy floral drink. 7 heads of elderflowers, 1 gallon cold water, 1 1/4lb sugar, 2 lemons, 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar. Boil the water and pour over the sugar, when cold, put in the flowerheads, sliced lemons and the vinegar. Stand for 24 hours and then strain into bottles and cork, I used swing top bottles for this. So you may be able to just bottle up your fermenting one and get a fizzy champagne. We put ours into the shed and forgot all about it, we dug it out about 6 months later and drank some, and it was really good.

[JoseyJo]

Yes, I think probably wine or champagne is the way to go..i wasn't sure whether just using the natural yeasts would be ok but sounds like it might be.... I like the idea of a sparkling wine but as there is so much sugar in it I wonder if it'll ferment for a while yet and burst any bottles I put it in now, so would a demijohn be a good idea? But then I might lose my fizz!!

[ina]

I have vivid memories of a bottle of elderflower fizz that exploded in my kitchen.... I then quickly drank the contents of the remaining bottles. :)

[diggernotdreamer]

I don't see why you couldn't put it into plastic pop bottles and put them somewhere cool, as least if anything did explode, it would only blow the lid off and there wouldn't be any broken glass

[ina]

That was the one time I followed instructions, and used screw-top bottles - glass, of course, because in Germany we didn't have horrible plastic pop bottles... And of course, it happened at night, I woke up in terror, not knowing what the heck was going on!