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Hi all,

Would like to have a go at the elderflower cordial but ther recipe says needs citric acid. Havent been able to find any here in France so far and to order from Ebay seems to be a stitch up on the postage costs - one seller wanted to charge £6.50 to post 100gm packet - I told him what I thought of that lol. Is it necessary to have the citric acid or can I use something else please?
Wendy

citric acid helps to stimulate fermintation, that why it is added.

i got mine from the chemist have you tried there?

Hiya, Im in France and things are slightly different here lol. I have searched for it in the chemist and among the wine making stuff but they dont tend to use anything 'chemical' at all here for wine making etc.

lemon juice?

exactly Cm , lemon juice.

It's added for the pectinase enzyme, which will prevent a clowdy pectin "haze" developing.
Obviously not required with acidic fruit, but you need some where your using flowers, leaves etc.

Country wines also tend to include raisins and ginger and lemon juice, all to prevent the ol' pectin haze

You could extract it from the lemons using lime (calcium hydroxide) then sulphuric acid, resulting in citric acid and calcium sulphate. But it is probably easier to use the lemon juice direct

Nev

Here's a good recipe for Elderflower Cordial, from BBC website - I made it 3 lemons instead of 2 for a bit more TWANG. Don't know if you can get cream of tartar or what it does exactly - may be considered optional.

20 ripe heads of elderflowers
3½ lb granulated sugar
3 lemons
2 oz cream of tartar
3 pts boiling water

METHOD:

Cut off the flowers from the stalks – don’t have to be too fussy but less greenery the better.
Slice up the lemons nice and thin – the thinner the better.

Mix the lemon slices, flowers and sugar together and leave for 4 hours.

Add cream of tartar and boiling water.

Cover and leave for 24 hours then strain and bottle.

Can be frozen but leave an air gap at top to allow for expansion.

Yummy.

Now where's she gonna get Cream of Tartar in France?

There's always something you can't get here!!

I have had to buy most of my wine making stuff thru Ebay - have a healthy stock of yeast and campden tablets now!

Thanks for the cordial recipe - I did make some this year and was really pleased with the result. The elderflower champagne has turned out really yummy too - being refreshing to drink.

M3 - are u usually up that early?? Thats practically the middle of the night lol. We have been having huge thunderstorms thru the night - can hear the plants sighing with delight

...that's why I suggested the optional-ness thereof


but try your local 24 hr Creamoftartar-u-like...or maybe World of Tartar

chadspad wrote:M3 - are u usually up that early?? Thats practically the middle of the night lol.

I posted at 8.05am - I get up a lot earlier than that! I can't sleep beyond daylight.

The clock on this is out then - it shows 6.05am!!

says 7.05 on mine... click on 'profile' at the top of the page just underneath where it says selfsufficientish.com and amend the time zone to the right one for you :)

Make sure you've selected the right time zone in your profile.

Thanks guys!!