Elderflower Wine

First time

In season May to June · makes 4.5 L · target OG 1.090

The recipe to learn on: one job (sanitise), one measurement (the gravity reading), a delicate result. If it works, you can make anything.

Before you start. Use only the fresh cream-white florets. Elder leaves, stalks and bark are toxic — strip every piece of green stalk away.

You will need

Elderflower
Pick when the heads are fully open and cream-white with a sweet, faintly muscat scent — before any of the tiny flowers brown or start to drop.

1
Sanitise everything that will touch the wine — bucket, spoon, airlock — and rinse. Clean gear is the whole of good winemaking; most 'bad luck' is a dirty bucket.
2
Strip the florets from every scrap of green stalk (the stalks and leaves are toxic) and put them in the bucket with the chopped raisins and lemon juice.
3
Boil half the water, dissolve the sugar in it, and pour it over. Top up with cold water to about 4.5 L and let it cool to room temperature.
4
Take a hydrometer reading now and write it down — this is your Original Gravity, and it is how you will later know the wine is finished and roughly how strong it is. Aim near 1.090.
5
Add the yeast and nutrient, cover, and leave somewhere warm. It should be working within a day or two.
6
After four or five days, strain out the flowers and raisins into a demijohn and fit an airlock.
7
Leave until fermentation stops and the wine begins to clear — take a reading; near 0.995 or below means it is dry and done. Rack off the sediment, and again a month later.
8
Bottle when clear and stable. Better after six months; the scent keeps.

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An original MakeWine recipe.