Elderflower and Grapefruit Fizz

[calumscott]

Recipe is in the recipe section somewhere...

Here are some photos...

Things are just *more* with a five gallon batch


My nice new big wine fermenter


Sugar syrup (really syrupy)


Elderflowers infusing


Some juice, white grape and grapefruit


Chemical additions


Yeast, Lalvin EC-1118, the only flocculating champagne yeast


Rehydrating...


Rehydrating...


Not from concentrate?? But it was on the shelves not the fridge... ??? Hmmm...


Money shot, I'm aiming for about 12% in the end


And a cat. In a car seat. Just because...

May have to try this one! Was planning on doing an elderflower wine and an elderflower fizz..... may as well mix the fizz up a bit!

[calumscott]

I did some of this recipe last year as fizz and some still. Both excellent. Don't add a cat...

[calumscott]

Blimey, 5 gallons of wine fairly makes an airlock rattle doesn't it?!?!

I've got 15 litres of this on the go.. got an SG of 1.070 so should brew out to 10% if it goes to dry. I could only find one litre of supermarket WGJ in the whole of Northern Ireland (well, the bits I looked in anyway) so I boosted it with a large tin of Youngs WGJ. Smells amazing..

Thanks for the recipe!

[calumscott]

It's absolutely cracking so it is. I've enjoyed a few bottles of last year's crop this summer. I did 5 gallons of the stuff this year I liked it so much!

I bottled my stash of this at the weekend... mine was slightly different in that I used Youngs grape juice can instead of seupermarket WGJ, but it worked nicely. There are nice flowery notes coming through but the grapefruit is a little bitter at the minute. I assume this will fade as it ages. I'll hold onto this one for next summer I think.

I have 15l on the go too! need to rack it tonight and top up with some more juice tonight

Mine's nicely carbonated now so I'm sticking it away for next year's barbecues... it's not hard to leave this one alone as it looks like a load of "samples". I'm sure it'll taste better than it looks.

[calumscott]

Leave it for ages. I opened the first of mine on Christmas morning just to "get things going" while cooking the dinner. It was a lovely surprise!

Now, it's so crisp and fruity it's dangerous!

Still haven't got round to bottling mine, really must get a bottling going in the coming week.

Sounds great. However I have no Elderflowers. Can I use the freeze dried ones (Youngs?) you get from the HB shop?

[calumscott]

Sounds great. However I have no Elderflowers. Can I use the freeze dried ones (Youngs?) you get from the HB shop?

TBH I would wait until next year if you don't have any frozen. You need a lot and it would get expensive I think.

oh OK. Will have to try and find where these grow locally to me.

[calumscott]

Where are you?

Near Bagshot in Surrey

[calumscott]

You should have no problem finding them then! If you get out and about to some country lanes around now they'll be really really obvious, the berries are nice and ripe at the moment.