The elderflower champagne has beaten us
Shredded bottle cap
I think we’re going to give up with this first batch of elderflower champagne and put it down to experience. It’s far too dangerous to use in its current state, and we’ve come to the conclusion - reluctantly - that even if we carried on with it for some time it would be impossible to keep in a cupboard.
We’ve had 18 explosions so far, with the volatile liquid still blasting the corks clean out of the bottles and spewing their contents all over the place, even with the steam-shrunk seals over the tops of the corks. As you can see from the picture above, they come out with such force that they actually shred the seals.
We’ve had them stored inside a big metal bin for a week now, trying to stabilise them, but now they just fire their corks into the underside of the lid (very noisy) which causes the liquid to run down the underside of the lid, down the side of the bin and onto the floor. It’s still better than it would have been if they hadn’t been in the bin at all, but it’s far from ideal.
So we’re going to pick some more elderflowers and buy some more sugar and lemons and make a second batch, learning these important lessons from our first attempt:
- Use fewer flowers, or balance them out better with more liquid. They already have their own yeast inside them, so using a lot of flowers in a limited amount of liquid is bound to prove volatile.
- Don’t add too much extra yeast when it looks like not much is happening. Try waiting a little longer and see what develops naturally before pushing things along yourself.
- Stand well back at all times.
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July 11th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
The problem isn’t the champagne its the fact you are using glass bottles. I really don’t know where HFW got the idea of using glass bottles as they have no give in them to allow the champagne to expand/ carbonate equalling disaster! I have never heard of anyone doing them before for exactly that reason. Use 2 litre plastic bottles leaving a couple of inches free at the top and then release the gas every couple of days. You should have relatively few problems then. I made my champagne a month ago and it is still safely contained and ready for drinking. Chin, chin!
July 12th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I don’t think the problem is the use of glass bottles, but the use of corks. HFW uses flip top bottles, like these from lakeland (http://www.lakeland.co.uk/preserving-bottles/F/C/storing-preserving/C/storing-preserving-preserving/product/11087_11086) which should be much more secure than the corks. Though I would still leave some airspace. Look forward to see how the 2nd attempt goes and the arrival of your chickens.
July 17th, 2008 at 11:18 am
The reason that your bottles are exploding is that you haven’t left it to ferment long enough before bottling. Using fewer flowers or less yeast won’t really change things - the fermentation will keep happening until either all of the sugar is used up or the alcohol concentration kills the yeast (around 15% I think for most wine making yeasts, probably lower for airborne ones). I like to do this the same way that I do beer, fermenting it until it finishes and then priming each bottle with half a teaspoon of sugar.
July 20th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I have bottled my first harvest of elderflower champagne but dont want to drink it till May next year (my wedding)Will it keep that long ?
Should I of addded anything to it ?
How should I store it ?
August 28th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
We are storing our elderflower champagne in bottles inside a large metal dustbin in the kitchen, as we don’t want the flying corks to make a mess of the kitchen any more.
Whether your champagne will keep until your wedding, I don’t know, but I would make sure you had a few bottles of regular fizz to hand as a fall-back if I was you.