Elderflower champagne recipe
Elderflower champagne is easy to make, and you don’t need any special equipment: just a clean saucepan and some empty lemonade bottles. Elderflower champagne is similar to lemonade but with a beautiful floral taste, and is mildly alcoholic (drinkable from about 1.5% alcohol by volume). You only need 5 or 6 “heads” of flowers to make one gallon of champagne so it doesn’t take more than a few minutes to gather them, and the finished champagne is ready to drink in two or three weeks. If you prefer a version without alcohol, try making our elderflower cordial recipe.
Ingredients
For 4.5L (one gallon) you will need:
- five or six heads of elderflower
- two lemons
- 750g (one and a half pounds) of sugar
- two tablespoons of vinegar (preferably cider vinegar)
- enough plastic fizzy drinks bottles to hold the elderflower champagne.
Plastic bottles are better than glass because you can give them a squeeze to see how much pressure has built up, and if you forget them for a few days they won’t explode – the crimp at the bottom will pop out instead, and the noise of the bottle falling over will alert you.
Note that there is no added yeast in this recipe. The flowers are not scalded or sterilised, which leaves the wild yeasts naturally present on the blooms to do the fermentation for you.
How to make elderflower champagne
- Pick nice young flower heads, where the flowers have not yet started to drop petals or turn brown. You’ll get pollen on you, but don’t worry – it doesn’t stain. Use the flowers promptly or the aroma will change and become unpleasant.
- Put 4.5 litres (1 gallon) of water in a large lidded saucepan.
- Add the elderflower heads (having shaken any bugs off them first) and two sliced lemons. Put the lid on, and leave it for a 24 to 36 hours.
- Strain the liquid through a clean cloth. A seive will do fine if you don’t mind a few petals or tiny bugs in the drink, and it won’t alter the taste one bit.
- Add 750g (one and a half pounds) of sugar and two tablespoons of cider vinegar, and stir until all the sugar has dissolved.
- Pour into fizzy drinks bottles. Put the tops on to keep fruit flies out, but don’t screw them on tight yet – just stand the bottles in a corner and keep an eye on them. After a few days they will start to make tiny bubbles as the wild yeasts get to work on the sugar.
- After one or two weeks the bubbles will gradually slow down. When they look like they have pretty much stopped, screw the lids down and put the bottles somewhere fairly cool. Give them another few days to generate enough gas to carbonate themselves, and you’re set – just refrigerate the bottle before you need it, and serve over ice with lemon.
The elderflower champagne is still ‘live’ and continuing to ferment, so the longer it is stored the more alcoholic (and drier) it will become. Keep a note of how long it takes to be perfect for your taste, and bear that in mind for following years: by three months old it will be too dry for most tastes, but unless you make large quantities it’s unlikely to last that long.
The trick with this method is to keep checking the pressure in the bottles, particularly for the first few weeks. Just give each bottle a good squeeze – if you can’t squeeze the sides in at all, then the pressure is getting too high. When this happens very gently loosen the cap until you hear gas releasing, and wait until the noise dies down (be careful of the froth) before tightening up again.
If fermentation won’t start
Wild yeast gives the best results for elderflower champagne, but it isn’t 100% reliable. if fermentation doesn’t start within ten days (tiny bubbles at stage 6) then add a tiny pinch of yeast to each bottle. Leave to stand for five minutes, then give it a gentle shake to disperse the yeast. There’s no need to use fancy yeast because we’re not trying to produce a high-alcohol drink: bread yeast is fine, as is general purpose beer or wine yeast. If you ‘rescue’ a batch this way it will tend to end up too dry unless you intervene. Taste a little from time to time and, when it’s just right, screw the lids down and move it to the fridge.
Next steps
Elderflower champagne is a great way to get into home brew, but it’s only the start. Check out our articles on how to get started in home brew, what home brew equipment you really need, and learn to make professional-quality elderflower wine that’s practically free!
53 Responses to “Elderflower champagne recipe”
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Hi,
used ur recepie about 3 weeks ago, lots of fizzings/fermenting but still quite sweet/cordial like despite this. Releasing gas every day from bottles but when I pour out its flat after a few min. No strange by-products in bottles. What to do? Leave a bit longer?
Step 7 says ‘Give them another few days to generate enough gas to carbonate themselves’ – if you let the gas out every day the bottles won’t build up enough CO2 to carbonate themselves. All it will take is a little neglect! As for the sweetness, that reduces over time (just as the alcohol content will increase). Good luck!
Hi,
Thank you for your earlier advice not to use glass bottles, and to let you know that it has been really delicious and refreshing. Saving one bottle to be really fizzy and a bit drier.
Will make lots more next year, thanks for a great recipe.
You’ve made my night. Well, you and a big glass of elderflower champagne at dinner.
After the success of the elderflower champagne I’m wondering if you have any equally easy recipes for sloes, damsons, elderberries, wild pear, crab apple. I make damson and sloe gin and vodka – but am always interested to hear other people’s recipes and tips. (I would love a really foolproof way to make crab apple jelly!).
I’ll give it some thought – but right now I’m making Dorset apple crumble cake. Yum!
Made elderflower champagne 4 weeks ago. It has slowly bubbled over this time and there is obviously gas being produced. But I still have the same problem I was worried about on here 2 weeks ago. The liquid is still very syrupy – not in strands so not mould? Should I just leave it longer – I’m itching to get to drink it, but it is too sweet and thick at the moment!!
Okay, four weeks is long enough. The particular dose of wild yeast you’ve got in there doesn’t seem to be able to cope with the concentration of sugar so there are two choices – you can seed it with a pinch of bread or beer yeast, or you can simply add water to reduce the sugar content (you need to add about half as much water as you presently have liquid). Either should work, and the viscosity should drop as the sugar turns to alcohol. Good luck!
I made elderflower Champagne, and it exploded the plastic bottles with so much force that it shattered a large plastic bucket as well.
I’m impressed! Like the recipe says, the trick with this method is to keep checking the pressure in the bottles.
Hi!!
I made a batch of this early last week, it didn’t show any signs of bubbles or fizzing so I poured it all into a big bucket and added a pinch of yeast!! It now has bubbles!! :) It also has a ‘scum’ on the top!! :( Is it ok stil?? Should I strain it and bottle it or will that take the fix out again??
Thanks in advance!! :)
Depends what you mean by ‘scum’ but straining it can’t do any harm as the yeast is microscopic. It should be fine.
Hi
i made the champagne two weeks ago and although the bottles are starting to expand abit i’ve not seen any bubbles or fizzing? Should i be noticing actual bubbles? I released some gas from one and it did hiss abit but nothing substantial?
Is it wise to add abit of yeast? I’m not in any rush to drink it just dont want to waste it if its not fermenting?
Thanks
If there’s a hiss then you have a ferment, so don’t worry. Take a look at the bottle that hisses best in really good light, and you may find there are *tiny* bubbles rising.