This
wonderfully easy-drinking, easy-to-make beer is based on Hugh Fearnley
Whittingstall’s by now famous recipe – slightly adjusted after a couple of
bottles exploded on me last year…By leaving the brew to rest for longer a bit
more of the sugar converts to alcohol and this seems to stop the finished
beer becoming too lively once bottled. All the same, go carefully
when you open the bottles and have someone with a pint glass standing by!
INGREDIENTS
A shopping bag of young nettle tops (about the
size of a plastic carrier from a supermarket)
12 litres of water
The juice of an orange and a lemon
1.5kg sugar
1 sachet baking yeast
50g cream of tartar
INSTRUCTIONS Bring the water to the boil in a large
pan then add the nettles and turn off the heat. Mix well, and leave to infuse
for a couple of hours.
Strain off
the nettles and add the orange and lemon juice, the sugar and the cream of
tartar. Heat gently, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved.
Allow the
mixture to become tepid, and pour into a large container or a clean plastic
bucket. Meanwhile mix the yeast with a little warm water and a teaspoon of
sugar and stir. When it starts to froth, tip into the nettle infusion and cover
with a weighted towel or cling film (to stop fruit flies from getting in).
Leave for 7-10 days.
Skim
off the scum, then decant into clean beer bottles leaving as much of the
sediment as possible. Store cool for at least another week and up to 3 months
before drinking - if you can!
Elderflower Champagne
Take advantage of the all too brief elderflower season with this simple recipe for champagne. It's a little bit alcoholic, but deliciously light and refreshing for summer drinking.
Ingredients 6 heads elderflower in full bloom, before the flowers begin to drop 4.5 litres cold water 2 lemons 750g sugar 1 dessertspoon white wine vinegar
Instructions Dissolve the sugar in some of the water in a pan using gentle heat to help the process. Allow to cool slightly. Squeeze the lemons and quarter the remains, then put them in a large jug or basin with the elderflowers, the wine vinegar and the dissolved sugar. Pour over the remains of the cold water and leave to steep for 4 days until you get a little fizz happening. Occasionally the natural yeasts on the elderflowers need a helping hand: in which case, start a batch of ordinary baking yeast, about one gram dried granules, mixed with warm water and a teaspoon of sugar. When it’s good and frothy, add it to your elderflower mix. Leave for a further 4 days, then strain the liquid carefully and bottle. (2l plastic lemonade or spring water bottles are ideal.) Leave in a warmish place but out of direct sunlight for about a week, monitoring the bottles regularly for swelling. Loosen the caps gently to release some of the gas if the bottles start to bulge too much. After a week, store the bottles in the fridge to slow down the yeast activity and drink within a month of making. It will keep for around 6 - 8 weeks, but only if you’ve got discipline!
Elderflower cordial
Recipes
for elderflower cordial are ten-a-penny on the web, but there's nothing
like a tried and tested one for confidence building! I've used this one
for a couple of years now; I rate it highly for simplicity and its good
keeping qualities.
Ingredients
20 good elderflower heads, shaken to remove insects and trimmed of large stalk material
1Litre water
2kg ordinary granulated sugar
2 un-waxed lemons
80g citric acid (available from pharmacies)
Instructions
Bring
water to the boil in a large saucepan and add the sugar. Stir gently
until dissolved.
Grate the rind and slice the lemons and put into a
large pan with the elderflower heads and citric acid, then add the
sugar and water.
Cover with clingfilm and leave for between 12 and 24
hours, out of direct sunlight.
Remove the flower heads and lemons and strain the cordial though muslin
or a jelly bag.
Pour into clean bottles and store for up to 6 months.
To keep the cordial for longer, use cleaned plastic milk cartons and
freeze.
Elderberry Cordial
Elderberries
are so abundant in August and September that seems a shame not to take
advantage! I like to make a few bottles of cordial for the store
cupboard, for hot toddies in the winter and also to flavour apple pies
and crumbles.
Gather
elderberries on a warm dry day, choosing clusters of fully black
berries. (When fully ripened, the berry clusters tend to droop
downwards.) You'll need around a carrier bagful of clusters for 1-2
pints of cordial. Remove berries from the stalks either with a fork
or, if you don't mind purple fingers, by gently rolling the berries off
the stalks with finger and thumb. Take care to remove any under-ripe
berries. Put them in a pan with enough water to cover and simmer gently
for around 10-15 minutes. Then extract the juice by pouring through a
jelly bag or a large square of muslin. To each pint of juice add 8-10
cloves and 350g sugar and return to the pan. Bring it back up to the
boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Leave to cool then pour into sterilized
bottles and store in a cool dry place for up to 4 months. You can keep
the cordial for longer by putting it into a thoroughly cleaned plastic
milk carton and freezing it.
Here are some of my favourite things to do with elderberry cordial:
Pour over ice cream
Add a generous measure to an apple pie or crumble
Add a splash to vodka and tonic
Make
a winter hot toddy by adding 1 part cordial to around 7 parts hot
water, a splash of whisky and a slice of lemon. Great for warding off
colds!