The Preserver's Year

ampersand

I'm just in, Gigervamp and want to write a special Thankyou for your help.
Maybe I could put elderflower champagne in car tank and be where I'm going in double-quick jet-powered time.......

Gigervamp

You're welcome!

Good luck if you do try it. Perhaps donning a crash helmet would be prudent? :rotfl:

ampersand

Elderflower champagne question - continued.
Well, it seems to have stopped working and now smells potent in bathroom.
Has it turned to wine?
Shall I rack and bottle it now?
Shall I throw it away?

Advice please?
Will post this elsewhere, too.

Gigervamp

Strain and bottle it in sterilised bottles. Leave it for about a month before drinking.

Oh, I found the thread on River Cottage where they're discussing Hugh's recipe. It was decided that the recipe on the website didn't have enough water (and therefore too much sugar.)

The thread is here.

ampersand

Thankyou so much again, gv.
First rifle through that discussion covers everything that fizzes into my head as a ?, too - shall read when more time's available later today.
Should be enough flowerheads left to try a final batch of something - this w/e.

I really appreciate your trouble in locating that discussion -tried again and still couldn't find it.
Drongo moi.

Gigervamp

I couldn't find it either when I searched for it a few days ago, but somebody else did and bumped the thread up!

Still got to pick our flowers as we haven't had time yet. Just hoping the weather improves over the weekend so we can get some, otherwise we're going to miss out this year.

ampersand

If you know who DID find it, I'd like to thank them, too.
I do hope you'll be lucky with the flowers, this wind is so nasty, cold, unsummer - typical of this country?.

ampersand

Don't see this linky elsewhere[I'll be corrected in an instant, j'en suis sûr!], but it may be handy for the last[hereabouts]elderflower weekend:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A3795690
I'm out oop ladder to gather now.
Good luck and brimming buckets everyone:D

Valli

Well I'm now ALL out of marmalade despite making three batches ... what I didn't know was that mum and dad like and eat lots of marmalade so they have eaten all mine.

Six jars of blackcurrant jam have JUST been made and I still have some on the bushes so was wondering if blackcurrant cordial's a viable option. Would appreciate a recipe if anyone know of one...
(Not least because I still have 3 jars of last year's jam in the cupboard)

Valli

Gigervamp wrote: »

Roughly how many jars does this make? Just so I know how many to sterilise, I hate finding I've not got enough jars when I'm potting it up!

Sorry - 5lb

(as a rule of thumb add the weight of fruit to the weight of sugar to get an approximate total jam weight. So my 2lb blackcurrants + 3 lb of sugar have made about 5lb of jam - obviously I am NOT using 1lb jars)