Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Eating and Drinking => Homebrew => Topic started by: Bengal on June 10, 2010, 06:31
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Hi I'm really new to home brewing and really want to make elderflower champagne. But I'm reall unsure on if ive got the right plant as I've seen two different types. They both have the same leaf, but one is more covered with flowers along the branch so the whole bush looks White and the other looks more like a tree with fewer flowers on it. I've looked at pictures in books and both look like it. I would attach the photos I took on here but it doesn't seem to work. Many thanks for Reading.
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Elder bushes are (certainly in this part of the country) just coming into bloom now (though I was down west country two weeks ago & they were already just starting to come into bloom down there, so they're a good week maybe two ahead of us in the midlands), and have large creamy white clusters or 'umbels' of flowers that can be as big as 6 inches across. If you look at them closely, each tiny flower that makes up this umbel is actually white, but with pale greeny-yellow anthers that make the whole umbel look off-white or creamy when viewed from a distance.
The leaves are made up in a similar way to those of the Ash tree - they are fronds of maybe 5 to 11 leaflets, opposite one another - not alternate, similarly the fronds themselves are in pairs - opposite one another on the stalk, not alternate. There's no thorns. The trunk is of pale wood, creamy or pale gray in colour and with lumpy, corky looking bark.
If you drive round the lanes, Elder will almost certainly be the commonest shrub in flower right now.
The flowers have a most wonderful, sweet, refreshing smell, which is quite unmistakable. Why not buy a bottle of elderflower cordial from your supermarket - once you've smelt it, you'll be able to identify the flower from the smell :)
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Now the easy way.
Smell them. Elderflower is very aromatic for want of a better word.
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A sneaky edit by ex-cavator there after my last post!!!
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My elderflower bush has just come into flower I have already made one batch of champagne and I am going to pick some more and try freezing them to see if I can make some more later in the year
Diane
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Well I'll definately agree with DD on the smell, I just brought mine home on the bus and the scent filled the air.
Happy brewing, i'm away to start mine off now :D