Phil L wrote:
:: Mike Lyle wrote:
:::::
::::: If you add a spoonfull of yeast it will also make a decent wine!
::::: (if you take away 7lbs of the sugar!)
::::
:::: Are you KIDDING? 90, read "ninety", like dude you mean, XC,
:::: figures nine-uh zero I say again nine-uh zero, naw deg, neunzig,
:::: quatre-vingts-dix, novanta, heads of elderflowers for two gallons
:::: of wine? That will smell like three years' worth of cat pee
:::: soaked into the carpet. About a pint of stripped elderflowers
:::: will flavour and aromatise a gallon of strong sweet white wine
:::: for dessert use enough to blow your socks off; I'd use max two

When you say stripped, how do you get to use *just* the tiny white petals?

I've only ever made it once and it was many moons ago, IIRC the recipe book
said to freeze the heads in a poly bag overnight and then shake the petals
off the following day, you're not using the little stalks too are you? - I'm
sure I ended up with about a pint from a carrier bag full, but white petals
only - no greenery!

:::: heads for a gallon of ordinary grape, whitecurrant, or
:::: gooseberry wine, and I wouldn't leave them in very long, either.
:::: You don't apply the flowers till _after_ the primary
:::: fermentation, whose bubbling would blow away most of the aroma:
:::: pop them in there in a nylon stocking with a handful of
:::: sterilized marbles (I know mine are.)
::::
And your stockings?

:::: And modern preserving sugar is, indeed, inadvisable: the stuff
:::: contains not so much citric acid as, if me soaked old grey cells
:::: do not deceive me, pectin -- a sore destroyer of your wine's
:::: clarity, and general irrelevancy to the domestic booze process.

It's good for jam though, pectin helps the setting of preserves, making it
next to useless for brewing.

:::: Use plain old granulated cheapest: it's pure unwholesome
:::: C6H22O11 or something. Check out my surname: we know this kind
:::: of shit in our family..

....Hmmm!
My mate's last name is Armstrong but he hasn't been to the moon.

:-p

--
If God had intended us to drink beer, He would have given us stomachs.