How to make flavor rich elderflower juice #27/78

Recipe – for making elderflower juice

Timestamps: 00:00 Intro – season 00:30 Preparing the elderflowers 01:30 Making the sugar acid brine 04:48 The flower pollen got the taste 05:40 Mixing sugar brine and flowers 09:20 Setting brine aside for a few days 09:55 How to filter elderflower juice 14:35 Tasting the elderflower juice 15:18 Reheating and final filtering for long term storage 20:18 Ending

Time: Work accumulated 40 minutes of work spread over about 4 days.

Ingredients: (10 liters of elderflower juice)

6 kilos of white sugar
5 liters of water
500 grams of cleaned up elderflower umbels (about 150 umbels)
160 grams of citric acid
Optional: 2 lemons. Spice further with juice and grated lemon zest from 2 lemons

Instructions:

Go out and pick the elderberry flowers. Should be picked when they are fresh and blooming when they contain the most pollen that is the source of the taste in the elderflower juice.
Clean up the elderflower umbels by ripping off the flowers only.
Make a brine of water, sugar and citric acid and steer it thoroughly to be sure everything is fully dissolved in the water. Heat the brine up to 95 degrees Celsius or 203 degrees Fahrenheit.
Mix in all the elderberry flowers and submerge it in the brine.
Use a grater to grate some lemon zest from two lemons and add that to the brine. Squeeze out the juice from the lemons and add that to the brine as well.
Set the brine aside for a couple of days so that the flavor will fully extract from the pollen in the elderflowers.
Filter the brine or juice using a colander.
Heat up the filtered juice to 95 degrees Celsius or 203 degrees Fahrenheit. Also heat up a pot of water to be used for sterilization of the glasses that you will use to store the elderflower juice.
Pour the heated elderflower juice in the preheated glasses while you filter it one last time using a sieve. Done.

Important observations:

In Denmark the season for picking elderberry flowers is from the end of May to the first few weeks of June. Elderberry flowers are good hiding places for insects and mosquitos so it is a good idea to take some clothes on that can protect you from being bitten by the mosquitos while you pick them.

You should be able to store your elderflower juice in glasses at room temperature for a full year if you sterilize the glasses using heat as shown in the video and explained in the instructions. You can also store the glasses in the freezer but remember not to fill them complete up to allow room for the juice to expand a little in the glass when it freezes.

Serving suggestions:

Elderflower juice should be served ice cold. It can also be used to make drinks say elderflower juice, gin and ice cubes.

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