Posted by Jack Keller's WineBlog in General, OtherSep 5th, 2009 | No Comments
The white or whitish-yellow flowers of all species and varieties of elder are pleasantly fragrant and impart a muscat flavor to wines, ciders and vinegars. They are also edible and can be fried in a fritter or beer batter, added to pancake or muffin batter, cooked into pies and tarts, and added fresh to salads or many other food dishes. Obviously, they can also be used to flavor wines. Read more....
Posted by Jack Keller's WineBlog in General, OtherSep 5th, 2009 | No Comments
A reader made both elderflower and honeysuckle-rose petal wines. He claimed, "The bouquet of each is great, the color and mouthfeel good. Only one thing mars the taste...." He then describes an herbal bitterness that hasn't gone away after a year in storage. He said he was careful to remove all greenery beforehand and used boiling water poured over the flower petals as both an extraction means and a sanitizing agent. He naturally wondered if that could have been the source of the herbal bitterness and, if so, might there be a better technique for extracting color and aroma from flower petals? Read more....
Posted by Jack Keller's WineBlog in General, OtherSep 5th, 2009 | No Comments
Sorbic acid is used in conjunction with sulfite to render a sweet wine biologically stable so it does not start fermenting again in the bottle, an event that could have explosive consequences. Sorbic acid is stored in a dry form called potassium sorbate that produces sorbic acid when added to wine. A forum reader asked about the shelf life of the acid. "If it does expire when dry, it should also expire in solution which makes me wonder if my sweetened wines are ticking timebombs for refermentation once the sorbate has expired." This worry was compounded when the reader discovered that 90% of sorbic acid in solution decomposes within a year. This was, I thought, a very good question, but one based on faulty understanding. Read more....
