The sun, the bottle and the brew

This morning we woke to blazing sunshine, we thought great, off the the markets and then breakfast. I checked the temperature and it was nearly -20C, we thought we should go and support the markets anyway. Off we rolled all dressed up like teletubbies going out in the snow. We get to the market and only about 10 stalls from a normal 100 or so were there. Yes, you guessed it, we weren't too happy. Luckily it was only a short walk there and back and whilst there we were still able to visit our favourite apple and pear stall, to grab some much needed vitamins and healthy snacks. Not much else was available and with the limited stalls each was packed with elbowing grannies and sniffling old men. So we darted home and nipped up to the local fruit shop for the other things we were missing. On the return I wanted to get a move on with the brewing culture I have. So I went and finally bottled my nettle beer brewed here. I have been dabbling in the Wisnowka every now and again such as at Christmas time, but I am still yet to commit that to bottles it sits safely in the corner enjoying the parrots chirps above it.

13 Green and one brown bottle sitting on the wall

Then I decided to rack off the elderberry wine. I probably should have done this about 3 months ago, but, m'eh I was lazy. I must tell you the elderberry wine is amazing. I really am shocked at just how good it tastes! For such a poor sorry bunch of late season berries (you can see that post here)it has really come on well. It has a scent of stewed fruit on the nose, then a strong alcohol entry onto your palette but then finishes with a has a really lovely long finish of rich cherries, almost like a dry port. I don't think it will win any awards, but I really wasn't sure what to get from it. I will certainly make it again next year and with more "prime" fruit.

Bucket o' wine

The old workhorse Demijohn

The now removed elderberries

Has a nice deep red colour

Swirled.

Totally Saucey

So the other day for Australia day we had some good old mince meat pies, with home made sauce. Which made me think. I hadn't put up the little photo story of where it came from! So, lets return to a time when people weren't freezing to death, the fruit and veg were fresh and you could open a window without losing an appendage to frost bite.

A time of pumpkins, sunflowers and spring onions.

My brand spanking new preserving jars (now I feel like my parents!)

5kg's of fresh sweet tomatoes soaking in their tub aka the sink

Some friends that will be joining the tomatoes in their "sauna"

I decided not to skin the tomatoes first as the weather was so hot we didn't want to cook the house. So I started chopping, not Chopin.

Don't forget to cut up a kilo of sweet white onions also called sugar onions.

Wack them into the biggest pot you have.

Along with measures of brown sugar, sea salt, all spice, and cloves

Distributed ever so elegantly.

After getting to the boil and then simmering for what seemed days we get a nice thicker sauce

Which gets even thicker after you work through the lumps and remove the skins, as you can see this is old school style

Then you end up with some great bottles of sauce. I made some in varying strengths of Chilli hence the number of chillies on the bottles

So there you have it. How did it taste? Well bloody marvellous, in fact the spicier the better but I hoarded all that for myself only to use it all in a matter of weeks. It was seriously that good. Also the fact that I, like many Australians, love tomato based sauces with just about anything from eggs to ham, to beef, to pork to cheese. Nothing like a cheese and sauce sandwich! So much for being a refined "foodie".

Elderflower Champagne

Firstly, I have to say, I am scared. Very scared. I haven't lived in a Quasi war zone, unless you include the times I ventured into New Year's sales in the Women's Shoe department or of course when I lived in Guatemala, as they signed a declaration to end their civil war the year I was there. But I am experiencing once "again" living in fear of injury and explosions.

It comes from making champagne. How on earth is that a war zone? I can tell you are thinking. Especially as many people would think that it is magical and fabulous place to be. Well as you can guess from the previous posts, it is associated with Elderflower champagne. 

The beautiful white and slightly cream (with pollen and yeast) flowers

It is made without yeast, and therefore it relies upon wild yeasts already on the flowers. So we used two different recipes. I have 10 bottles from one style and 15 from the other. As opposed to my cider I made last year, this already tastes fabulous. The elderflower world that has opened up to me now is fantastic! I love it.

So the recipes are:

From my other love River Cottage and Hugh F.

Ingredients

• 4 L hot water, 2 cold
• 700g sugar
• Juice and zest of four lemons
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• About 15 (I added 20+) elderflower heads, in full bloom
• A pinch of dried yeast (you may not need this, I didn't)

METHOD
How to make elderflower champagne 1. Put the hot water and sugar into a large container (a spotlessly clean bucket is good) and stir until the sugar dissolves, then top up with cold water so you have 6 litres of liquid in total.
2. Add the lemon juice and zest, the vinegar and the flower heads and stir gently.
3. Cover with clean muslin and leave to ferment in a cool, airy place for a couple of days. Take a look at the brew at this point, and if it's not becoming a little foamy and obviously beginning to ferment, add a pinch of yeast. The smell you get from this is amazing and makes the house smell like a flower based sweets shop.

4. Leave the mixture to ferment, again covered with muslin, for a further four days. Strain the liquid through a sieve lined with muslin and decant into sterilised strong glass bottles with champagne stoppers (available from home-brewing suppliers) or Grolsch-style stoppers, or sterilized screw-top plastic bottles (a good deal of pressure can build up inside as the fermenting brew produces carbon dioxide, so strong bottles and seals are essential).

5. Seal and leave to ferment in the bottles for at least a week before serving, chilled. The champagne should keep in the bottles for several months. Store in a cool, dry place.

Get them labelled

The second is a little different and so I am a little worried.... we will see. Although the author says she has been doing it for 20 years.

1 (4.5L) gallon hot water
1 1/2lbs (680g) white sugar
7 heads of elderflowers (I added probably 15-20 smallish ones)
2 lemons, sliced thinly
2 tbsp white wine vinegar

Dissolve sugar in water, and leave to get cold; add lemons, flowers and vinegar. Cover loosely with a tea towel and leave for 24 hours. Strain and bottle, try after a fortnight. Will keep for up to a year I've found, tasting just as good. 

I let it sit a wee while longer,for safety concerns

I didn't bottle after 24hours as I was afraid it would explode just from thinking about fermentation and the speed at which it happens, so I let it sit for 3 or 4 days in a demijohn with a bubbler airlock. 

I am all excited as they should all be ready in about a week to taste! Who wants to come around and be a guinea pig? Possibly quite a drunk one?

10 green bottles sitting in the larder.

Nettle Beer awwwwway we go.

As I mentioned last blog post, I am always sitting at home thinking about the things I have done in recent times, the things I would like to do in the upcoming times and the things that I would like to do right at that moment. I think I am slowly driving Marta insane with my ideas for goats cheese, ginger beer, fruit wines, anything! If you can name it and make at home I have talked about it.

So, due to me aforementioned affliction, I like to flick through numerous websites. Including, but not exclusively limited to, the really inspiring guys at Blagger (Nik runs a great concept there), Channel 4 Food, I miss watching Landline in Australia, and then there was the TV show the River Cottage from the UK with Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. The latter is where I got the recipe for the nettle beer after trying some in Prague at the beginning of the month last month and being excited. So here it is:

Nettle Beer

Hugh:

"We love nettles at River Cottage, turning them into everything from soup to gnocchi and tagliatelle and, yes, beer."

Ingredients

• 6l water
• A small carrier bag of nettle tops, washed
• Juice of 1 lemon, strained
• Juice of 1 orange, strained
• 750g caster sugar
• 30g cream of tartar
• 5g yeast

Method: How to make nettle ale

1. Bring the water to the boil in a large pan.

2. Add nettles, stir, then remove the pan from the heat and leave to infuse for at least an hour until it is at blood temperature.

3. Carefully - you might want to enlist a helper at this point - strain the nettle liquid through a colander lined with a large piece of unbleached muslin into a large brewing bucket or pan. Once the liquid has filtered through, squeeze the muslin to get the maximum amount of liquid into the bucket.

4. Gradually add the sugar, stirring constantly to ensure it is thoroughly dissolved, then add the cream of tartar, and lemon and orange juice.

5. Finally, once the mixture is tepid, stir in the yeast. Cover and leave for 2-3 days in a warm place, until it’s obviously fermenting.

6. Remove any scum which has risen to the top in fermentation and siphon the beer into sterilised bottles and seal with corks.

7. Leave for at least a couple more days or up to a month before drinking.

What I did:

Picked Large bag of nettles tips (in photographic display)

This guy certainly doesn't look trustworthy, with a face like that and gloved hands and scissors....

Here are the nettle tips

Now they are gone! Where are they?

I think we have found the cause here a major force in weed destruction.

He certainly looks happy with his find, something ready to consume, no doubt!

The proud nettle hunter!

Supporting Sokolka's finest fresh produce.

Then there was a few hours delay between picking them and getting them home. Once home at about 10 at night I started to work. Boiled nettles up in two pots, with 5L of water (4 in one 1 in the other) Then tipped the smaller into the larger pot to sit overnight to get some flavour out of the nettles.

Reboiled the next day to allow the death of any bugs and removed the foamy scum at top

Added juice of 4 lemons (one as per recipe and 3 as I had no crème of Tartar available)

Juice of one large Orange

750g of Caster sugar (certainly seemed a lot!)

Added a little extra water (about 1L to cool down hot mixture)

Then added yeast and allowed to start a little.

Poured all into Demijohn and waited about a week.

So then I was getting excited and started to make preparations. I wanted to bottle it, so sterilised as many as possible, and also brewed up some priming sugar liquid (to make it fizzy), I needed to rack the good part of the beer off so as to separate it from the dead yeast. This was relatively easy as I have 2 demijohns. So I could sterilise one and putthe good clear beer into the other.

The beer smelled more like wine, and quite a lot like Champagne. The taste is a little tart but still not horrible.
I had just about finished bottling, when I realised something, I went back to my calculations and realised I had made double the priming solution!

Some people would think this to be a good thing, but to me exploding bottles and lots of fizz in my beer isn't really what I am looking forward to. So it went all back into the demijohn to ferment a little more to reduce the available sugar. I did keep one bottle out though, it is one in a soft drink container, I have since been slightly letting out the extra CO2 each day. I will probably try it after a week or so.
Then along came a beautiful Saturday, and I thought it was about time to bottle. So we now have 13 bottles of Nettle beer, sitting in the pantry aging and hopefully not exploding.
I did add a small amount of sugar, about a quarter of a teaspoon, to the bottles to give it a little fizz. Fingers crossed now!