Nettle Beer: part 1

Tidying some cupboards I found a bottle of Nettle Beer from last years brewing. That was an unexpected nice surprise for being domesticated. I chilled it down and cracked it open yesterday. It was still fizzy and pleasantly dry. Nettle beer can be ready to drink within 7 days of brewing at which point I find it fairly sweet like a tasty Alcopop. The longer it is left the dryer it becomes. Because it went down a bit too easily none of the batches lasted more than about 6 weeks, so I didn’t know what to expect from a year old bottle.

The flavour of nettle beer is a little resinous and very refreshing. It doesn’t taste bitter the way lager or true beer does, so I suspect sparkling wine would be more apt as a name. I was having ‘pasta in bianco’ with sautéed garlic and Swiss chard for dinner and the nettle beer was very complimentary to that.

Most places in Britain the nettles are flowering and that means they are too old for consumption at the moment. Older leaves contain inorganic crystals that can irritate the kidneys so only younger leaves should be used for eating or brewing.

I missed brewing nettle beer earlier this year but a couple of weeks ago I weeded the hedge and there is a fresh crop of leaves developing. Oh yes. So get out in your garden or make your friend happy by pulling up their nettles and you have a couple of weeks to get organised for nettle beer.

Elderflower Champagne

It is not too late to make Elderflower Champagne. Yes the Elderflower has been blooming furiously for a while and the flowers have mostly become fruits. However there are a few blooms still lurking which is enough to make champagne as 8 heads of flowers will suffice.




My Elderflowers were hard won as I scrambled through brambles to get to them. Most of these last few flowers are at the tops of the trees which while not growing high are tall enough to be out of reach and the whippy branches are no good for climbing.



I used the recipe from “Wild Food” by Roger PhillipsWild Food: A Unique Photographic Guide to Finding, Cooking and Eating Wild Plants, Mushrooms and Seaweed with a little customisation. Last year I made two batches. The first batch did not start fermenting within a couple of days so I added a pinch of yeast. The second batch fermented by itself, although it was clearly a slower fermentation. I have to say that the first batch; to which I had added the yeast, was the best. The second batch was more sour and suited to margaritas. So I think adding yeast at the start is advisable.



I have adjusted Phillips’ recipe to the one below because I am at my caravan and the weighing scales are in my house. So I converted the proportions to suit using 1kg of sugar rather than guesstimating 650g.



When selecting your flowers at this time of year you can’t be too picky. So collect what you can, remove any brown flowers and estimate what would be the equivalent of 8 heads in full bloom. An easy guide is to pick one head of fruits and use it to assemble the approximate equivalent of flowers. Closed flowerbuds will not contribute to the flavour so make sure that you are working out proportions with open flowers.



Don’t wash the flowers and try to pick on a sunny day (not just after it has rained) as you want to keep the pollen on the flowers for brewing purposes.


Elderflower Champagne Recipe

Ingredients:

• 8-20  Elderflower heads (minimum of 8, if you can find enough 20 is ideal)
• 7 litres water
• 1 ½ lemons
• 1kg sugar
• 3 tablespoons white vinegar
• 2 pinches yeast (3 if you have little hands)

Method:

• Heat 2 litres of water with the sugar until the sugar is dissolved, allow it to cool
• Put the flowerheads, vinegar, juice of the lemons and quartered lemons in a food grade bucket
• Pour on 5 litres of cold water and then add the sugar solution
• Add the yeast, stir and cover
• Leave to steep for 4 days the mixture should be gently fizzing
• Sieve and bottle in sterilised bottles and it should be ready to drink in 6 -10 days.

Please note never ever use glass screwtop bottles as the building pressure from fermentation can cause them to explode. Best to use plastic screwtop bottles or sterilised corks in glass bottles. This means that if fermentation continues after bottling the plastic has a bit of give in it and if broken will not form shards of glass, and using corks in bottles means that building pressure can push the cork out rather than shattering the glass. Champagne bottles are made with thicker glass, making them stronger and better suited to containing effervescent liquids. I always stand bottles inside a covered plastic tray as this means that any corks coming out or breaking bottles don’t cover your pantry in a sticky mess.