Adding elderflower

[sunedk]

Hi,

I'm brewing my 4th brew, it's an all grain kit IPA.
I have a good handful of newly picked elderflowers that I wanted to add to the boil, but i forgot while trying to fix a leak in the plate cooler, so now I'm thinking of adding the flowers with the dry hop. I'm worried about infecting the beer with some bad bacteria from the flowers. Should I blanche the flowers first, would that be fine?

Thanks!
Sune

 

[Chemgirl]

I would blanch or freeze them. I've never used elderflower specifically, but have wet hopped and added lavender before. I prefer freezing to blanching because sometimes you can get weird oils off of flowers at high heat.

Also take into account that I totally don't know what I'm doing and hopefully someone more knowledgeable can back this up.

 

[bernardsmith]

They say that elderflowers are covered in wild yeasts... I regularly make elderflower wine but have never tried to use the wild yeasts to ferment the must. My guess is - and it is only a guess - that the activity of the yeast in your wort will be enough to overwhelm those yeast cells.

 

[Revvy]

One option is to make an elderflower extract in a neutral alcohol base and add that later. Alcohol will kill and yeasties and the flowers will infuse the liquor.

One method I've played around with with things like Lavendar is Nitrogen Cavitation... I talk about it here, and there's a link to a podcast where I demonstrated it in there as well.

Looks like the podcast is gone... but what I wrote is pretty clear.

 

[sunedk]

Thanks for the replies. Very kind!
I think I will try and freeze the flowers, split the beer into two barrels and add the flowers to one of them and mix them up if it's good. I'm hoping for just slight hint of elderfower.
Nitrogen caviation next time!
Thank you
Sune

 

[tsever00]

Freezing doesn't kill bacteria, it only makes them inactive until they're heated up again

 

[archthered]

As mentioned above freezing will not kill bacteria or wild yeast so chances of an infection are high, however if you don't want to boil but still want to kill microbes you can add the elderflowers to some water and heat it to a lower temperature but for a longer time. You could hold it at 170 or so for a brief time (literally like seconds) or so, likewise you could hold at 140-150 for a minute and a half. The easiest way to do this would be to heat water to temp then add the flowers, but just like grain be sure you account for a drop in temp due to adding the flowers. I've heated water to 170 and thrown additives in and let it sit for a minute and a half (kind of a best of both worlds) and never had problems but maybe stick to low temps based on the experiance from:

I prefer freezing to blanching because sometimes you can get weird oils off of flowers at high heat.

Also take into account that I totally don't know what I'm doing and hopefully someone more knowledgeable can back this up.

Also this is another good alternative, I've never done it with flowers but alcoholextract has worked on other things.

One option is to make an elderflower extract in a neutral alcohol base and add that later. Alcohol will kill and yeasties and the flowers will infuse the liquor.

One method I've played around with with things like Lavendar is Nitrogen Cavitation... I talk about it here, and there's a link to a podcast where I demonstrated it in there as well.

Looks like the podcast is gone... but what I wrote is pretty clear.

 

[Jwin]

From WebMD
Elderflower is*POSSIBLY UNSAFE*when used in excessive amounts. Some parts of the elderflower plant contain a cyanide-producing chemical which can cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Cooking removes this chemical.

 

[Jwin]

So, either a flameout addition or a precooked, priming/post fermentation addition is called for for safety reasons, IMO.

 

[Calder]

Using any heat is going to lose some aromatics. Why not just add them to a little water after dissolving a campden tablet (potassium metabisulfite) in it, and then add the flowers and water to the brew 24 hours later.

Just make sure the elderflowers don't smell like cat's piss; the aroma will carry over to the finished beer.

 

[sunedk]

Ok, so I won't use the frozen elderflowers as wild yeast and bacteria have survived freezing, which of course makes perfect sense.
Potassium metabisulfite sounds interesting, unfortunately I don't have time to shop for it the next few days so that might be next time.
Now my plan is to blanche the flowers at 170°F for a few seconds as suggested, and I will take maybe 5 liters of the brew in a second container and add the flowers to that, if it tastes okay after another week of fermenting then I'll mix it with the rest before bottling. I know I'll loose some aromatics when blanching but so be it this time.
Thanks again!