Grow Your Own Magazine

Help! Have elderflower cordial recipe, lots of flowers around (but not picked), lemons, sugar, but no citric acid!

Have tried Waitrose, Sainsbury's and Boots! Where else can I try? Getting concerned now, as the flowers don't last long and I have already made the Limoncello, so getting right into it, now!!

Would have thought the lemon juice would negate any requirement for citric acid. You will find citric acid in most chemist shops (used to be able to get it there anyhoo), Wilkinsons or a brew store will also stock it.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

It's used in winemaking, I got mine in Wilkinsons

I am going to send hate mail to Wilkinsons, soon. People hre keep recommending them, but there isn't one anywhere near me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I asked the pharmacist at Boots and he said 'Oh I think Boots *used* to sell it, but we don't, now'. He seemed to be an 'It's over there on the shelf' type.

Will try the local chemist, later.

I thought that about the lemon juice, Shirl, but it says 75g Citric Acid. To me, that's quite a lot, so I didn't want to miss it out.

That is a heck of a lot of citric acid!! You sure about the recipe?

__________________
Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

There's lots of brew shops on Ebay if you don't mind waiting a few days?
I know what you mean about Wilkinsons - my nearest is 1/2 hour drive and everyone on here always talks about how great they are! It's very exciting when I do go tho!

You can shop online at Wilkinsons... and the citric acid is about 79p!

Go to a small chemist and ask there. My husband was in the UK last week and I sent him to buy some and everywhere had sold out. He tried a samll family run place and they did have some - but were rationing it!
They said that everyone is making elderflower cordial this year and supplies couldn't keep up..
Good luck.
Tx

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Tx

No, so I do plan to double check with my source! The packs come in 50g each, so I did wonder myself!

Here's a link to various elder recipes. Their presse calls for tartaric acid in a large quantity. There is also a recipe on this thread... Elderflower Cordial/Champagne

__________________
Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

2 Lemons
3 litres water
2x1/4kg Sugar
3 tbsp citric acid, (if you cannot find citric acid, simply double the amount of lemons)

Found this on the web, still think the equivalence of citric to lemons is wrong but Hey Ho!! I reckon that the 2 lemons would do.

Hi chaps! Well, the very nice guy who gave me the recipe also got me some Citric Acid on Monday evening. Or should I say he sent one of his workers into a shop for some!!! Upshot is, I tried the recipe and it's fabulous!! I still have two lemons at home and so might make some more to freeze this weekend. My recipe was for just over 2 litres, with 2 lemons.

On a serious note, is it possible to drink too much??? I've had headaches since making it on Tuesday and I wonder if this is the cause - am I addicted to sugar, now??? Eek!

Brewer again, there seems to be a vital ingredient missing from that recipe.

Citric acid is the commercial version of the juice that comes out of lemons, oranges etc (citrus fruits). If you can't get the powdered version, simply use more lemon juice (I'd prefer that anyway as it's natural and who knows where the powder stuff comes from)

Sorry to hijack this thread but I've got a thousand litre water container on my allotment that came from a pickle factory and originally held............you've guessed it, citric acid.

I didn't flush it out as I couldn't see any residue but now it's full of water and when I run it off into my watering can I can smell a slight vinegary smell and the water fizzes initially.

I have only been watering selected plants with it ie not my 'best' plants.

Is it toxic to plants does anyone know?

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Shouldn't be toxic in such dilution. Are you in a hard water area? Fizzing suggests some form of carbonate reacting with the residual acid, unless you are using a galvanised watering can, in which case there might be a reaction you could do without, but still unlikely to harm plants if well diluted (more likely to 'eat' the watering can).

Is that one of those plastic cubes in a frame?

Yep it's a plastic cube in a frame and yes it's a galvanised watering can. Might try using my plastic can today!

PS Just had a thought.........it's rainwater not tap water so shouldn't be hard water?

__________________
My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

If not hard water (and rain shouldn't be, might be acid in its own right<g>), it must be the galvanised can.......Acid can react either with the carbonates in hard water, or with the zinc on a galvanised container. Both will fizz. Thinking about it, the acid in acid rain might be more likely to react with metal (especially galvanising) than citric acid. Too long since my chemistry A level to be sure (and we didn't do much about organic acids and metals) but acid rain contains very dilute sulphuric doesn't it? Maybe the citric acid traces just... encouraged it?

Hi! Sluglobber,
The point of my post was not to show a recipe. It was a bit of one, to show how much vit c is in lemons.

'if you cannot find citric acid, simply double the amount of lemons'

Lots of veg bases need citric acid but it is already in citrous fruit!!!!