Scored some Elderberries

[montyfox]

Hazah! I received a phone call from a neighbor of mine who invited me to come over and pick all his elderberries. He told me he just uses enough to make some home made surup and I could have the rest. Well... the rest turned out to be about 12 to 14 lbs of elderberries!


Now I just need to look back over this forum and decide on a recipe. I'm really into mead these days so I'm thinking of using them to make a mead.

 

[Wade E]

Nice grab there!

 

[Cracked Cork]

Elderberries make a nice mead. One thing to consider is how long to leave the berries in the must, the longer the pulp is in the must the more tannins you are going to extract. For a fruitier mead pull the berries out at about 3 days, for a higher tannin mead leave them in for up to a week. Crackedcork

 

[Boyd]

Elderberries and wild grapes dodn't look good in So. Mn this year. Lots of flowers and few berries.

I finally stumbled onto elderberries returning home from Minneapolis.

Two trips (50 miles) got me 6 pails full, and then I found another batch close to home for another pail and one half.

Got about 20 gallons going and 5 zip lock bags in the freezer. Going to pick a few more today.

No luck at all with the wild grapes tho.

 

[Wade E]

Thats a decent amount of elderberries for not doing to good!

 

[Boyd]

Usually get a bunch within 10 miles of home. Seems the dry sping affected the berry formation this year.

Got about 1/2 pail this morning.

May drive toward Minneapolis and get a few more.

For anyone in this area there are a bunch around the swamp near Point Pleasant in Madison Lake. Steep banks tho. Bad Knee doesn't like those.

 

[Wade E]

Thats funny about the bad knee as I almost ended up with 1 on my excusion as I fell down the hill trying to pick some here and had a good bruise from it right above my knee. I almost rolled right into a busy road! And yes there was some cursing going on.

Good thing I hung my bucket up on a dead branch as they wold hae been all over the place!

 

[Boyd]

Looks like the elderbeery picking is done in this are.

Very few berries left on the bushes. Maybe the birds got to them.

Oh well , they will spread the seeds around with a bit of fertiizer. Maybe more plants.