2013 Elderberries

[ffemt128]

Well it's that time of year again. Elderberry bushes have been coming into bloom for the past 2 weeks. While out driving around yesterday I found 5 more locations which based on the flowers look to be very promising. Hoping to double my harvest this year. Boy would that be nice to get 160 lbs of Elderberries. I guess time and the birds will tell. Anything above last year is a bonus in my opinion.

 

[Julie]

Last year was a bad year, all I got was about 16 gallon. Hopefully this year is better.

 

[pwrose]

Too bad your so far north of me, I could probably get you 160 lbs in one trip on one rd. Then theres the back of the fields that have another 1000's of plants in them. I wont be after any this year though, and if I do get any it would only be enough for 3 gallons or so.

 

[pjd]

Well it's that time of year again. Elderberry bushes have been coming into bloom for the past 2 weeks. While out driving around yesterday I found 5 more locations which based on the flowers look to be very promising. Hoping to double my harvest this year. Boy would that be nice to get 160 lbs of Elderberries. I guess time and the birds will tell. Anything above last year is a bonus in my opinion.

Doug, I have not seen a blossom yet! all of my prime picking spots have yet to blossom. I am beginning to think our last frost killed them.
I planted 30 elderberry plants that I bought from Double A Vinyards on some land at my office so hoping in a year or so not to have to depend on wild ones.

 

[Julie]

Doug, I have not seen a blossom yet! all of my prime picking spots have yet to blossom. I am beginning to think our last frost killed them.
I planted 30 elderberry plants that I bought from Double A Vinyards on some land at my office so hoping in a year or so not to have to depend on wild ones.

You probably have about another one to two weeks before you see any buds and about a three to four weeks before you see any blossoms. Doug's elderberries are usually two weeks ahead of me and mine here at home are about one to two weeks ahead of the ones at camp and that is in Tionesta and you are not that far from Tionesta.

So far all I have are buds starting to form

 

[pjd]

You probably have about another one to two weeks before you see any buds and about a three to four weeks before you see any blossoms. Doug's elderberries are usually two weeks ahead of me and mine here at home are about one to two weeks ahead of the ones at camp and that is in Tionesta and you are not that far from Tionesta.

So far all I have are buds starting to form

Maybe there is hope! Great!

 

[captainl]

Can anyone post some pictures of what elderberry plants look like easily?

 

[Julie]

Can anyone post some pictures of what elderberry plants look like easily?

Here you go

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f25/elderberries-7552/

 

[Downwards]

You guys are truly inspiring! We have the Mexican elderberry trees out here, they grow everywhere and this time of year I'm noticing them more and more as the fruit is on. Thing is, I cannot even imagine the patience it must take to pick all those little berries and destem them all (ours are slightly toxic in the stems, don't know if yours are the same). I did an elderberry from dried a few months ago and nobody I've served it to has been able to tell that it isn't a grape wine. It's our favorite so far by a long shot.

How much can you get off of one tree? I probably have a very limited amount of time left to pick them here, but I'm really curious.

Is wine made from fresh berries noticeably better than from the dried? One way or another we're making a big batch soon. The last was only four gallons and it's disappearing very fast!

 

[Julie]

freeze them and then the berries will fall off the stems

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

We have pics of the bushes and ripe fruit on our website as well as several different ways to pick them. My favorite way is to scrape the berries across a baking rack over a bucket and then wash them with cold water to float out the bugs and unripe berries.

We really like the dried ones, and really like elderberry mead! Add some oak and a lot of berries and you got a great county wine.

Our cultivated berries are almost ready to open up. So far no sign of any fungus hitting the blossum like the have for the past 2 years.

WVMJ

 

[ffemt128]

Found 4-5 more nice size elderberry bushes today. Most were near the edge of a parking lot so they won't be hard to get to. Going to be a very productive year from the looks of it. I could go for 20+ gallons of elderberry in aging this fall.

 

[ffemt128]

One more bush sighting confirmed this evening.

 

[Downwards]

Went to my brothers today and picked most of his tree that I could reach. That's about a 5 gallon pail full of them but still attached to their bunches. They're sitting in the freezer now. His tree had lots more fruit not yet ripe and even some flowers still. And now that I'm looking for them, I'm seeing trees with fruit everywhere I go.

 

[garymc]

Can anybody tell me how much wine a gallon of elderberries will make?

 

[Julie]

don't know about a gallon but I use 5 pounds per gallon.

 

[ffemt128]

Can anybody tell me how much wine a gallon of elderberries will make?

don't know about a gallon but I use 5 pounds per gallon.

I'm generally with Julie, however last year used approx. 7-8 lbs per gallon. I steam juice to eliminate the goo.

 

[garymc]

Actually, Julie, what you told me is what I wanted to know. And between you and Doug, I could be looking at 5-8 pounds per gallon or 25-40 pounds for a 5 gallon batch. But if I wanted to make a 5 gallon batch of mixed elderberries and muscadines, and would normally use, say, 30 pounds of muscadines, then 20 pounds of muscadines and 12 pounds or so of elderberries would give me a 2/3 muscadine and 1/3 elderberry wine. I'm thinking since elderberry is low on acid and muscadines are a little high in acidity, I could skip having to adjust acidity doing this.
To get back to the purpose of the original thread, my black lace elderberry bush has berries slightly less than bb size, but they're sparse. It's just about done flowering. But my wild ones are just now flowering. It could be because the black lace has been in place for 4 years or so and I just dug up the wild ones after they had been mowed this spring and transplanted them. If it posts, here's a pic of the black lace from 5-29-13.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

We get about a gallon of juice from 10 pounds of berries, that will make between 1 and 3 gallons of wine depending on how much you like elderberry wine WVMJ

Can anybody tell me how much wine a gallon of elderberries will make?

 

[Downwards]

Wow. You guys are making me feel less good about the measly 5 gallon bucket I picked yesterday, lol. I made a REALLY rich and flavorful wine from dried elderberries though using only 1 lb to 4 gallons (though it did get a lb of raisins as well). Might be too little fruit for some of you, but I thought it tasted great.

Wonder how fresh berries compare to dried? If you wanted to convert part of a dried recipe to fresh berries, how many lbs fresh would equal a pound of dried? My next batch will likely be a mixture, cause I don't think our tree even has that many berries, lol.

Maybe I should just make my recipe as usual and add fresh crushed elderberries on top of that without even taking anything else into consideration (other than SG)?