Elderberry - Any cautions?

[Scooter68]

Just started my 34th batch of wine yesterday ( I started wine making in July 2015)

3 Gallons of elderberry with 32 oz of White Grape Juice (on a whim) The white grape will, by my calculations amount to about 8% of the volume but I expect the effect to be very subtle.

Anyone have any tales of woe or caution with elderberry?

This is from a 96 oz can of Vintner's Harvest Elderberry wine base.

I was surprise at the amount of sugar it took to get the SG up.

 

[cmason1957]

Biggest word of caution with elderberry is the possibility of the dreaded green goo. You will know if you get it, it isn't a huge problem, but it if you get it, don't bother trying to get rid of it with soap and water. You have to use vegetable oil to cut it and get rid of it, then come back with your normal cleaner (OxyClean Free in my case). You probably have to check the PH and add some acid, probably a bunch as I recall, they are very low in acid. But it is a nice wine, elderberries are called the grapes of the British. It does make a very nice wine. The grape juice you added is probably fine, I have tried it with both red and white grape juice, white seems to produce a better wine, which seems counter-intuitive.

 

[Scooter68]

Correct on the acid - This was a canned wine base so I was surprised that it wasn't adjusted at all but that's fine.
Initial pH was 3.79 With 3 tablespoons of Acid Blend it dropped to 3.39 just a hair lower than my target range of 3.4-3.6
Anyway this morning it had a nice cap of foam - about 15 hours after pitching the yeast.

I will keep an eye out for that green goo.

Yeah that White Grape juice is an interesting addition. I added to a blueberry batch and the aroma it added was great. Taste impact was nothing. At that time it was 2 oz of frozen concentrate into a 1 gallon batch. Could it be that the tannins and other qualities of red grapes interferes with other wines flavors?

Still bummed out this year because once again very few Wild Black Raspberries. I've only made one batch (1gallon) but it was so good. The "Wild" just jumped out at ya. Have to look into what I can do to encourage those things.

 

[Rice_Guy]

Yeah that White Grape juice is an interesting addition. I added to a blueberry batch and the aroma it added was great. Taste impact was nothing. At that time it was 2 oz of frozen concentrate into a 1 gallon batch. Could it be that the tannins and other qualities of red grapes interferes with other wines flavors?

?no red grape? My favorite wine off 2017 was elderberry which I grow, not canned, mixed with Concord grape. The theory being that elderberry adds tannic notes and the concord a lot of aroma, and pH.
Didn’t have a goo issue in that one.

 

[Scooter68]

I find the White grape has a lighter aroma and taste and at least with my blueberry wine it doesn't seem to over power it.