Elderberry Wine

[HillPeople]

While waiting for our grapes to fully ripen, we decided to try a batch of Elderberry, since they are plentiful in these parts and are currently ripe.
Wanted to pass on a recipe and maybe some helpful tips.
We harvested around 17 lbs. of Elderberries by cutting off clusters.
After reading various recipes, we decided on a slow initial simmer- 1 hr. at 140-150, 17 lbs. in 3 1/2 gal. spring water
Many recipes mention weeding out the green and under-ripe berries, so we spent a couple hours fork and hand stripping the berries off the stems and cleaning out the stems and green berries.
Turns out that if you simmer them, all the green and under-ripe berries float to the top of the kettle and you can easily skim them off with a handled strainer!

Will keep you posted about the rest of the recipe and progress.

 

[Ernest T Bass]

Come on, give us more, I've been making elderberry wine for three years and would like to hear more ideas. One thing I have found that I like is that I use lemon juice to adjust the acid and only use 3 gallons (15 lbs) of elderberries for 5 gallons of must and re-use the must to make 3 more gallons of wine (I think they call it "Blush").

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

Very easy to float the unripe berries off in a bucket of cold water, then you can either use them raw, dry them or even steam or boil them. We like to clean them and stick them in a freezer until we get enough. Cooking a bunch of green berries sounds like a bad idea. Check out our elderberry webpage in the link below for more ideas. WVMJ

 

[Julie]

I am curious as to why you are boiling the fruit?

 

[HillPeople]

Let me clarify (no pun intended).
We didn't boil them, we simmered them at 140-150 for an hour.
There are several good methods for Elderberry, and they all work.
You can simmer them, steam them, crush and just use the juice or crush and put the berry pulp in a strainer bag.
And as Jack mentioned, the green and unripe berries immediately float to the top after adding cold water.

I'll take a pH and TA reading this morning.
Will probably add around a pint of fresh squeezed lemon juice as we just did on a batch of Aronia Berry(Chokeberry).

 

[HillPeople]

Recipe

Here's what we ended up with:

17 lbs cleaned and washed Elderberries.
Simmered in 3 1/2 gal. spring water at 140 deg. for an hour and left overnight.
8 lbs. sugar boiled in 1 qt water
1 tsp pectic enzyme
6 lemons, juiced, for 1 c. pure lemon juice
1 pkg EC 1118 in 100 ml water at 105 deg with 1 tsp GoFerm. Added 100ml must after the yeast kicked off.

SG- 1.097 ~ 24 Bx
TA- 7 g/l
Hanna pH meter- severely misbehaving

Volume is ~ 4.5 gal. but I'm not too worried about odd quantities since I invested in a tank of CO2 to take up headspace down the road.
BTW- neat trick for adding CO2.
Use a hose on the regulator with a Tee on the end to add the gas gently just above liquid level with the regulator set at <5 psi, then hold a lit match just above the opening. When the match goes out, the headspace is filled with CO2. It might take a few matches.

 

[greyday]

I am curious as to why you are boiling the fruit?

Uncooked elderberries are toxic.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

We make elderberry every way there is, mostly not cooked, works just fine. There is only 1 species of elderberry in the USA that is really toxic, it grows out west, even cooked you are not supposed to eat it. There has only been one case of an event with elderberries that is quoted over and over about some guys crushing a bunch of leaves in with the berries, who knows how many green berries were in with it if they were to lazy to even take the leaves out, and gave the guy the runs bad enough to spend a night in the hospital. Some people cant eat peanuts, maybe a few cant eat elderberries same way. WVMJ

Uncooked elderberries are toxic.

 

[Julie]

I make a good bit of elderberry wine and never have I cooked the fruit. There has been studies that elderberries helps fight influenza.