"Pure" elderberry wine?

[WVMountaineerJack]

Yeah you got the green goo, if its green and hard to clean its goo. I thinks its a hydrophobic nonpolar wax like substance, easily dissolved in oil, then the oil is washed away with dish detergent, never had a problem with glass, it likes to stick to plastics.

No we dont cook our elderberries just to make wine. We have tried the boil vs raw berries before and the cooking changes the quality of the wine, but, you can also steam them and that turns out very well. Our favorite is to dry them and then make wine from the dried berries, it has an even heartier and deeper taste than the raw berries. If you are in Europe you are using a slightly different elderberry, the S. Nigra, I dont know about if you have to cook them but we dont cook our North American Canadensis.

I like 100% juice of whatever if you can make it work, 100% blackberry, strawberry, peach. Only thing we cant get good is 100% Black raspberry, they just have to much taste and if we put in to many it kind of coats your tounge and blocks the taste.

WVMJ

 

[blumentopferde]

No we dont cook our elderberries just to make wine. We have tried the boil vs raw berries before and the cooking changes the quality of the wine, but, you can also steam them and that turns out very well. Our favorite is to dry them and then make wine from the dried berries, it has an even heartier and deeper taste than the raw berries. If you are in Europe you are using a slightly different elderberry, the S. Nigra, I dont know about if you have to cook them but we dont cook our North American Canadensis.

Good to know!
The internet doesn't know of any difference in toxicity between the two subspecies and many sources say that "some people" react to uncooked elderberries with an upset stomach. So I'll just dare to try them uncooked next time...

Only thing we cant get good is 100% Black raspberry, they just have to much taste and if we put in to many it kind of coats your tounge and blocks the taste.

Also good to know!

I'll let you know how the pure elderberry mead worked out!

 

[blumentopferde]

Update:

The mead has been bottled and stabilized!
I had 11%Vol Alc, 6,7g/l (=0,67%) acid and I added 6g/l sugar (0,6%) at the end.

The final product is very dark, almost black, and it was highly drinkable, even without sugar added (I think the honey added a lot to this)!
It tastes very intensive, but definitely not too intensive, and quite harmonic. Solely the acidity seemed a bit too hight to me, so next time I wouldn't add any lemon juice any more. I think it could also use some oak to add complexity. With that it would even come closer to a red wine, than it already does... (It reminds me a bit of intensive South American red wines tastewise).

Conclusion: Repetition guaranteed! ;D

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

So a little green goo wasnt so bad after all. Congrats, best of wishes for next batch! WVMJ