Elderberries

[Ken L]

Well I had the first elderberries of the year last night. They're very patchy with the fruit not all ripe at the same time. It also appears that a lot of flowers didn't get pollinated in the wet spring/summer so there's not that many berries on each bunch.
The next week or two will see me collecting berries most evenings and then entertaining myself for an hour with a fork and a bucket.

 

[PD]

It will keep you out of mischief !.

Here's a tip..... put a plastic sheet down while stripping berries from the stalks especially with a fork. Those berries go everywhere and a few squashed berries on the carpet does wonders for marital harmony.

 

[Ken L]

No need. i have a solid floor in the kitchen and a quick vacuum takes care of any escapees.
The bugs that crawl out of them are a different matter though.

 

[Frogfurlong]

No need. i have a solid floor in the kitchen and a quick vacuum takes care of any escapees.
The bugs that crawl out of them are a different matter though.

Gives a wine body and improves the fermentation :rofl:

 

[artyb]

went out and got 5 kilos last nite there were plenty... :party:
some were goin over,

no sloes on the blacktorn bushes though.. :cry:

 

[alanywiseman.]

Just started collecting my first lots of Elderbrries. So far have about 2 lbs, aiming to get 6-9 to start 2-3 gallons. Just a quick question about picking them and selecting the ripe ones. I curently pick them off and drop them into water. Floater = no good and the ones that sink are good to go.

The question i have is that some of the ones that sink still have green on them while some of the floaters are plump and very dark purple. Is this ok or an i just getting my knickers in a twist about nothing? The other thought i had is how much does the water temp matter? Surely this will affect which ones float and which ones sink?

 

[Ken L]

They will all float when the yeast gets into them and starts producing CO2. It just makes it a bit easier to grab them and crush them while they're fermenting on the pulp.
I actually use the berries floating up as an indicator that the yeasties are doing their job.

 

[alanywiseman.]

Cheers for that Ken.

I was more referring to the destemming (is that a word?) and selecting the ripe ones by using a bowl of water. I think I am doing OK mind you as I now have 4lbs of elderberries that are going to join 4lbs of blackberries to make a rather nice (hopefully) port style wine. I will post it up in the brewday section :thumb:

 

[Ken L]

I found the mother load last light !
I popped out to go harvest the last few from my regular trees and got half a carrier bag full of berries. Rather than heading straight home, I took a detour and found a place with the most prolific elderberries I've ever seen. In 10 minutes, I went from half of a bag to three carrier bags full of berries.
It took forever to strip the two gallons of berries off the stalks last night and by the time I've strained them, I'll be on for a minimum of 30L of very heavy port this year - perfect for blending with the stuff that I didn't get right two years ago.
Best of all, now i know the spot, I can pick more every year.

 

[Moley]

Mine weren't quite ready last weekend, but I will be going to check on them again today.

If those trees have been stripped I'll be coming to find you :evil:

 

[Ken L]

If those trees have been stripped I'll be coming to find you

Oh I think you'll be right. I didn't need a boat to access mine
I'm still mystified about where yours might be though because I regularly cycle from Stourbridge to Stourport and although I've had some from along the cut, I haven't seen any huge inaccessible bunches on the other side.

Seriously though I wouldn't hang around to long. The pigeons are really having at some of the berries.

 

[Moley]

I don't tend to collect elderberries by boat, although there can be some good ones opposite Sainsbury's.

I've just been out foraging and someone has been at one of my sources because the nettles etc. have all been trampled. However, they obviously didn't have a litter-picker as I still managed to get some of the higher berries.

Hurcott is a waste of time this year but I've managed to find a reasonable quantity elsewhere.

 

[Ken L]

I ended up with rather more than I anticipated - despite deliberately keeping the added water to a minimum.
I strained the pulp on the last batch this morning and have two DJ's in addition to my main 30L batch.
The only problem is I have no bubbles going through the airlock on the new big FV. I shall be off to get some petroleum jelly and some yeast nutrient later to see if I can sort things out.

If you get really short, drop me a PM and I'll give up my mother load location. There's still masses there, especially if you can pick from a height.

 

[alanywiseman.]

Ken L can you post your port recipe? I would be interested because I am about to start my first.

 

[Ken L]

I'm making it up as I go along mate.
The 40L that I have downstairs included elderberries, damsons and blackberries as well as black pepper, a little chili and vanilla pods. It's lovely but I over sweetened it and because some of the berries that went in were a little under ripe, it's also a little to acid.
As you might have seen from another post, my scales recently gave up the ghost so I don't actually know what weight of fruit is in each gallon this year but it's at least 3 or 4 lbs - probably more.
I've started it off with just shy of a kilo of sugar in each gallon and will see where we go from there.
I fully intend to blend the lot into a 2010/2012 mix and will at some point take down the acidity in the 2010 wine with precipitated chalk to soften it, then I'll try to get the sweetness levels right.

I did a batch many years ago and if I can get even close to that, I'll be a very happy man.

 

[joe roberts]

north wales. no damsons a few greengauges. black berries just starting to ripen and the elder berries are very poor. where i normally go there's hardly any.

 

[Ken L]

Not brewing related but has anyone tried elderberry jam ?

 

[narmour]

I don't believe in global warming but something is happening to the weather can't remember last time we had a summer . Seemed when I was younger the school summer holidays was wall to wall sunshine It must of rained but I can not remember it

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19427139

this says it all :cry: apparently every month since April has been in the top 3 wettest since 1910. Although not sure it's anything to do with global warming, the wettest summer on record was 1912. It's all to do with the gulf stream hanging over us instead of off northern Scotland.

Elderberry crop here has fizzled a little, I've managed to pick only 3kgs in total since my promising first forage. With any luck I'm looking to get another 2kgs or so to make a half and half 23 litre brew with blackberries. Doesn't help that I forgot about a bucket full of berries and came back to a bucket full of mould

 

[GeorgeSalt]

Don't think of it as global warming, that creates the wrong mental image on a local level that won't match what you see for yourself.

Much better to think of it as climate change where the local effects may be widely different to the global effects. The basic models for climate change specifically predict more extreme weather rather than any progressive change - so expect more wettest/driest, coldest/warmest, stormiest, windiest, etc. Failed harvets due to weather wil become more frequent, but so will bumper harvests.

In the last few years the Gulf Stream has been associated with causing unusual seasonal weather because it's been adopting unusual patterns, becoming stuck for periods at unseasonal northern/southern latitudes - more evidence of extremes..

 

[Ken L]

That would be the jet steam, rather than the gulf stream.

Sorry boys and girls but global warming is very real. It's confirmed conclusively by many different testing methodologies that all independently arrive at the same result. The world is warming.The only room for debate relates to the cause. There are lots of well funded skeptics of man made climate change but the evidence strongly indicates (again, using multiple overlapping studies from different scientific fields) that the primary cause is human activity.