How to make Elderberry Wine

[Crastney]

I heard/read that elderflowers smell differently in the morning to in the evening - cats pee at one time, and bananas at the other?! I think it was on a Hugh FW website...

 

[oldbloke]

Elderberry was the second I tried. Nothing in it but the berries, sugar, a bit of citric, yeast and nutrient. Tasted great as soon as the ferment was done, maybe a bit syrupy. Within a week there were only 2 bottles left to see if it ages into something even better.
4lb berries+twigs, about 3lbs after twig removal. 6pints boiling water, tsp citric. Nutrient, yeast. After about 5 days strained onto 3 lbs sugar, made up to a gallon. Left to ferment out.
Will use less sugar next time.

 

[paulbr1]

Can anybody tell me how it is supposed to taste, I made a batch in Sept2009 from CJJ Berry's book, and it is pretty grim. :sick:

Quite acidy and very strong - anyone!

Paul.

 

[oldbloke]

Mine tastes "like wine" apart from the slight syrup-iness. And it was from CJJB, like yours... Deffo not too acid. Prolly closest to a cab sauv if anything. Try killing the acid with some adjunct? What's wrong with it apart from that?
I believe you MUST be sure the berries are properly ripe and you get all the twigs out.

[edit]
just opened a South African pinotage and it is not entirely disimilar to my elderberry!

 

[hedgerow pete]

the posion bit comes from the fact that raw elderberrys have a high acid in them i cant rember which one but after they have been fermented or cooked they lower to edible standards, oxlatic springs to mind,

the big issue is its very high in tanin, now if you steam harvest them it lower quite a lot or you can add a very low tanin fruit to cut it down say apples.

or wait for 12 months and then leave the barrel outside durring the winter in the day as the cold makes the tanin form crystals which drop to the bottom of the barrel. the last way of getting around the tanin is to lower the fruit content from 2 kg to 1 kg istead, but apart from that elder berry red wine is my favourity wine and we make gallons of it every year we can because i drink loads of it

 

[HLA91]

@Moley: Any particular reason why you add the sugar later on and not in the beginning? Or are you just doing as Cyril says?

 

[Moley]

If you add your sugar to the pulp and it only gets to ferment in the bucket for a few days, when you come to strain it you will actually be throwing quite a bit of that sugar away again.

 

[oldbloke]

the posion bit comes from the fact that raw elderberrys have a high acid in them i cant rember which one but after they have been fermented or cooked they lower to edible standards, oxlatic springs to mind,

the big issue is its very high in tanin, now if you steam harvest them it lower quite a lot or you can add a very low tanin fruit to cut it down say apples.

or wait for 12 months and then leave the barrel outside durring the winter in the day as the cold makes the tanin form crystals which drop to the bottom of the barrel. the last way of getting around the tanin is to lower the fruit content from 2 kg to 1 kg istead, but apart from that elder berry red wine is my favourity wine and we make gallons of it every year we can because i drink loads of it

AFAIK no native European elders have genuinely poisonous berries or flowers, at least when properly ripe. I believe some American ones do (the continent, not just the USA).
My wine doesn't seem to have come out too acid. Oxalic is quite a nasty one in concentrated form, if that's what's in them, but on the other hand it's in all the alliums as well and I rarely have a meal without some kind of onion or garlic, so it's not exactly deadly in the normal run of events. I understand it helps keep intestinal parasites under control!
Hang on let's check Wiki...
"The leaves, twigs, branches, seeds and roots contain a cyanide producing glycoside. Ingesting any of these parts in sufficient quantity can cause a toxic build up of cyanide in the body. In addition, the unripened berry, flowers and "umbels" contain a toxic alkaloid."

No hint of too much tannin in my elderberry wine at 3lbs->1gallon, maybe at 2kg->1gallon it might be a bit much.

 

[geoffm]

Hi Moley in your how to make Elderberry wine it says 1 tablespoon of Citric acid per gallon. Is this a typing mistake? and should it be 1 tea spoon? If so what can be done if you have to much citric acid in the wine?

 

[oldbloke]

Hi Moley in your how to make Elderberry wine it says 1 tablespoon of Citric acid per gallon. Is this a typing mistake? and should it be 1 tea spoon? If so what can be done if you have to much citric acid in the wine?

chalk. Specifically "precipitated chalk" on the homebrew shop shelves.

 

[Moley]

Hi Moley in your how to make Elderberry wine it says 1 tablespoon of Citric acid per gallon. Is this a typing mistake? and should it be 1 tea spoon?

No it doesn't, although I did try to confuse the issue later on.

In the recipe I suggested 1 lemon (or 1 tsp citric) to the gallon, I then scaled up and made 5 gallons but only had 2 lemons, which was why I added 1 tbsp (3 tsps) of citric.

I know it's only 5:30am but you have just inspired me to nip down the cellar with a drinking straw to have a little sip, that wine has turned out superb and is probably ready for bottling now.

I picked my first bucketful of this year's elderberries yesterday, so I'm about to start stripping and washing those.

Tip for stripping berries from stalks, credit goes to Boat Craig on the Harris forum:
Dog comb :thumb:

 

[geoffm]

Thanks for your response and yes I have made the stupid mistake of pro-ratering the citric acid by 5 tablespoons for 5 gallons. I have ordered the chalk. Can you advise at what stage in the process to you use the chalk?

 

[Jonny69]

A good haul of elderberries for me this year, so one gallon is currently in the bucket :thumb:

 

[awalton007]

How do I work out the abv on it have have both starting and final 1.200 finished .995

 

[Moley]

If you have original and final gravities (OG & FG) you can click on "Calculators" at the left hand side of the forum banner, and you should find an ABV calculator right at the top of that new page. Simply enter your gravities without the decimal point and click the red box.

However, 1200 down to 995 gives 27.2% abv and no wine yeast has that sort of alcohol tolerance, so I would suggest your OG was probably 1.120

1120 down to 995 gives 16.6% abv.

If your OG was measured before the DJ was full or you topped up with water after racking, you also need to work out volume adjustments which will bring that abv down. There's no forum calculator for that but if you knew the before and after volumes I could help you through that part.

 

[Mikeymu]

They are a right pain in the **** when it comes to racking.

You can buy extra-long syphoning sticks but I extend the rigid section of my standard syphon set-up by lashing some suitable stick or a long spoon handle to the flexible tube and the first couple of inches of the rigid section using cable ties or freezer twists.

Then I'm afraid it's guesswork, I start the flow and drop the output end into a receiving jar, gradually lower the sediment cup into the fermenter keeping it held against the side wall so I can see where it is until it's down to the last gallon or so, and then it's a case of standing over the fermenter and watching down the neck as I tilt the fermenter and lower the syphon tube on a stick towards the gunk.

I always rack to clear DJs so I'll be able to see what I'm doing when it comes to second racking. Remember to keep them in the dark or wrap them.

I started using a tater masher to extract juice after pouring on the boiling water, then repeating a couple of more times, pouring the juice into the fermenter and then adding the remaining pulp (in a muslin bag tied with elastic - all sterilised of course) for tannin - this I take out after a week or so.

Interestingly I found the addition of boiled water from unsalted runner beans and using 2.5 lbs berries produced a smoother wine.

 

[Badger]

Looks lovely going to have to give this a try!

 

[Duncs]

I made this last year, when I racked it it tasted of tree, tried it last night, still tastes of tree. It's getting better, but this is a long term wine.

 

[wigwamheed]

Just reminded me, I made a batch of this about 7 years ago and left it in swmbo's dads garage and completely forgot about it. Little trip up north required to try and dig it out methinks.

 

[jabba]

Many thanks for the How-To Moley! I got 2 gallons on the go last year as my first go at winemaking, opened a bottle at the weekend at a year old and it's really good already :thumb: Inspired by that I've been picking berries on my cycle to work all week and should have enough to get 4, maybe 5 gallons this year- will have to get some more DJs

I might carry on picking and freezing and can get another couple of gallons on when I've racked and freed up the PETs!

Cheers,
Jamie