Elderberry Wine 30.08.08

Thought i'd share my weekend with the elderberries. It's not beer, but it was a brewday so i thought i'd post it for your viewing pleasure

After discovering some ripe elderberries at the end of my garden (which i thought was a very convenient indicator that they're now in season :) ) SWMBO and i set out bright and early on saturday morning and collected a 5 gal bucket full of elderberries after about 2 hours.

we then set out to seperate the berries from their stalks. being careful to pick out the green (unripe) ones and making sure none of the stalks fell into the bucket, as this creates a very bitter taste





3 hours later, we were done and our hands were purple hehe



we had 7 kilos of berries :)

i got my beer brewing boiler out and filled it to the top with water, added a campden tablet and brought it to the boil. the boiling water then went into the fermenter full of berries and was left over night to stew.

i then ran off the juices threw a sieve with a muslin bag to make doubly sure nothing solid got through





realising i'd only collected about 3 gals of juice, it figured i needed to press the berries, and tried to do this with my hands and a plate



but it didn't work and the tap kept getting blocked, so instead used the plate to hold back the berries to collect the last of the juice



i still only managed 4 gals of juice from this. so i then took a slightly drastic measure and put all the berries into muslin bags, took off my shoe and sock, and went old school on them!! this worked a treat and i managed to collect just over 5 gals of juice. sorry no pic of my pressing in motion, but this was the state of my foot and garage floor afterward!





my hands weren't so pretty either



all of the juices were then chucked in my boiler, along with 4 kilos of cane sugar, juice of 5 lemons, juice of 5 oranges, and 20 cloves.



this was then brought to a gentle boil and skimmed regularly to take out the crud. i had a jelly like layer on the top at one point. here's a few more pics:









this was then chilled with my wort chiller down to pitching temperature.

OG was 1.085 and pitched with uBrew wine yeast.

the adicic nature of this brew cleaned my boiler a treat!!! it looks brand new again hehe.

That looks great Brew I might have a go at that on a smaller scale, just to try out a 1gallon demi :hmm:

Great pics :thumb:

if you do, i just corrected the recipe so take another look

was good fun, even if i did have to spend an hour scrubbing my hands and foot with a pummice stone to get the black off. hehe i should've took a pic of the underside of my foot... it was litterally black :shock:

edit. forgot to also mention that i gently boiled it for an hour, adding the chiller in the last 15 mins as you would for a beer brew

Noted thanks

Should be no need to boil at all . . . Elderberries are quite high in Pectin though so Elderberry Jam anyone

I was worried about the amount of insects floating around hehe.

oh if your SWMBO is scared of spiders, you might not get much help as i found about 30 while picking the berries off the stalks. i was being attacked by greenfly frequently too

Great post so far BS

I just racked this to another bucket with an airlock, and added 5 crushed campden tablets as per instructions on pot (one per gallon).

i meant to stop the fermentation early to leave it medium dry, but i forgot about it and it's hit 0.993 on the hydrometer, so it's reached 12%.

sampled it and it got a lovely elderberry nose, and crisp dry taste. unfortunately i cant taste the citrus and cloves, but i'd imagine that will come back with maturation

will give it two days for the campden to do it's thing then i'll add finings. i've only got beer brite finings, will that be ok? i've got to buy some filter pads so if not i'll pick up some wine finings along with it.

i'll give it two more weeks then rack to my plastic carboy through a filter and leave for another two weeks, then bottle :thumb:

That looks interesting, it's nice to see somebody brewing something out of the ordinary

Brings back memories. I used to do wine before I got hooked on brewing beer and elderberry and runnerbean (together) was one of my favourites. Still got some in the shed as it happens - 2006 vintage. Past it's best now but we still use it for cooking. Luverly stuff :thumb:

sounds good :)

so, are beer finings ok in wine? or should i get wine finings?

i had a sample of this the other night.

it's still in secondary.. and it's crystal clear, so wont need finings or filtering.

it's getting there but still has the over powering taste of elderberries. i've been told you should only drink it when this taste starts to fade. so it'll be next year before i can crack into this... but i may have a sneaky taster of it at xmas

will be bottling this with the new shiny 4 spout bottle filler when it arrives tomorrow :party:

popped a bottle tonight just out of curiosty, and for learning reasons of course no, seriously, i really wanna see how the flavour changes over time and it has changed considerably since a month ago when i bottled it.. the tart elderberryness is fading and it's actually drinkable now. could probably only manage a bottle though as it's REALLY dry. and dare i say it a bit thin too i'm hoping over the next few months the citrus flavours will start to come back :pray:

i'm gunna continue to drink a bottle a month to see how it improves. i've got 20, so at least i've got enough to get past a year old which is when it's really supposed to come into its own

sounds yummy BS

i hope there are some berries on our local trees next year, i really want to try making this wine. I don't have all the gear you've got tho so i'll be taking up residence in the kitchen and using all our pots and pans ;-)

they've got 10 and 20L stock pots on ebay for less than a 20 note, delievered

keeping with my monthly sampling... here comes another update:

it's crystal clear despite having some sediment in the bottom of the bottle. i must invest in some filter pads to stop that happening in future.

aroma is still very strong from the elderberries, but i'm starting to get a hint of citrus... kinda grapefruity.

taste... very smooth. the harsh flavour that was there at the start and just a hint of it last month is now gone.

it's very, very dry and leaves my mouth almost begging for a glass of water after a sip :lol:

i was a bit worried that this would turn into something undrinkable, but it's actually turning out really nice!!!

if any of you folk have never seen an elderberry wine, it's got a very distinct colour that i've never come across... it's a very, very deep red.. infact i'd compare the colour to blood :lol: yeah it's like a glass of blood, but obviously not as thick

here's a pic of it held to the light



it's definitely not the same as a wine made from grapes.

well that's it till next month.

i think this bottle will be easily drunk tonight or tomorrow :thumb:

hows the elderberry wine going brewstew?

dunno... i'll pop a bottle this or next weekend as it'll have been a month or thereabouts since the last sampling :thumb: