anyone got a good Elderberry wine recipe for me?

[Chard]

i got a lot of kit and a little experience from making cider and beer but i havent ever made wine (only elderflower 'champagne' or Sham-pagne as i like to call it).

I thought now would be a good time to make the most of the Elderberries i picked and froze in autumn. i got maybe a kilo or 2 of the little guys.

has anyone got any good recipes (and yeast suggestions) for a simple-ish elderberry wine?

Cheers

Chard

 

[Moley]

3 lbs Elderberries
3 lbs Sugar
1 tsp Citric Acid (or juice of 1 lemon)
1 tsp Pectolase
Yeast & Nutrient

Mash the berries in a bowl or small bucket and pour on 6 pints of boiling water. Add sugar and citric or lemon juice. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Cover and leave to cool to around 20°C. Add pectolase, yeast and nutrient. Cover and leave in a warm place, stirring morning and evening for 3 days. Strain through a fine mesh sieve into a demijohn but don't top up yet. Fit airlock. When initial vigourous fermentation has quietened and you're sure it's not going to overflow, top up to the base of the neck with cooled, boiled water.

Leave in a warm (preferably dark or dim) place for 1-2 months, by which time fermentation should have finished and a sediment dropped. Rack to another DJ, top up, leave somewhere cool and dark for at least 6 months before bottling. I would usually reckon that anything involving elderberries needs at least 12 months from starting to drinking.

 

[granda]

try this blog loads of great info about wine making. i have made this recipe and it was great
http://wijnmaker.blogspot.com/2007/08/s ... k-had.html
good luck with wine

 

[smoothlager]

I will have a go at this, thanks

 

[smoothlager]

3 lbs Elderberries
3 lbs Sugar
1 tsp Citric Acid (or juice of 1 lemon)
1 tsp Pectolase
Yeast & Nutrient
quote]

If I used this recipe have you any idea what percentage this is likely to be before using a hydrometer?

 

[Titch]

Moley i have just collected my first ever elderberries got just voer 4lb of them, can i just bung them in with the recipe, or do i need to adjust the sugar?

thanks

3 lbs Elderberries
3 lbs Sugar
1 tsp Citric Acid (or juice of 1 lemon)
1 tsp Pectolase
Yeast & Nutrient

 

[Titch]

right ive given thema good forking

washed them floated off the rubbish, in the pan with sugar and water citric acid
now just waiting for the cool down

taste nice as it is

BTW i used a small fruit press to get some juice out then bunged the whole lot including spent berries into the pan

hope this works out ok

 

[Titch]

Mash the berries in a bowl or small bucket and pour on 6 pints of boiling water. Add sugar and citric or lemon juice. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Cover and leave to cool to around 20°C. Add pectolase, yeast and nutrient. Cover and leave in a warm place, stirring morning and evening for 3 days. Strain through a fine mesh sieve into a demijohn but don't top up yet. Fit airlock. When initial vigourous fermentation has quietened and you're sure it's not going to overflow, top up to the base of the neck with cooled, boiled water.

just waiting while it cools, and it occured to me, what size batch is this for?
6 pints is 3 litres is it not?plus berrys makes the volume over 5 litres so will not fit

have i missed something?
do i drain off the berrys before putting in the yeast?
should i just split it to two vessels?

thanks again

 

[bluebell]

Im no expert but I believe it is normal to remove berries by filtering then add water some of which will idealy have the sugar predisolved in it, then put in fermentaion vessels. I think on another thread Moley said if you put sugar in then filter it will remove a significant amount of the sugar and thus impact strength?

 

[Moley]

Ok, that's a fairly basic recipe which I've copied from somewhere without thinking about it very much. It does seem flawed now, but I've learned a lot more since January 2010.

I will need to check with David to find out what volume of juice you would get out of 3lbs of elderberries but 6 pints water + 1.5 pints from sugar bulking doesn't leave much room in a gallon(ish) DJ. It sounds rather like a CJJB recipe, which would usually make too much and leave a smaller volume in a side bottle for topping up after racking.

Re. adding the sugar from the start, you're not going to have much left from the elderberries after straining, and that will be mostly pips, so there wouldn't be much sugar discarded. Even so, it might be better to just give it half a pound to start with and add the rest after straining.

 

[Titch]

yeah i found it in CJJ book, what i ended up doing was split it between two DJs

one is bubbling away OG was 1062 so should end up around 8.5% if left to ferment out

other one i added a little extra sugar OG was 1076 should get to around 10.3%

going to put them somewhere dark now, as my brown DJs were dirty when i did it, there currently soaking on the windowsill