Extract potential of Elderberries

[BritishBelgianTwst]

Hi,
I'm thinking of making some elderberry wine as I've got a couple of bushes/trees in my garden and the berries are almost ripe - waste not want not and all that.
I've not yet decided on a recipe so any help will be most welcome but I was wondering what kind of ABV I can hope to achieve with these blighters - if it isn't high enough I might add some sugar to beef up the brew.

Thanks,
Paul

[robharper]

If you want to make an actual wine, you will definitely need to add sugar. Probably something in the region of 2.5 - 3lb per gallon of wine.

[DREADSKIN]

i made three djs of this since last year (kept a load of the berries in the freezer. the first one i made my mashing the berries up and sticking them in the dj with 1 kg of sugar and lemon juice. it turnned out really tannic, and i still havnt drank those bottles yet.
however i made another on 2 months ago and am drinking a bit out of the dj. its not as tannic as i boiled the berries and then cieved them out. same with lemon and sugar. its turned out like a strong french wine. lovely.

[lollypopp]

our elderflowers are no where near ready, but we do have some ripe blackberries! this seems a little early to me, but then I never use to take that much interest in the hedgerows as I do nower days!!!

[BritishBelgianTwst]

our elderflowers are no where near ready, but we do have some ripe blackberries! this seems a little early to me, but then I never use to take that much interest in the hedgerows as I do nower days!!!

I live in Belgium and one of the bushes in my garden has ripe elderberries already - it's protected from the elements and gets plenty of sun. The elder tree in the other corner of the garden needs pruning drastically as I can't get to the top of it to pick the berries. I did speak with the father-in-law yesterday and he said there are loads in the local woods but they aren't ripe there yet.
I'm planning ahead so wanted to know what ABV I can hope to get.

[robharper]

The ABV you get will depend on how much sugar you put in and what yeast you use. You could probably ferment pure elderberry juice, but extracting that could be a pain and, frankly, I can't be bothered (besides, the tannin levels are likely to be monstrous). If you use a couple of kilos of berries cooked up in some water for the flavour, a kilo or so of sugar, and whatever other ingredients necessary to get a good ferment, along with a standard wine yeast, you'll probably get something like 12-13%. With some more sugar a standard wine yeast might go up to 14-15% maximum, but there are yeasts that can go higher.

By way of disclaimer, all this is off the top of my head, and I've not yet made an elderberry wine, though I've done quite a few other country wines and am planning to do elderberries this season.

[fatbloke]

Some handy info about elderberries here.......

Either way, they do contain sambunigrin, which might prove an issue if you have a sensitivity to it........

The best way to sort it out is to "heat extract" the juice.

Either a steam juice extractor, or by boiling/simmering (however much fruit to water ratio that the recipe suggests, then it can be topped up later - if necessary). Luc Volders suggests in his blog that they must be heated - for this very reason.

Oh, and yes, you can spend hours sorting them by hand. If you just pick the fruit heads and then flick the berries off the stalk with a fork, then put them in water, the ripe berries sink and the unripe ones float - which is handy to know as all the green parts of the plant and fruit are mildly toxic (read the link above and it's also why it's most convenient if you have access to a steam extractor).

there's a lot of recipes out there on the net, pick the one that sounds good. Pure elderberry wine can need ageing as they do contain a fair amount of tannin, so mixing it can also be good i.e. elderberry and apple etc etc...

Plus, you don't need to sieve them if you can steam extract the juice (my steam extractor was £11 plus shipping on ebay). Boiling/simmering and then straining through muslin will also do the job.

regards

fatbloke

[Mitchamitri]

I made wine last year 50% elderberries 50% blackberries and only found out about the potential poisons a few months back.. I'd forked the berries off the plant and boiled them with sugar but not for very long then mashed them up, straining them out of the final wine.

I am goin g to go careful as I dont want to poison myself - wat do you think the risk is?

[fatbloke]

When you've picked the berries and got them off the stems, you should rinse them in water so that any unripe berries float and can be binned.

I do that, but as I have a steam juice extractor, it's even easier, I don't have to bother with removing all the little stem bits that get left of some berries, the heat from the juicer sorts that out.

I seem to recall that all of the bits of the elder tree/bush, except the ripe fruit are toxic to varying degrees.....

regards

fatbloke

[coatesg]

Think I used the following recipe last year - worked a treat and produced a very dark, almost port like wine. If anything, it's a little sweet, but you can just reduce the sugar by 3oz or use a more tolerant yeast if you want it dry:

3lb elderberries
3lb sugar
1 tsp citric acid
Burgundy yeast

De-stalk the ripe berries (remove the unripe ones which float in water as per above!), crush them with a potato masher, and then pour over a gallon of boiling water. Let it cool to 21C, and then add the acid and the yeast (do this all in a small clean, sanitised bucket/fermenter - a 1-2 gallon one is ideal). Leave to ferment for 3 days, stirring daily. Then strain (fine sieve + muslin) onto the sugar in a demijohn under airlock - leave a bit of headspace until the ferment dies down (top up with water after this has finished). You'll want to keep it in the dark or in a covered/brown demijohn.

Once it's all done, rack it off and let it clear in te usual fashion. Bottle and age for at least 6 months.

I wouldn't worry too much about the potential toxins - people have been making elderberry wine for donkeys years, and apparently wine made from them is fine (whereas uncooked berries are mildly toxic). If you want to cook them first to make sure, it will work fine.

[GrafVonJon]

Will boiling the berries lead to problems with pectin making the wine hazy and difficult to clear?

I know this is an issue with some country wines (mainly boiled root veg I think). Just wondered if it applied here.
I intend to 2 DJs of elderberry wine as soon as they ripen near me.

For one I intend to just crush the elderberries, add the other ingreds and ferment.
For the other I was going to extract just the juice using my juicer to see if I can make a smoother, less tannic wine by ommitting the skins of the berries from the fruit.

Now I'm thinking I might try a 3rd DJ of boiled and sieved berries and compare all three.

Then I'll go buy more DJs for all the other fruits of autumn...

[bigbob]

have just recently been told about a neighbours garden overflowing with elderberries and was offered the chance to hae first dibs. i've read through about floating berries, long time to mellow etc but was wondering if anyone had any other advice on making elderberry wine as my wine making experience is somewhere between very little and none. was planning on following the recipe mentioned earlier on this thread and racking off until it stops dropping sediment before bottling and storing. was planning on just using beer bottles from the vast collection i seem to have gathered and capping them with crown caps as i have no corks and corking stuff. is there a problem with this and can anyone offer any other advice on making elderberry wine?? cheers guys

[bog69]

do you have to use citric acid in the recipe??? was going to make today but do not have any citric acid.

[boingy]

You can substitute lemon juice for the citric. They do the same job.