Elderberries & Sloes

[Geezah]

I had 3.5 kilo's of elderberries sat in my freezer since last autumn and a kilo of sloe's and decided now we have some warmer weather to get something going off them.
I put all 4.5 kilo's of fruit in a fermenting bin and added 2 crushed camdem tablets.



Then I mashed them with a potato masher and added 9 litres of boiling water.



I'll let this sit until tommorrow evening then I will add a couple of spoonfulls of citric acid and 3 litres of red grape juice then a packet of yeast.

...keep following this thread for updates....

[jmc]

Hi

Brave man.
There's potentialy a mouth-puckering amount of tartness & tanin in there.
I'd be interested to how hear how it tastes now and after you've brewed it on the pulp for a while
If you've mashed the sloes you may want to add some pectolase to help it clear later.

BTW: Talking of sloes...
I noticed (when I walked the dog today), that its a particularly good time at the moment to see where sloe bushes are.
The sloe bushes are flowering earlier than the (normally) very similar-looking hawthorn bushes.

Sloe bushes are in flower around here at the moment and I found a quite few that I didn't know about

Best of luck with your brew
ATB John

[Gordonmull]

Ah glad you posted that jmc. I've been seeing quite a bit of white in the hedgerows recently and was wondering what it was. I know where loads are now! Sweet!

[Geezah]

I left the brew on the fruit for 5 days fermenting, then strained the fruit out and left for another 7 days to ferment in the bucket.
Today it is down to 998 so its been transfered to 2 demijohns to age for a while.
It tasted quite sharp but it has retained a certain element of sweetness over the nuty bitterness thats present now.
Time to forget about this 1 for 3 months until it gets its next racking. I reckon this will come good eventually.

[jmc]

Hi Geezah

Sounds like you've got this under control.

I'd be interested to hear how you get on with it.

If the sharpmess/ tartness is too much after a few months you could still use it in a blend as it should have masses of fruit flavour.

ATB John

[Geezah]

Gave this a racking this weekend and its clearing nicely.



Taste: its gonna take 12 months I reckon for this to be palletable, but I got good expectations for this.
The flavour is still sharp, but I can tell its getting smoother.

[jmc]

Hi Geezah

Lovely colour.
Like you say, best to leave it for a few months and hope it calms down a bit !

ATB John