Elderberry wine

[suzeaustin]

I've just tried my first elderberry wine, made last year. It's probably a bit early to try it, but didn't want to make more if it was horrible and it's time to pick again.
It was pretty thin, but drinkable. If I leave it longer will it taste better, or should I use more elderberries or add a few raisins to give it some body? Anyone got a great recipe for this year please?
Thanks,
Sue.

[MKG]

It would help if you told us the main ingredients, suze - how many pounds of elderberries, how much sugar - and how long you left the elderberries in there before straining them off.

Elderberries, which are virtually chemically identical to grapes apart from the sugar content, usually give you all the body you want, so thin sounds a bit worrying - unless you used too few berries or took them out too early. Adding more berries or even raisins at this stage will do very little (except sweeten the stuff). You could try adding a glug of some cordial (blackcurrant, for instance), but not too much unless you want the wine flavour to be swamped. As for leaving it to mature even further, that again depends upon the amount of fruit you used to make it. Light-bodied wines are probably at their best after a year, but heavy-bodied ones can improve for much, much longer.

The recipe I usually use is dead simple ...

4 lbs elderberries, one kilo sugar, juice of half a lemon. Freeze the berries first, as that aids in juice extraction. Thaw them in a bucket, then tip in the sugar and add a kettleful of boiling water. Stir to dissolve the sugar. When cool, get your hands in there (or use some mashing implement, but nothing's better than your hands) and squeeze the life out of everything you can find. Chuck in some wine yeast (a level teaspoon) and the lemon juice, make up to about 7 pints with tepid water, cover, and leave in a warmish place. Check for the start of fermentation (bubbly appearance on the top of the liquid) and then leave for four days, stirring once or twice a day). After four days, strain the liquid into a demijohn, top up with tepid water, add an airlock, sit and wait. Rack when fermentation has finished, top up again, and leave to mature for as long as you can bear it.

You can add things like yeast nutrient, vitamin B1, pectic enzyme depending upon how you feel about those things. Usually, with elderberry, they're not necessary - but any little helps.

The important bit, I suppose, is not to begin to count that four days until you KNOW the fermentation has begun. If you begin the count as soon as you add the yeast but it's a bit sluggish in starting, you may actually only have a couple of days of fermentation on the berries, and that would lead to a thin, low-flavour wine. Sound familiar?

Mike

EDIT: Forgot to add ...

If you want a full-blown heavy red with a high alcohol content, you can increase the berries to 6 lbs, the sugar to 3.5 lbs and the on-the-berry fermentation time to 6 days. BUT, you have to add the extra sugar in increments (called feeding the yeast), you have to know how to use a hydrometer so that you know when to add it, and you have to be prepared to wait for 5 years for it to lose excess tannins. Then you have a wonderful wine.

[PlainQB]

We make elderberry wine often and I'd echo MKG. Use lots of fruit and squish the life out of it regularly. I think the technical term for said squishing is 'mashing and sparging'...

[Crickleymal]

We also make loads of elderberry, we tend to use 2 or 3 pounds of elderberries and a pound or so of sultanas (roughly chopped) and a good squeeze through the muslin when decanting into demijohns.
The main thing I've found with elderberry wine especially if you like it a bit dry is to leave it to mature for over a year. The best wine I have ever tasted was some elderberry that we forgot that we had. We discovered it when we dejunked the understair cupboard and it was 5 years old. Absolutely superb, I'd rank it against any wine that you could buy

[frozenthunderbolt]

I think the technical term for said squishing is 'mashing and sparging'...

Sorry to burst the bubble but this actualy relates to sprouting grains to produce amalaze enzyme so when they are dried, crushed and added to warm wet grain they will convert the starches to sugars that are useable by yeasts to produce alcohol. sparging is washing the converted grain with hot water to extract the last of the fermentable sugars

[suzeaustin]

Thanks for those. I don't think the recipe was dissimilar, but it did say not to crush the fruit, I remember that, so that's probably the problem. I'll print out yours and make sure it gets mashed not stirred and try again.
Cheers,
Suze.

[gregorach]

I think the technical term for said squishing is 'mashing and sparging'...

Sorry to burst the bubble but this actualy relates to sprouting grains to produce amalaze enzyme so when they are dried, crushed and added to warm wet grain they will convert the starches to sugars that are useable by yeasts to produce alcohol.[/quote

That's malting. Mashing refers to the bit where you steep your crushed malted grains in hot water to produce wort.

[frozenthunderbolt]

I think the technical term for said squishing is 'mashing and sparging'...

Sorry to burst the bubble but this actualy relates to sprouting grains to produce amalaze enzyme so when they are dried, crushed and added to warm wet grain they will convert the starches to sugars that are useable by yeasts to produce alcohol.[/quote

That's malting. Mashing refers to the bit where you steep your crushed malted grains in hot water to produce wort.

Cheer mate - your're right - overindulgence prior to typing must have fuzzed my thinking - My appoplogies PLainQB

[that_sarah_girl]

the above receipe sounds good MKG...

I have about 2lbs of elderberries sat in my freezer and plan to pick some more when I get the chance...but because I'm a little lazy/short of time if I don't manage to pick another 2lb, will a total of 3lb elderberries and 1lb raisins work or would I have to adjust the receipe a little?

Also, can you eat raw elderberries?
last time I went picking I took my little boy with me and spend a lot of time stopping him from trying to eat them (he thought it was the same as going blackberry picking) will they do him any harm or is it ok to let him try one and make up his own mind once he realises they don't taste very nice on their own...

[MKG]

Yes, that would work, tsg, and would be even better if you replaced the missing elderberries with blackberries (that's those things on the next bush along ). Your elderberry and raisin version may be a bit on the thin side, but it would have quite an alcoholic kick.

Yes, you can eat raw elderberries. Try one and you'll discover why no-one particularly wants to, though. They're not toxic at all, although lots of people think they are. The same goes for rowanberries.

Mike