Elderberry wine diary

[Beer_Belly]

I've just found a load of elderberries in the coppice surrounding the allotments. They're now in a big bag in my garden (since loads of earwigs suddenly appeared)
I'm now off to look up recipes - I'll post you a blow-by-blow account here as I go on.

[Doris_Pinks]

Just put my third gallon of elderberry wine on the go! Love the stuff and it often does not get from the demi-jon to the bottles!
If you can't find a recipe let me know. Hope yours tastes as good as mine last year.  Dotty P.

[Beer_Belly]

OK here's part 1 of the diary (this my own recipe)

Recipe (metric sorry since I've only got a metric scale)

1.6 kg elderberries (destalked & washed - remove earwigs)
5 litres water (1 gallon)
1 kg granulated sugar
200g roughly chopped dried raisens
1 large glass orange juice
2 large tablespoons of honey
1 ripe banana (frozen, then defrosted and chopped)
yeast (all I could find was dried bakers yeast)

Equipment
Large plastic bucket (I use one of those mini-dustbin things with a lid)
Demi-john
6 empty bottles
kettle
saucepan
heating pad (or a warm place )

Procedure
Day 1
Dump the elderberries in the plastic bucket
Add the raisens and banana
Add 5 litres boiling water
Add 2 large tablespoons of honey
Add the orange juice
Mash the berries with a potato masher and leave for a day.

[Beer_Belly]

Day 2.
Give the "mash" a good stirring.

Fill a large saucepan with the mash juice (it doesn't matter it there's solid in there but try to have mostly liquid and remember to leave enough room for the sugar)

Heat until boiling and add the sugar a little at a time until it's all dissolved.
Pour this napalm - hot & sticky so be careful - back into the plastic bucket and give it a stir.

When the mixture is luke-warm sprinkle in some yeast and stir.

Put the lid on. (I put a teatowel between the container and the lid to improve the barrier to fruit flies)

[Beer_Belly]

Note: If fermentation doesn't start you'll need to make a starter-mix.

Add a teasp of sugar to a glass of orange juice and nuke in the microwave until it's luke warm.

Add some yeast, stir, cover and leave in a warm place.

When it's nice and frothy add it to you mash and stir it in.

This should kick-start the fermentation process.

[Beer_Belly]

Days 3 4 5 & possibly 6

Stir twice a day until it stops frothing

[Beer_Belly]

Day 7 (or whenever it's stopped frothing)

Rack into a demi-john

Dissolve a cup of sugar in some of the juice (warm it first) then add back to the demi-john.

Add an airlock

leave to ferment.

(mine's bubbling away nicely at the moment)

[Palefire]

How's the wine doing, Beer Belly?

Love, Palefire

xxx

[cleo]

Beer Belly-best of luck but watch that baker`s yeast-you will need to rack off as soon as possible. It`s not like a proper wine yeast and may give `off` flavours.

One day I may start this winemaking lark up again

Somewhere I have a book of recipes for wine and beer that walked off with a few prizes back in the 80`s

Stephan.

[teresa]

Oh Stephan

If you find your book dust it off and let us all have some of your favourite recipe's
Teresa

[cleo]

found it-

This recipe may seem expensive now, it was made in May 1982 but gives four and a half gallons(5 if you do not have a cask to mature it in) of very good wine plus another two gallons if you do a second extraction.

2lb dried sloes

12oz dried billberries

1 1/2lb dried elderberries

4pt red grape concentrate

2kg Sugar

Nutrient

Acid mix of malic,tartaric and succinic acids

Burgundy Yeast

After two days of fermenting add 1lb raspberries and some rose petals.

After another two-three days rack off and make up to volume.

Add another Kg of sugar to  the gunk in the bucket plus one pt of red grape concentrate to give another two galls of a lighter wine.

Stephan.

[teresa]

That sounds lovely just copied and pasted it for hubby he loves the red wines.
What others do you have?
Teresa

[Beer_Belly]

Day 30 (should probably been earlier but I was on my hols)

Rack into a clean demi-john and add a half a cup of sugar dissolved in some hot water.

Replace airlock and hope fermentation continues (fingers crossed)

(It's a lovely deep red colour and smells wonderful btw)

[Beer_Belly]

I bottled it last night ( after adding 1 crushed campden tablet per gallon) I got 10 bottles and a little over which I drank - it's a little sweet but nice enough - it should mature nicely.