Produce > Drink ....

Elderberry wine diary

(1/3) > >>

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.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page