Wild ElderBerry Wine
Elderberry wine is not recommended for a first time wine maker. This recipe was very tedious which involves many hours of cleaning and sorting berries. It was a great afternoon with my girlfriends on the porch and after a while felt even relaxing like some may say about knitting. Afterwards after many months of waiting I had a lovely 12% alcohol bright ruby red and perfectly clear wine! The wine was full bodies and relatively dry which is just how I like it! I would not say this is a sweet wine.
Elderberries have many poisonous elements to proper care is paramount when making elderberry wine. Please ensure you are following best practices in terms of equipment and sanitation of brewery station through out the entire process! Please visit your local brewery supply store if you are interested in getting started with home brewery.
Finding Elderberries
It can be difficult depending on where you live to locate elderberries as they often do not sell them in stores. I found one of the fastest ways to locate elderberries was to start in your own neighbourhood. Elderberry can be a popular gardening plant and many people enjoy having these bushes and trees for their delicate white flowers in the spring and their berries in the summer attract many birds. Asking your neighbours or putting a call out in a public community channel can be one way to see if anyone near you would be willing to share their Elderberry bounty with you.
If you are looking to find elderberries in the wild, it is difficult but not impossible. One thing to always remember when foraging wild foods is to never take more than around 10% of what you find to insure there are enough left for wildlife to enjoy, and allow the plant to seed and spread. Blue elderberry can be found more in Western America around the rocky mountains and black elderberry grow throughout the Americas.Generally Elderberry grow in full sun, and can grow in moist or dry soil.
The berries are fairly recognizable as they form droopy cones of berries which pull their branches downwards. In the spring, they will form cones of small white flowers. They grow on either trees, or more commonly in America form large bushes consisting of canes which mulltiply as they grow. Leaves are light green and oval shapped with spiked edges. The stems when ripe are red and stems and seeds are poisonous so do not eat these berries raw and always fully de-stem and clean the berries before use.
Prepping Elderberries
Elderberries require a lot of prep. The stems and seeds are poisonious to ingest, paired with how small these berries are, the prep will be the hardest part of making this wine. When harvesting elderberry, use a pair of clippers or scissors and cut them off at the base of the cone in order to collect berries fast. Only collect the black cones of berries with red stems. Green berries or light red are not fully ripe and are poisonious.
Next you'll want to separate the berries from the stems. Some people freeze their cones as they find it easier to later separate them from the stems. I did not freeze my berries. You can use your hands, a comb, or a fork to pull the berries off the stems. I found rolling the berries through my fingers worked best to separate them from the stems without damaging the berries. Be sure to remove any stuck on stems, or unripe berries.The berries will stain, so wear gloves. Once sorted, submerge your berries in water in a sink and sift off the top any bugs, dirt, stems, or bad berries that float to the top.
Green Elderberry Goop
One thing I learned from Making elderberry wine is that these berries have a tendancy of creating a nightmare of clean up. Besides the staining that these berries create, some elderberries leave behind a green, sticky, goopy residue. This "goop" is not harmfull, just difficult to clean and your primary fermentation bucket, stirring spoon, and mesh bag might be covered in this residue. It is the consistency of glue when you peel a sticker off. I found the best way to remove this "goop" is to use vegetable or cannola oil. It may take several attempts working the oil onto the goop to remove it all. Afterwards rinse, and clean equipment with standard wine sanitizer solution.
1. Heat water on the stove and add sugar, allow it to reach a boil then turn off. Still to insure all Sugar is dissolved.
2. Take the prepped elderberries and place them in the straining bag inside the sanitised fermenting bucket.Crush the berries (a Potato masher works well). Elderberries do stain so wear used dark clothing.
3. Pour the boiling water over the crushed elderberries and stir. Allow to cool for a few hours and then add the yeast nutrient, acid blend and the crushed Campden tablet. Mix, and cover. If you do not have an airlock for your primary fermentation bucket, I found covering it with the lid and tying a tea towel on top worked fine for sealing off contaminants.
4. Add the pectic enzyme after 12 hours, mix and wait for a further 24 hours. Be sure to re-seal with airlock or cover with lid and towel.
5. Add the yeast onto the surface of the must after 24 hours, don't stir. Re-cover, or seal with airlock. We now enter the Primary fermentation stage.
6. Stir the wine daily for the first week of fermentation, after 2 weeks Lift the straining bag and allow it to drip-drain over the primary. Don't squeezing the bag. At this point you may notice that your elderberries may have left behind a horrible green sticky goop. Not all elderberries make this, it is no cause for concern, just a pain to clean. To clean green elderberry goop I find vegetable oil works best. Clean your equipement thuroughly with vegetable or canola oil until no goop remains, then sanatize as usual with win safe, sanatization solution.
7. Let the wine settle for a day, covered, and then syphon the wine into a demijohn and seal with an airlock and bung. You can check the gravity now if you have a hydrometer. The wine should be close to fully fermented by this point. Begin secondary fermentation for 1 month.
8. Allow the wine to condition in the demijohn secondary for 1 month to allow sediment to build up then syphon into a clean demijohn. Avoid putting the syphon right to the base as we don't want to transfer the sediment build up to our clean vessel. Seal with airlock and bung for atleast 1 more month to insure all fermentation has been completed.
9. After the second month, if no sediment has built up you can replace airlock with a cork and begin the aging phase. If any sediment builds up, syphon into a clean vessel one more, then seal with airlock (replace with corck once wine settels and bubbles stop). Age in demijohns for 6 months to 1 year.
10. After 6 months to 1 year, rack to bottles and allow them to continue to age, or drink and enjoy!
