ElderberryWine

about

The ballon method mentioned below is pretty slick. Once you pour the wine stock into bottles it is important to keep air and rouge yeast out. This is accomplished by putting a ballon over the mouth of the bottle. The CO2 generated by the yeast inflates the ballon and keeps the whole system isolated from the world. Any interlock will work and you can age the wine in a carboy rather than a bunch of small bottles but that's just not how its done...

Strictly speaking yeast digest monosaccharides better than disaccharides (table sugar) so you should invert your sugar first. The yeast will develop the enzyme needed to invert the sugar themselves but it takes longer and probably negatively effects the flavor of the wine. Still I have never inverted my sugar first. If I try I'll report back the results.

full recipe

• 4lbs elderberries
• 7 pints water
• 4lb sugar

crush fruit, pour on 1qt boiling water that has cooled - mix well - take 1/3 of total sugar and boil in 3pints of water. allow to cool and stir into pulp. add yeast and ferment in vat for 7 days. strain pulp in put in bottles with another 1/3 of sugar in one pint of water. ballon and ferment for 10 days. clean out bottles and combine last 1/3 sugar in 1pint of water. ballon until all fermentation stops.

• 1qt elderberries =1.25lb
• 1qt sugar = 1.75lbs
• 1/3 total sugar = 3/4qts

Mead

• 4lbs elderberries (3.5 qt)
• 7 pints water
• 5lb honey (6 cups)

(actual batch size: 4.5 pints water, 9 cups berries, 1 qt honey, scotch ale yeast)

1. Bring berries and water to a boil and remove from heat.
2. Allow to cool below 170F and add honey.
3. Cool below 80F and pitch yeast**

• IG: 1.100
• FG: 1.020

**Champagne yeast could work but will probably yield a fairly dry mean. Scotch ale yeast (Tubby X2) was used out of convenience whereas a hefeweizen yeast might yield banana and clove notes.

Refined Recipe

• 4lb elderberries
• 7 pints water
• 4lb sugar

Email me if you are interested in making this.

1. crush fruit (3.25 qt) and pour on 1 qts water (boiled and cooled to sterilize). mix well
2. dissolve 0.75 quarts sugar in 3 pints water. allow to cool and stir in pulp
3. add yeast and ferment for 7 days
4. strain pulp (press to remove extra juice) and rebottle with 0.75 qts sugar dissolved in 1 pints water and ballon. ferment for 10 days
5. rebottle in clean bottles with remaining 0.75 qts sugar and 1 pints water. ballon and ferment until bubbles stop.

If you are not smart, and hopefully I have the correct logic, here is a python script to scale it for you:

"""
Usage: python elderberrywine.py <qts of berries>
"""
import sys

if len(sys.argv) == 2:
    berries = float(sys.argv[1])
else:
    berries = 3.25 #quarts

scale = berries / 3.25
print 'Scaling Recipe by %s' % (scale)
print "1.  crush fruit and pour on %s qts water (boiled and cooled to sterilize). mix well" % (scale)
print "2. dissolve %s quarts sugar in %s pints water. allow to cool and stir in pulp" % (0.75*scale, 3.0*scale)
print "3. add yeast and ferment for 7 days"
print "4. strain pulp (press to remove extra juice) and rebottle with %s qts sugar dissolved in %s pints water and ballon. ferment for 10 days" % (0.75*scale, scale)
print "5. rebottle in clean bottles with remaining %s qts sugar and %s pints water. ballon and ferment until bubbles stop." % (0.75*scale, scale)

Notes while making

• Curious that you boil the water to sterilze it but do nothing to the berries themselves. I wager our tap water is more sterile than wild unwashed berries
  • Finally saw the original recipe - Add campden tablet to crushed fruit and 1qt cooled water; let sit 2-24hrs
• By hand and with potato masher, having a hard time crushing berries
• Tossed water and sugar water before fully cooled
• Why not combine the water/water&sugar into one step? Maybe original recipe called for boiling water on fruit to sterilize (it won't do a good job tho)
• IG - 1.084@90F (1.088@60F) **recipe was wrong, this would have been a little lower
• Primary ferment 1.3 qt over on water, 0.3 qt over on sugar

-- ChristopherPepe - 12 Apr 2007