Elderberry Wine
At this time of year, hopefully there has been a good crop of elderberries havested. There are many recipes availiable for wines and stuff, but I wanted something quite simple and without all the additives and preservatives etc almost recipes seemed to suggest you cant brew without using additional nutrients, acids, vitamin suppliments etc. Here's my 'basic' recipe;-
3 ½ lbs Elderberries
3 lbs Sugar
7 pints Water
1 Lemon
yeast
Camden tablet
Crush the fruit adding 1 pint of cooled ‘boiled water’ and mix well
Crush 1 Camden Tablet in ½ cup of warm water and add to the above mixture
Leave in a cool place for 24 hours stirring occasionally
Strain the mixture through a fine cloth gently squeezing the liquid through
Boil 1 lb sugar in 2 pints of water until dissolved and allow to cool
Add the sugar water to the extracted juice.
Add the juice of 1 lemon
Add the yeast mixture and ferment for 10 days.
Pour off the top ‘wine’ into a demi-john, leaving as much sediment as possible behind
Boil 1 lb sugar in 2 pints water until dissolved then allow to cool
Add the cooled sugar water to the demi-john
Re-seal the demi-john with an air-lock and ferment for a further 14 days.
Boil 1 lb sugar in 2 pints water until dissolved then allow to cool
Add the cooled sugar water to the demi-john
Leave to continue fermenting until there are no further signs of fermentation.
You can add 1 campden tablet at this point to stabilise and prevent contamination.
Sython the wine off into bottles, cork and leave to stand for 6 months.
The wine may be ready to drink before this time and should be a clear deep red. Follow your normal sterilising practices. You can use Campden Tablets – at a ratio of 5 – 1pint hot water. Although I tent to use Baby bottle sterilising solutions.
I enjoyed a couple bottles of this last year and am just in the process of another batch.
Enjoy
