elderberry bush/tree bumper crop

[Ex Member - Sidney Bounty]

We have a bumper crop of red elderberries around were I am are they worth picking for making wine most of what I have seen on line is the blue or black elderberries and what else could I use them for from what I have read they are poisonous whats up with that then?

 

[Wayland]

If they are the same thing as the elderberries we get on this side of the pond they make good jelly mixed with some crab apples.

 

[Shewie]

............ most of what I have seen on line is the blue or black elderberries and what else could I use them for ?

We used to use them as an early form of paintball fired from a catapult with a Kinder egg tub modification.

 

[hiho]

bet your parents where pleased at that

 

[Shewie]

bet your parents where pleased at that

My mum used to go ape about it, especially if I still had my school uniform on.

Happy days

 

[xylaria]

We have a bumper crop of red elderberries around were I am are they worth picking for making wine most of what I have seen on line is the blue or black elderberries and what else could I use them for from what I have read they are poisonous whats up with that then?

I have what we think is a cultivar of red elder on my allotment, it very rarely makes fruit so I have no idea how edible they are. However this website here is very well researched. Try looking at first nation based info as well regards cooking. Rich59 collect elders send him Pm and ask him if he does anything with them. I wouldn't try eating too many of them raw, even black Elder can cause queesyness raw.

 

[Ex Member - Sidney Bounty]

thanks for the reference!

from the sounds of it think Ill pass on em....

 

[badgeringtim]

If they are elderberries (sambucca nigra) then wine is simply the best thing to do with them, use (some) of the flowers in spring to make champayne then berries in the late autumn to make wine.
The wines i have made have varied tremendously with some tasting almost porty but many erm... not. Id use a fruit heavy recipy is all i can recomend but if someone has a consistantly successfull recipy id like to know it! I suspect its just the curse of homebrew and small batches being variable.

 

[PJMCBear]

The elder is a staple of my wine cellar. Edlerflower wine on it's own, brewed with ginger it's excellent. I make it from the fruit too. Trouble is, I never save any - I just love the taste.

 

[xylaria]

Edible when cooked.

a bit dodgy raw. Quite a few first nation tribes eat berries that are regarded as poisonous by modern science. Fruit like choke cherries the toxins are denatured by crushing the fruit and either cooking or drying. The fruit acids and the air react with prussic acid rendering it harmless. Personally I would find out how it should be cooked first. I have drunk quite a large qunatity of black Elder wine apart from the invisable axe in head the next day I lived.

Red elder is common in canada and is sometimes planted in parks in britian. Ornimental cultivars are common in gardens.They aren't the same plant as european black Elder.