Homebrewers / Winemakers - a few questions about elderberry wine.

[BigShot]

I recently got 5 demijohns (1 gallon ones) for free, bought a fermenting tub, hydrometer and other assorted tat for winemaking and am going to go and harvest a load of elderberries to start a wine. There are plenty still good on the trees around here so should have more than enough for a couple of gallons of the stuff.

Firstly, I got some advice from the owner of the brew-shop I bought the tat from and he suggested freezing the berries on their stems and then shaking them off to avoid the mess of stripping them off with a fork. Good advice? Will freezing affect the fruit in any way that might make for a poorer (or indeed a better) wine?

In another thread someone suggested (using the fork method) stripping the berries off the stems over a sink of cold water to separate the ripe and unripe ones. Do I need to worry much about a few unripe (but still purple) ones getting into the mash or will it be fine with some in there?

My recipe calls for chopped raisins, the brew-shop guy suggested using grape juice (think it's a concentrate) he sells instead. Any verdict on that?

Finally, when I'm stripping the berries off the stems, how careful do I need to be to avoid stems getting into the mash? Do they really affect flavour a lot or should I relax a bit and not worry if a fair few small stems (just where they attach to a berry) get in too?

Can't wait to get this on the go now!

 

[British Red]

I don't freeze - but I do use the fork trick! I tend to take a fork out with me and come them off into a huge tupperware gathering tub. A few unripe wont hugely affect the flavour or a few tiny bits of stem.

Raisins and grape juice improve the "vinosity" (wine like) character of the drink and overcome the slightly "woody" flavour of elderberries. I prefer raisins TBH but its also good without. I have also used yeast nutrient before but don't find it necessary.

Any questions - shout

Red

 

[BigShot]

Thanks, Red.

Do you know if the grape juice would likely make a decent wine on its own? I'm half thinking about making the elder wine with raisins but don't want to waste the juice.
It's that or make a gallon of elderberry wine with raisins and a gallon with juice. Of course, only having one bucket that would mean either making the mash in a demijohn (messy) or freezing half the berries while one is in the bucket - but that adds another variable and I won't really know which I prefer! I don't really have the space (or the money right now) to have 2 big buckets on the go either.

I've got yeast nutrient already. You've got me wondering whether or not I should use it now.

I'll be sure to give you a shout if I have any more questions.

 

[British Red]

You can indeed make wine with grape juice conentrate. You can also add it to strong tea for a fun wine!

If you have the concentrate, use it - whats to lose?

Same with the nutrient - it won't do any harm

Red

 

[BigShot]

"What's to lose?"
Not much, I don't suppose.

I get the feeling it's one of those things where anything I make will most likely work, making a drink that shouldn't be too sickening and will be enough to make the room move a bit.

Think I might make a couple of batches, one with grapes and one with concentrate. Just to see.

We've got a spot of rain today after a few sunny days. Is that likely to affect the berries? I've always been told fruit was best to pick after a couple of good sunny days.

Worth picking now or wait for some sun and hope there's still good berries about then?

 

[British Red]

I've never worried - just pick em

 

[BigShot]

Cheers Red.
I've heard so much about harvests when things are just right I think I'm worrying far too much about it!
Haha.

I'll head off to the park tomorrow afternoon I think. There's usually a few metric tons of the things weighing the trees down in there. There's a spot I know surrounding a small mountain of horse manure too - the berries around there always look good.

 

[spamel]

There's loads around here, Firecrest and her fellah joined me on the local farm the other day poking the dead badger and gathering elderberries. We hardly made a dent in the crop, but I have filled up tubs and out them in the freezer for use later on. I also don't rate the fork trick now after trying it, too any berries were coming off with little bits of twig stuck to them. I developed a new technique whereby I hold the bunch in one hand and roll he berries off the stems with my thumb. A few little bits of stem go in but far less than with the fork. Maybe I am worrying to much about the sticks but I've never done this before and I'm getting a bit compulsive over the whole affair! I am going for zero tolerance on stick inclusions in my berries! :yikes:

 

[littlebiglane]

If you de-stalk the berries over a basin of water the unripe berries will float and you can just skim them offf. The ripe ones sink

 

[BigShot]

Spamel - think I might have done that when I made some elder and blackberry jam around this time last year.
I remember being kinda unimpressed with the fork method for the same reason.


littlebiglane - I think I saw that mentioned elsewhere too. I'll most certainly be giving that trick a try. Cheers

 

[addo]

I find a little stalk material makes it a tad drier, which I like.
If freezing, i bung the lot in the freezer, then pull off the berries off quick into the bucket when getting things ready for the first stage. If not I cut the worst of the stalks off letting the plump berries fall into the bucket.
All tastes good, especially with the juice and zest of a lemon and orange.

 

[Colin.W]

I've not used grape juice concentrate or raisins for years, I did use grape juice when I started because the book I had said it was needed, turns out the book was published on behalf of Boots the chemist who at the time used to sell grape juce and other wine making stuff.
Providing the livestock (spiders etc) and dust have been washed off the odd piece of stem and leaf wont hurt. at a guess freezing the elderberries to shake them off will still leave stem,
Some reasonable wines can be produced from the grape concentrates. I know wilkinsons sell different types as well as other fruit juce concentrates in their wine and brewing section
Lastly for red wines they should be fermented and stored in dark containers to stop the UV from turning it a funny colour. I have about 12 demijohns none of which are dark so I wrap brown paper around the ones with red wine in My local pub keeps me well supplied with wine bottles both clear and green

 

[BigShot]

Addo - I can't remember whether my recipe calls for lemon and orange, but some in the same book do and I think they'd go really well in the wine.


Colin - I've got 5 clear demijohns and don't anticipate a problem. Have you ever had a wine discolour? I was in a shop called Demijohn up in Edinburgh (http://www.demijohn.co.uk/) where everything is stored in big, round demijohns (5 gallons each maybe?) on open shelves and all of it looked really good. The elderberry wine I got was LOVELY.
That said, I'll be keeping it all out of sight anyway. Once it's into demijohns it'll be kept in a cupboard that has a fairly stable temperature and I reckon it'll go into dark bottles anyway so no problem there I guess.

I didn't know Wilkinson's had a brewing section. I'll have to pop into the one near here and see what's what.

I'll try my local for some bottles though - hadn't actually thought of that.


Cheers for the replies, all - keep 'em coming!

 

[BigShot]

What do people think about campden tablets?

Most of the recipes I see call for them to be crushed and dropped in several times, but the guy in the brew-shop suggested I'd be as well without and I've read elsewhere that wine made without them was far less headache-inducing.

Considering my love for all things organic and my recent step into organic allotment gardening I wonder how necessary it is to put it into the wine at all. I'd like to avoid it if possible at least.

Any good resources (websites ideally, I've run out of budget for new books lately) for organic winemaking?

 

[rich59]

Bigshot, excellent question.

I have been making good, bad, excellent and appalling elderberry wines over the last 15-20 years. I'm actually getting quite good at it now.

Stripping the berries - I very cleanly stripped 40-50lb fruit in 2 hours a few weeks ago. The secret is to harvest ripe bunches. Then take about 8 bunches by the stems in one hand and shake them vigorously in a bucket with a bit of plastic (I used a carrier bag) roughly lidding them so only a few fly out. This is about 10 times faster than with a fork and does less damage to the berries, leaves more stalk behind, and leaves under ripe berries and dried old ones back on the stalk.

If you get more than the occasional stalk then you can roll the berries down a table to leave the stalks behind.

I use 4lb fruit to the gallon. I don't add any other fruit or concentrate or acid or juice; just water and sugar.

Campden tablets are probably essential for white wines but I think you could get away without them with red wine.

It is good to use a pectolytic enzyme - some bushes you will get away without, others leave a cloudy haze difficult to clear if you don't use enzyme in the first place.

Steps I go through:-

Pick (taste the berries off each bush and select bushes that have nice tasting berries)
Strip
Crush
Add yeast - a wine yeast from a supplier.
Ferment the crushed fruit (in a covered bucket) - shaking down the fruit cap a couple of times a day. I do this for 1-2 days.
Then squeeze out the juice through a cloth bag,

Meanwhile I have got some cooled boiled water - into some of this I dissolve 1lb 14 oz sugar. (The boiling is all about driving off dissolved oxygen, so boil it for a few minutes to drive it nearly all off)

Into the demijohn then goes:- the juice, the dissolved sugar, and then topped up with more cooled boiled water - halfway up the shoulders, not right to the top.

Then fit a trap and let it ferment. (In the house this time of year)

When slower fermentation top up to the neck with more cooled boiled water.

When it completely stops fermenting place it somewhere cold for a couple of weeks to start clearing before first racking.

If I can I top up after racking with glass marbles - reduces the air without introducing more water or juice or sugar.

A month later I either rack again or if I'm ready and it is clear I bottle it direct.

 

[BigShot]

Cheers, Rich.
Brilliant response!

When you say racking with glass marbles - what exactly do you mean? I understand what racking is, by the way, just not how marbles fit into it - you do mean marbles like those we played with as kids, right?
Also, what do you mean by "shaking down the fruit cap"?

Think I'll try a few methods this year (provided I can harvest enough berries) and see which I prefer. It will mean freezing some berries while my one bucket is used for previous batches but I can live with that.

So have I read it right, you mix yeast in with the crushed fruit and then a few days later add the water? Every other recipe I've seen adds water and yeast at the same time.
Is there any particular reason you do it that way around?

 

[rich59]

Glass marbles - is what I like to top up with after racking. Sorry for confusing phraseology.

Shaking down the fruit cap - When you crush the fruit you get a soupy liquid with juice, skins and seeds. Once it starts fermenting then the gas bubbles rise, but get trapped in the skins, so they rise to the top, out of the juice. Since you are trying to extract colour and flavour from the skins you need to get them back into the fermenting juice every once in a while.

Why do I add the sugar and water later? - Well firstly because I always have done. It probably doesn't make much difference really. Until recently there was a reason in that I didn't bother to dissolve the sugar, just chucked it into the demijohn to slowly dissolve of its own accord, so that way round it would have been a problem to add it to the crushed fruit and find I left half of it behind.

Also it worked out better timing wise. Picking, stripping and crushing and getting into your bucket with the yeast seemed quite enough to do the first day.

Also I gave you a simplified description of what I do. I don't actually boil most of the water these days. Instead I get the oxygen out by starting a fermentation in the sugar and water mix by adding some yeast and some yeast nutrient crystals from the wine shop. This can take a day or 2 get going so I can be doing that sort of stuff after the harvesting day if I delay the putting together rather than before I harvest.

Also... it will only ferment to 5-7% alcohol before running out of sugar so there is a different/ lighter extraction of flavours and colour. If you instead put all the sugar and waer in at the start and ferment for a week on the fruit then you will extract more stuff. That may be good, or maybe not depending on the flavour you want out of it at the end. As an example of what you might not want:- A couple of years back I tried making "eldeberry gin" like slow gin. I only had the fruit in the gin for a day or 2 but boy did it taste strong of undesirable flavours.

So.. I guess you get a different wine for different methods - try it different ways and see what you like.

 

[Colin.W]

I use pectalose in all the wines I make although some fruit, flowers etc have almost no pectin I have found it does help to produce a clear wine.despite making wine for many years I've only recently started using a hydrometer to regulate the sweetness and alcohol content (Wendy dont like it too dry) with reasonable results, I made some elder flower champagne last year using the hydrometer to control the sugar/alcohol ended up with a medium sweet sparkly wine with a kick like a cart horse, all 10 bottles went for my daughters 21st with some lovely printed labels done by my youngest. some people took a lot of comvincing it was home made because of the horror stories of home made wines they didnt believe wine that good could be produced at home

 

[BigShot]

Rich - thanks for the detailed reply. I'll almost certainly give that method a go... though whether it will be this time or next year I can't say!

Back to the marbles... are you saying that when you rack the wine (losing a bit of liquid in the process) you put marbles like this into the demijohn?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_(toy)

There's not much to this question so here it is in all it's blunt glory...

Why?



Colin - I think a lot of the horror stories may well be justified! Someone I was talking to about brewing about a year ago told me he makes beer from the kits but puts twice the amount of syrup in to get extra strong booze. It sounded absolutely horrible!
I'm hoping people won't believe my wines are home-brewed either... but I'm getting ahead of myself there.
I've got a hydrometer from the off, not so much for control at first, I'll just be following the recipes, but I'd like to be able to take the necessary readings to see what alcohol content I'm ending up with.

 

[nicodiemus]

With double kits, it wouldn't be extra alcoholic, it would be extra bitter, that's all. This is perfectly normal hop-head behaviour, the rest of us brewers tend to smile and nod and let them get on with it.