squeezing elderberries

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

frydogbrews

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 27, 2011
Messages
2,763
Reaction score
46
Location
nowhere
ok, i went out and picked a bunch of the ripe elderberries in my backyard. after yoinking all the little berries off, i had about 7 cups of fruit, de-stemmed.
in my boundless intelligence, i decided to just slap them into the food processor and pulse a few times. bad idea. what came out was funky smelling and musty tasting olive green weirdness. i strained it through some cheesecloth, puked in my mouth a little, then dumped it down the drain. poop.

i will get one more shot at this, as only 1/3 of my fruit was ripe. i plan on adding it to a mead i have in my secondary. might not be enough for flavor, but it should make it a nice color.

with only one shot left, i don't want to mess it up. what's the best way to press juice out of elderberries? i've read about boiling in water and bruising, but i don't want to add a bunch of water to my mead unless i have to.

thanks in advance folks!
 
First, make sure you are only using ripe fruit. Elderberries that are not ripe contain Sambunigrin and other cyanide-like toxins that can poison you.

Steam juicing, which happens to break down many of these toxins can be a good option. Steaming also breaks down the green goo (I call it Oobleck, from the Dr. Seuss book).

I usually freeze/thaw them and ferment on the fruit. I usually keep the fruit in a bag and remove it after 3-5 days, but I'm usually using 2-4 pounds per gallon. If you are using a small amount you can leave it longer. When I remove the fruit, I let all the free-run liquid come out into the container, but the stuff I squeeze/press I keep separate. If you squeeze the elderberries like that into your main batch the tannins may be overwhelming. With a small amount of fruit that may not be such an issue, but I'd do it with caution.

If you just want to squeeze the frozen/thawed berries in a cheese cloth and add the juice, that will also work. I just wouldn't squeeze them to death trying to get every last drop out as that will likely leave it bitter.

The Oobleck is a major PITA. It loves to stick to plastic. Keep the fruit in a nylon bag helps as the bag will bind a lot of it. After you have racked, this green stuff in your primary will need to be cleaned out. Do not ferment in a glass carboy as that makes cleaning so much more difficult. Ferment in a bucket. After you have racked it out, the green goo can be removed readily with vegetable oil. A can of Pam, and a few paper towels and it will come off, then you can clean the oil out with soapy water. The best idea I recently heard was to use a food-grade, 5-gallon, plastic liner inside your bucket - then you can simply rack and toss it.

Good luck with them.

Medsen
 
Medsen, thanks a ton for all the info, that's huge! most immediate thing i see is that i shouldn't add them to the secondary, just mix up a new batch of mead and use them in the primary. that's easy enough as i still have 3 gallons of honey locust honey (lightest honey i have ever seen!)
thanks again!
 
Can you post a pic of your elderberry bush? I hear there are lots along the train tracks up in my neck of the woods, but i don't know what they look like. I too would like to use them in mead.
 
most immediate thing i see is that i shouldn't add them to the secondary,

Actually, if you don't have too many and want to maximize the aroma out of them, adding to the secondary is fine. You just don't necessarily want to leave the whole berries in there for extended periods. For adding the the secondary, I'd probably juice them and just add the juice.
 
A handy tip for elderberries, is to pick the whole head of berries.

Then you need to de-stalk them (right the way down to the berry unless you're steam juicing them). It's laborious as hell (a fork or an afro comb are usually the best) .....

Then just put them in a bowl or bucket of cold water (cold as in "tap cold"). If they float, then discard them. Just keep the ones that don't float, as the sugar content makes those heavier than water....

Oh and if you don't have a steam juicer, that's fine. They can then be treated in the same way as black currants, blueberries etc to "boost" the juiciness. Just bring them to the boil (about a pint of water per pound weight of fruit), then simmer for 5 or 10 minutes, stirring a little.

Then you can just strain out the pulp from the juice.

If you worked out the ratio of fruit in a gallon, then you know how much to use ("normal" elderberry wine would be about 3 or 4lb per gallon).

Then just let it cool, before adding pectolase for a day or two (you can do pectolase and sulphite at the same time).

Just add the elderberry juice to the water part of the batch and add it all to the honey before mixing it in - cold of course, don't heat the honey unless it's crystalised (even then, you can just scoop it out the container and blitz it in a sanitised liquidiser)......
 
Back
Top