ELDERBERRY WINE RECIPE : Whytes Home Wine Equipment

ELDERBERRY WINE RECIPE : Whytes Home Wine Equipment

This red wine made from the bluish berries of the Elder Tree is well worth making. A very popular wine, deep red in colour, a full bodied, tannic wine that imitates a good quality commerical red table wine. The recipe can be adapted to make wine from dried elderberries or sloes all the year round

FRESH ELDERBERRY WINE (recipe to make one gallon of wine) OR USING DRIED ELDERBERRIES

Fresh Elderberries 1.5 kilos (3lbs)
or 250 grams of Dried Elderberries
White Granulated Sugar 1 kilo for dry wine
Or White Granulated Sugar 1.25 kilos for a medium wine
Or White Granulated Sugar 1.5 kilos for a sweet wine
Citric Acid (1 teaspoon)
Yeast and Yeast nutrient
Water

1 Campden Tablet
Potassium Sorbate (Stoppitt) as directed

EQUIPMENT NEEDED TO MAKE ONE GALLON OF WINE

5 litre/1 gallon white plastic food grade bin and lid
5 litre/1 gallon demijohn either glass or plastic
Cork with hole and airlock
Fine nylon Straining bag
Syphon
Hydrometer/Trial Jar (Optional)

RECIPE

Strip the fresh elderberries from the stalk by using a culinary fork, then weigh the berries and crush them in a food grade white polythene bucket. If using dried elderberries or sloes put them directly in the bin and pour on 2 pints of boiling water and dissolve the amount of granulated sugar required. Once cool - approximately 21C (75f) add the yeast, yeast nutrient and citric acid.

Cover well and leave in a warm place to ferment for 4/5 days.

Strain of the liquid into a glass demijohn, top up with cool boiled water and fit a cork and airlock. Continue to leave to ferment for approximately 4 to 6 weeks. When the wine has finished fermenting (test using a hydrometer, the reading should for a dry wine read 0.998sg.). Rack again in one months time. The wine should be stored in either a glass demijohn or bottled. If storing in a demijohn, top up with cool boiled water or red wine up to the neck of the demijohn and add one campden tablet and 1/4 teaspoon of Stoppit. Rack again in two months time.
The wine can be sweetened if necessary . This wine can be drunk within 3/6 months or left to mature

TIP: Adding an extra kilo of blackberries (2lb) at the bucket stage makes an excellent Port style wine