Elderberry wine at home: recipe

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Elderberry bushes grow in almost every dacha or garden. But not everyone knows that such unremarkable fruits make quite tasty homemade wine.

Homemade wine can be made from both black berries and its inflorescences. The black berry produces a thick, dark and rich wine, but the elderberry inflorescences produce a softer alcoholic drink with floral notes, light color.

Berry selection

Homemade elderberry wine is, of course, tasty and even he althy to some extent. But when choosing a berry, you should pay attention to its color. Elderberry should be only black and ripe. Making red elderberry wine at home is strongly discouraged. The fact is that such fruits are considered very toxic due to the high content of hydrocyanic acid in them, which acts on humans in the same way as poisonous mushrooms.

In black elderberryalso contains such a toxin, but in small doses, and only in the stalk and seeds. There are two common ways to eliminate the harmful effects of hydrocyanic acid:

1. Squeeze the juice from each berry. With this processing method, hydrocyanic acid will not get into elderberry wine, but the aroma of the drink will be less pronounced, due to the absence of benzaldehyde in it. This combination is able to decorate homemade wine with almond notes.
2. To preserve the rich aroma, the berry can be heat-treated. It destroys all the toxic effects of the acid, but retains the beneficial properties and coloring matter.

Main ingredients for elderberry wine

Preparing a drink does not require special skills or expensive equipment. The only thing required is:

• elderberries;
• water;
• sugar;
• water seal or rubber glove;
• suitable fermentation tank;
• gauze;
• raisin starter or wine yeast.

Elderberries must first be prepared for making wine using one of the methods presented above.

Raisin starter for homemade wine

This starter gives a homemade drink a more refined taste, but it must be prepared in advance.

For sourdough you will need:

• 150g raisins;
• 75g sugar;
• 350ml drinking water (38-45°C).

Cooking:

1. Dissolve sugar in warm water, pour the mixture into a jar and add raisins to it.
2. Place in a warm dark place for four hours.
3. Take out the raisins from the jar and grind in a blender or mixer.
4. The crushed dried fruits are again placed in a jar with sugar and water, we also add a couple of pieces of unwashed raisins.
5. Cover the neck of the jar with gauze and put it in a dark, warm place without drafts.
6. If after five or six days foam forms on the surface of the sourdough, then the sourdough is ready and can be used in making homemade wine. How to do it?

Elderberry wine with raisin sourdough. Cooking

Wine from black elderberry according to this recipe is very tasty, sweetish, with hints of raisins.

The strength of an alcoholic drink is 12-14%. The volume of the finished product is 7-7.5 liters.

Ingredients:

• 200 ml raisin starter;
• 3 kg of granulated sugar;
• 2.5 liters of drinking water;
• 5kg elderberries.

Cooking process:

1. Mix warm water with black elderberry juice, dissolve 2.3 kg of sugar in this must.
2. Add the raisin starter to the wort and pour it all into a 10 liter fermentation vessel.
3. Attach a water seal or rubber glove to the neck of the bottle.
4. Leave in a dark, warm place (20-23°C) for two weeks.
5. After the set time, the active fermentation of the drink will end, and it will be possible to remove the sediment from the wine withgauze.
6. Add sugar to the decanted elderberry wine, pour into an 8-liter container and put in a cool place for two months.
7. Within two months, it is recommended to periodically remove the sediment with the help of gauze folded three times.
8. After this time, homemade elderberry wine is removed from the sediment for the last time. The wine is then bottled.

Elderberry Flower Wine Recipe

The strength of the drink is 13-15%, the volume of the finished wine is 3 liters.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 kg of sugar;
• 5 l black elderberry juice;
• 5 liters of water;
• 2 tbsp. l lemon juice.

Cooking process:

1. Elderberry juice, lemon juice and 200 g of granulated sugar pour boiling water (3.5 liters) and put on fire.
2. Boil the wort until it begins to boil and remove from heat, cool to 24-26 ° C.
3. Dissolve the remaining sugar in 1.5 liters of warm water, put on fire and cook until thick.
4. Cool the resulting syrup.
5. Mix with wort, add raisin starter and pour into desired fermentation tank.
6. Install a water seal or glove on the neck of the container and put it in a dark place with a temperature of 20-23 ° С.
7. At the end of fermentation (14-16 days), remove wine sediment with gauze.
8. Take a sample of the wine and add sugar if necessary.
9. Leave in a cool place for 2-3 months, periodically removing sediment from the wine.
10. After - bottle homemade elderberry wine.

Frominflorescences

Berry flowers make soft and tart homemade wine.

Fortress 13-14%. The volume of the finished product is 5 liters.

Ingredients:

• 5 liters of drinking water;
• 1.5 kg of sugar;
• 150 ml raisin starter;
• 1 lemon;
• 1/2 cup elderberry florets;
• 2 pcs dried cloves.

Cooking process:

1. Dissolve 1 kg of granulated sugar in 5 liters of warm water, put on fire and cook until thick.
2. Cool the sugar syrup to room temperature.
3. Rinse the elderberry flowers well, place them in a fermentation container.
4. Add sugar syrup, lemon juice and raisin starter to the flowers, mix thoroughly.
5. Close the bottle with a water seal, gauze or medical glove.
6. Every day, homemade wine should be stirred and, if sediment occurs, remove it with gauze.
7. After five days, strain the wine and separate from the pomace.
8. Pour the elderberry wine back into the bottle and steep for another six days.
9. On the seventh day, dissolve 500 g of sugar in a liter of wine and pour back into the bottle, mix thoroughly.
10. At the end of fermentation (14-16 days), remove the wine sediment with gauze. Bottle and store in a cool place for three weeks.

Making homemade elderberry wine is very easy. But despite this, the drink has a rich, deep taste and is easy to drink. To obtain high-quality homemade wine, you must carefully select the ingredients and constantly monitorfermentation process. Subject to the rules and the recipe, elderberry wine at home will surely please with its qualities.