Elderberry from steamed juice

[Original Mac]

Just finished racking some elderberry which is now nice and clear. A quick testy taster indicates potential for something nice but not yet. I invested in the steam juicer to get wine that would be drinkable sooner than the traditional method of elderberry winemaking but how long should I wait before bottling/sampling? Or should I leave it in demijohns for say six months and bottle as required? I appreciate that tasting is the ultimate guide (its a hard life being a winemaker) but would like a ball park timescale to leave things before serious sampling

recipe, 6 litres steamed elderberry juice (= 21 lbs elderberries)
3 litres Beaverdale Cab Sab concentrate (= 9 litres grape juice)
half the oak from Beaverdale kit
3kg sugar
Vintners Harvest VR21 yeast
15ml each of citric and tronzymol
SG 1080, FG 992 and 25 litres in 5 plastic demijohns

edit, it made more than 25 litres but some has been used for topping up other elderberry brews

[lockwood1956]

I would age in DJ's for at least 3 months, then start tasting

bottle when you are happy with it

[WVMountaineerJack]

We love doing elderberries like this, you dont have to wait long before you can drink it. We also like to do 100% steamed elderberry juice, age in the carboy for a year and bottle and start drinking. Its such a great wine on its own without having all that tannin overload when you steam them up. Crackedcork

[Original Mac]

Cheers m'dears, really looking forward to this

On a similar note the second batch is way ahead of the first. The only difference in method was to start in a bucket and add a teaspoon of pectolase per gallon. Less froth (thanks Bob et al) and much faster clearing. Port is also showing great potential.


One happy bunny who is going to have to invest in some bettabottles or similar to save space.

Life is good (Now where have I heard that before????)