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  • Quick elderberry question

    As steam juicing is more efficient at extracting the juice does this mean I will get a more full bodied wine? Conversely does it also mean I need less juice to get the same result as pulp ferment?

    30lbs berrys in freezer and just spotted six heavily laden and as yet untouched bushes on the way to a job! Pity they are on a main road but a good wash should do the job.

    I have feeling I am going to be busy tomorrow...
    Okay, now I get it. The difference between drinkable and ready....

  • #2
    I dont thinks it really that steaming is more efficient for elderberries. If you freeze the berries and then thaw and crush them and let them soak in enzymes and either press them or ferment on the pulp you are going to get more body and more tannins. Steaming the elderberries releases the juices but not so much of the tannins. We have made 100% steamed elderberry juice wine and its very good, you can actually drink it much younger than doing a pulp fermentation. But, we also do the pulp fermentations and they are good too. We are also doing the crushed 2 different ways, one we got 2 gallons of juice from crushing them and putting them on enzymes overnight and pressing and another where we are using all juice from the crushed berries. These 2 are going to take longer to age than the steamed to be drinkable, but once they get there I hope that they are going to be really really good. Until then we can just keep making more of the steamed juice wine to drink while we are waiting.

    If you want to add a little body to your steamed juiced bannanas are an old standby and extra light dried malt extract dissolved in the hot juice is very good also.

    Crackedcork

    Originally posted by Original Mac View Post
    As steam juicing is more efficient at extracting the juice does this mean I will get a more full bodied wine? Conversely does it also mean I need less juice to get the same result as pulp ferment?

    30lbs berrys in freezer and just spotted six heavily laden and as yet untouched bushes on the way to a job! Pity they are on a main road but a good wash should do the job.

    I have feeling I am going to be busy tomorrow...
    WVMountaineer Jacks Elderberry and Meads USA

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    • #3
      Cheers mate, really wish to the two elders in my garden produced like those in your pics. Steamed 23lb today, first go at steaming and found less is more. Ended up with 8.25 litres of juice but figure I should have had 10 or more. First two batches I put 9lbs in (18lb total) and got 5.75 litres of juice (0.32 litres per lb and this took about 7 hours. Then trawling through here I found someone getting 1.6 litres from 4lbs in an hour. Soooo as my bags were all 3lb in weight I tried this amount twice for an hour and got a further 2.5 litres (0.416 litres per pound). Less is more it seems. Going to start tomorrow using a Beaverdale Cab Sab as RGJ and a couple of experiments with blackcurrant high juice and and blackberries to make a port (or portish). Not too impressed with blackberries from my foraging. They seem to have made a pact with the devil (nettles) that get through overalls and jeans. Man, I had itches that I just could not scratch.... Have seen an ad for thornless high cropping blackberry plants so that is my cunning plan for next year
      Okay, now I get it. The difference between drinkable and ready....

      Comment


      • #4
        Our yeild for steaming frozen and then thawed elderberries is about a US gallon of juice from about 10 pounds of fruit, steaming for about an hour. We also put the pulp in a Chinese had and let it drain while we are steaming the next load and we can get a little bit more out of this. Also one of the hints our steamer came with was to dump back the first couple of cups of steamed juice back onto the berries to get them to juice faster.

        Crackedcork
        WVMountaineer Jacks Elderberry and Meads USA

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