In case you're curious...
In which SotK and I attempt to make elderberry wine for the first time and invite you to join us on our adventure. :)
We have begun fermenting the wine in demijohns as of tonight. We actually began the process yesterday night (not including picking the elderberries).
Step One (yesterday): Elderberries de-stalked, and ready to be soaked in hot water (with campden tablets) overnight.
Spoiler
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Step Two (tonight): More hot water, sugar, pectin and yeast added, and mixture transferred into the demijohns.
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If anyone wants the exact recipe or has questions, let me know! :)
Good luck with this - my parents used to make elderberry and other wines, so it's good to see someone doing the same. One word of warning: it can ferment very vigorously if it gets too warm - the purple froth might be pretty but is a pain to clean up.
Haha, we almost had this problem, but we think we've solved that now :)
How's it going? Still bubbling gently, as a guess.
Oh dear, I meant to post an update :P
Step Three: Three days after 'step two', we strained the mixture through muslin to get rid of the berry and seed mush, then transferred it back into the demijohns. We replaced the airlocks, and it's now in the process of fermenting for a further six weeks. It's now a darker red colour, and is bubbling much more slowly. :)
That all sounds good. At a guess it might be drinkable for Christmas, though you might want to leave it longer. I can't remember how long my parents used to let it mature.
We're planning to siphon it out of the demijohns in maybe 3 weeks to get rid of silt and put it back for another six weeks of fermenting, then we're hoping it'll be done. :)
if it's still fermenting, you definitely want to leave it in the demijohns. Dealing with bottles that have blown their corks out, or even exploded, is not fun. And you lose the wine, of course :(
Yeah, that's what I mean, it (in theory) should be done in a few weeks, but we're leaving it for twice as long (SotK's parents advised we shouldn't do the next step until we notice no fermentation) :)