Elderberry Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Bruise the elderberries and mix them with 1 quart of water.
Strain the juice through a fine sieve.
Add 1 pound of sugar to every quart of diluted juice.
Boil the mixture for 15 minutes and let it ferment.
Make a larger batch
For a larger batch, bruise a bushel of elderberries, dilute them with 10 gallons of water, and boil briefly.
Strain the juice and add 3/4 pound of sugar for every quart of juice.
Ferment and bottle
While still warm, add 1/2 pint of yeast and fill the cask with reserved liquor.
When the wine is clear (in about three months), draw it off from the lees and bottle.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Elderberries
- Provide the fruit flavour and colour that define the wine.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast to produce alcohol and balances the wine's tartness with sweetness.
- Yeast
- Converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
The step that matters
Adding the yeast while still warm. Yeast works best in warm, not hot, liquid; very hot liquid can kill it, so the mixture must cool enough to be safe for the yeast before it is added.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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