Elderberry Wine - well let's hope so!

So we will return to Torun in the next blog. But, just a quick alcohol related note. You may recall me making some Elderflower wine, champagne and cordial. Well the wine has matured after about 3 or 4 months in the demijohn and has made a magnificent floral white wine. It looks something like this on a nice warm day when chilled.

So if you don't pick all the flowers you end up with some berries remaining later in the year. Also, if you remember to go and pick them you can make some wine, apparently. I found when I got to my harvest ground that someone who was sneakier than I, had already been and pillaged the area. Luckily, they must have been short as there were still some berries on the upper branches, but the wind had thinned out the density somewhat. I even picked a few dried bunches as well just to try and get more flavour into the wine as I was worried that I didn't have enough. I have never tried to make it but, most recipes called for like 1.5kgs of berries. I only had about 450g, so, we will have to see how it goes.

So now a quick little wine making maths:

This

Minus this

And this

Gives you these

And then later this.

So the crushed berries have now been added to 2.5L water, some sugar (500g), some citric acid (1tsp probably too much to be honest) and some yeast (1 packet of red wine yeast) of course. We will see what happens, it isn't bubbling away with any intensity yet, but we will hope to hear it soon!