2018 Elderberry thread. The under apreciated fruit.

[pgentile]

Oh yes you are glad you figured that out. I have heard of folks making a wine of some sort from it, but I also know all parts of the plant are poisonous to one degree or another, including the flesh of the berries and anything made from them.

Yup, from what I've read it's poisonous to mammals unless cooked. Birds can eat it, but yes the whole plant is poisonous. Not going to mess with

 

[cmason1957]

Just in case anyone stumbles across this later and doesn't know;

PokeBerry's look like this


And Elderberries look like this:


The best way to find elderberries is in the spring and early summer, the heads are beautiful white things, you can't hardly miss them, once you know what they look like.

 

[Masbustelo]

Also pokeberries are much larger. In the photos above they seem similar in size. In real life, they aren't.

 

[Masbustelo]

I wanted to mention that since the elderberries are low in sugar, (like 1.040) you have to add a sweetener to ferment. I added 5 pound per gallon of fruit last year and got the 1.040 readout. The last two years I used honey to bring it up to 1.095 and am very pleased with the end result. The elderberries are high in tannin, but very low in acid, so you have to add acid to put it in a proper Ph range. I see Jack Keller had a recipe for Elderberry using 10 pounds per gallon. I might experiment with that this year, I also threw in a handful of medium oak chips at the beginning of ferment. Also used Opti-Red and Lallzyme-x. I usually don't sulfite at the beginning because I want the wine to spontaneously go into Malolactic fermentation, but you should have your yeast started and ready to add as soon as possible to avoid off flavors.