Homemade elderberry wine is an original tasting drink of medium strength. You can only use black berries and the color of the plant itself; in any case, the drink turns out to be unusual. You will find recipes for elderberry wine in our article.
Homemade elderberry wine - a drink with a tart taste
Ingredients
Elderberry fruit 3 kilograms Lemon acid 5 grams Raisin 110 grams
- Number of servings: 3
- Cooking time: 35 minutes
Elderberry wine: basic recipe
The main rule for preparing the drink is to take only fully ripe berries.
Ingredients:
- elderberry fruits (3 kg);
- water (3 l);
- granulated sugar (1 kg);
- carnation umbrellas (3 – 4 pcs) optional component;
- citric acid (5 g);
- raisins (110 g).
Technology:
- Crush the prepared berries.
- Mix the berry mass with sugar (100 g) and citric acid.
- Boil 2 liters of water and pour in the mashed berries. Stir and simmer for 15 minutes at low simmer.
- Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature.
- Filter the decoction. Squeeze out the sediment well and discard the cake.
- Prepare syrup from the remaining amount of sugar and water. Let it cool. Then mix with the berry juice obtained earlier.
- Add unwashed raisins (they will act as a fermentation catalyst) and cloves.
- Put a medical glove on the bottle or build a water seal. Place the future wine in a warm, dark room until fermentation is complete.
- Carefully pour off the drink so as not to disturb the sediment. Additionally filter through several layers of gauze.
If desired, you can add sugar or vodka to the wine to increase the strength.
Store the drink in tightly sealed bottles in a dark but not too cool place.
Elderberry dessert wine recipe
The finished wine prepared according to this recipe turns out sweet.
Ingredients:
- berry juice (10 l);
- water (5 l);
- granulated sugar (6 kg);
- wine yeast (see instructions on package).
Technology:
- Mix juice and water. Add 4.2 kg of granulated sugar to them. Pour the liquid into the bottle, filling it ¾ full. Place a water seal and leave for fermentation in a dark, warm room.
- Fermentation lasts 5 – 14 days. After the wine “calms down”, you need to carefully drain the liquid from the sediment.
- Add the remaining sugar to it.
- Pour the wine back into a clean bottle. Install a water seal. Move the container to a cool, dark place, such as a basement. The fermentation process will take 2 - 3 months. During this time, the wine will need to be carefully drained two to three times so as not to disturb the sediment that has formed.
- After fermentation is complete, the wine is again removed from the sediment and bottled.
The drink can now be served, but it is better to let it sit for several months. The taste will become deeper and brighter.
To make wine, you can take only fully ripened black berries. Red elderberry is poisonous and should not be used.
Elderberry bushes grow in almost every country house or garden. But not everyone knows that such unremarkable fruits make quite tasty homemade wine.
Homemade wine can be made from both the black berry and its inflorescences. The black berry produces a thick, dark and rich wine, but the elderberry inflorescences produce a softer, light-colored alcoholic drink with floral notes.
Berry selection
Homemade elderberry wine is, of course, tasty and to some extent even healthy. But when choosing a berry, you should pay attention to its color. Elderberries should only be black and ripe. Making red elderberry wine at home is strongly discouraged. The fact is that such fruits are considered very toxic due to the high content of hydrocyanic acid in them, which affects humans in the same way as poisonous mushrooms.
Black elderberry also contains this toxin, but in small doses, and only in the stalk and seeds. There are two common methods to eliminate the harmful effects of hydrocyanic acid:
- Squeeze the juice from each berry. With this processing method, hydrocyanic acid will not enter elderberry wine, but the aroma of the drink will be less pronounced due to the absence of benzaldehyde. This compound can enhance homemade wine with almond notes.
- To preserve the rich aroma, the berries can be heat treated. It destroys all the toxic effects of the acid, but retains the beneficial properties and coloring matter.
Basic ingredients for elderberry wine
Preparing the drink does not require special skills or expensive equipment. The only thing you need is:
- elderberries;
- water;
- sugar;
- water seal or rubber glove;
- suitable container for fermentation;
- gauze;
- raisin starter or wine yeast.
Elderberries must first be prepared for making wine using one of the methods presented above.
Raisin starter for homemade wine
This starter gives the homemade drink a more refined taste, but it must be prepared in advance.
For the starter you will need:
- 150 g raisins;
- 75 g sugar;
- 350 ml of drinking water (38-45 °C).
Preparation:
- Dissolve sugar in warm water, pour the mixture into a jar and add raisins to it.
- Place in a warm, dark place for four hours.
- We take the raisins out of the jar and grind them in a blender or mixer.
- Place the chopped dried fruits again in a jar with sugar and water, and also add a couple of unwashed raisins.
- Cover the neck of the jar with gauze and put it in a dark, warm place without drafts.
- If after five to six days foam has formed on the surface of the starter, then the starter is ready and can be used in making homemade wine. How to do it?
Elderberry wine with raisin sourdough. Preparation
Black elderberry wine according to this recipe turns out very tasty, sweetish, with notes of raisins.
The strength of the alcoholic drink is 12-14%. The volume of the finished product is 7-7.5 liters.
Ingredients:
- 200 ml raisin starter;
- 3 kg granulated sugar;
- 2.5 liters of drinking water;
- 5 kg elderberries.
Cooking process:
- Mix warm water with black elderberry juice, dissolve 2.3 kg of sugar in this wort.
- Add raisin starter to the wort and pour it all into a 10-liter fermentation container.
- Attach a water seal or rubber glove to the neck of the bottle.
- Leave in a dark, warm place (20-23 °C) for two weeks.
- After the allotted time has passed, the active fermentation of the drink will end, and it will be possible to remove the sediment from the wine using gauze.
- Add sugar to decatified elderberry wine, pour into an 8-liter container and put in a cool place for two months.
- For two months, it is recommended to periodically remove the sediment using gauze folded in three.
- After this time, homemade elderberry wine is removed from sediment for the last time. Then the wine is bottled.
Recipe for elderflower wine
The strength of the drink is 13-15%, the volume of the finished wine is 3 liters.
Ingredients:
- 1.5 kg sugar;
- 5 liters of black elderberry juice;
- 5 liters of water;
- 2 tbsp. l lemon juice.
Cooking process:
- Pour boiling water (3.5 liters) over elderberry juice, lemon juice and 200 g of granulated sugar and put on fire.
- Boil the wort until it begins to boil and remove from heat, cool to 24-26 °C.
- Dissolve the remaining sugar in 1.5 liters of warm water, put on fire and cook until thick.
- Cool the resulting syrup.
- Mix with wort, add raisin starter and pour into the required fermentation container.
- Place a water seal or glove on the neck of the container and put it in a dark place with a temperature of 20-23 °C.
- At the end of fermentation (14-16 days), remove the wine sediment using gauze.
- Take a wine sample and add sugar if necessary.
- Leave in a cool place for 2-3 months, periodically removing sediment from the wine.
- Afterwards, bottle homemade elderberry wine.
From inflorescences
The flowers of the berry make a soft and tart homemade wine.
Strength 13-14%. The volume of the finished product is 5 liters.
Ingredients:
- 5 liters of drinking water;
- 1.5 kg sugar;
- 150 ml raisin starter;
- 1 lemon;
- 1/2 cup elderberry blossoms;
- 2 pcs. dried cloves.
Cooking process:
- Dissolve 1 kg of granulated sugar in 5 liters of warm water, put on fire and cook until thick.
- Cool the sugar syrup to room temperature.
- Wash the elderberry flowers well and place them in a fermentation container.
- Add sugar syrup, lemon juice and raisin starter to the flowers, mix thoroughly.
- Close the bottle with a water seal, gauze or medical glove.
- Every day, homemade wine should be stirred and if sediment occurs, remove it with gauze.
- After five days, strain the wine and separate from the pomace.
- Pour the elderberry wine back into the bottle and leave for another six days.
- On the seventh day, dissolve 500 g of sugar in a liter of wine and pour it back into the bottle, mix thoroughly.
- At the end of fermentation (14-16 days), remove the wine sediment using gauze. Pour into bottles and store in a cool place for three weeks.
Making homemade elderberry wine is very easy. But despite this, the drink has a rich, deep taste and is easy to drink. To obtain high-quality homemade wine, you must carefully select the ingredients and constantly monitor the fermentation process. If you follow the rules and recipe, elderberry wine at home will definitely delight you with its qualities.
To make a beautiful wine with a rich taste, you can use more than just grapes. Many other berries or fruits are suitable for this. Anyone who wants to make good, tasty, aromatic, beautiful wine at home can learn the recipe for making a drink from black elderberry. The berries and flowers of such plants contain a large amount of useful substances. Due to this, they are often used in traditional folk medicine. Both black and red elderberries are suitable for cooking. The recipe for creating a delicious wine with a pleasant smell is given in this article. You don't need any special skills to cook.
Preparing Ingredients
To make wine using black elderberries, you will need the following ingredients:
From the harvested berries, it is first necessary to separate rotten, dried out, and stalks, which are quite capable of ruining the taste of the wine. You need to pour them into a saucepan, add sugar, and then mix all the contents and crush them. You need to wait until the black elderberry begins to release juice. After this, you can pour 2 liters of boiling water into the pan and stir the contents until all the sugar has dissolved.
Then you need to add cloves and natural ground cinnamon. All contents are brought to a boil, and then cooked over low heat for 15 minutes and mixed thoroughly.
The resulting wort must be cooled and yeast, crackers and a little lemon juice added. Then the pan is covered and wrapped with gauze folded in 3 or 4 layers. When bubbles begin to appear on the surface of the contents of the pan, the liquid wort must be separated from the pulp using an ordinary drushlag, clean gauze folded in three layers or a sieve.
The filtered liquid must be poured into the bottle for approximately? the entire volume and install a water seal on the neck. Thanks to this device, oxygen will not be able to penetrate inside, and carbon dioxide released during the fermentation process will escape freely. The assembled structure can be placed in the basement or any other dry, dark, cool room. The recipe requires that the black elderberry wine be infused at a temperature of 12 to 18 C°. The minimum required aging of the drink under such conditions will be approximately 40 days.
Then the wine from black elderberries is separated from the sediment, poured into previously prepared containers, and loosely corked. You can close the bottle hermetically only when the fermentation process is completely completed and bubbles stop forming. After this, the drink will be stored for quite a long time. Black elderberry wine is often bottled in ordinary plastic bottles and hermetically sealed. You can also use glass containers for this, but you will have to secure the cork by securing it 
rovoloka. It is recommended to store containers of black elderberry wine not in a horizontal position, but with the neck slightly raised.
Uses of elder flowers
Every wine recipe that uses black elderberry flowers is needed to give the drink a richer aroma. To do this, you need to thoroughly rinse about 10 inflorescences. Using 1 kg of sugar and 4 liters of water, you need to first prepare sugar syrup, which is poured into the flowers. Then seedless lemon, yeast or wine starter are added to the resulting mixture. The container is tied with gauze and left to ferment in a suitable warm place out of direct sunlight.
The recipe requires that after 3-4 days the wort is poured into a bottle, on the neck of which a special water seal is installed and re-fermentation begins under the same conditions. When the process of bubble formation stops, the wine can be bottled and tightly corked. The drink will be completely ready after 2-3 weeks if you keep it in a cool and dark room. Wine made from flowers differs significantly from drink made from berries in taste, color and smell.
The most delicious alcohol is often obtained from what is lying underfoot or hanging unattended from hedges. There are plenty of examples: rowan, bird cherry, thorn and, of course, elderberry. All these berries are not only pleasing to the eye and help all kinds of bullfinches and tits survive the harsh winter - they are excellent raw materials for tinctures and wines. So we take away their treats from the little birds (they don’t eat them anyway) and start producing elderberry wine!
Overall, there is nothing complicated about this drink. The simplest recipe for elderberry wine, in addition to elderberry juice, includes only sugar, the berry ferments quite well, the wine quickly clarifies, and with proper aging it has a simply amazing taste, unlike any other drink. The equipment you will need is a suitable bottle with a water seal and a device for squeezing juice: a juicer, a wine press, or just gauze. Anyway, let's get started!
To begin with, I would like to say a few words about the toxicity of black elderberry. Even Wikipedia claims that almost all parts of this plant are poisonous: leaves, roots, seeds of ripe berries due to the high content of the alkaloid sambunigrin (from Sambúcus nígra, native “Black Elderberry”), which under certain conditions releases hydrocyanic acid. However, elderberry flowers, of which by the way, as well as the pulp and skin of the berries, are an exception.
Of course, picking out seeds from fruits is a thankless task, especially when we are talking about serious volumes of the drink. Therefore, when making elderberry wine at home, the easiest way is to use only the juice. However, this method produces a less aromatic drink. After all, it is from sambunigrin that benzaldehyde is formed - a compound that gives wine an almond aroma, like that of. Therefore, winemakers also use another method of processing elderberries - they boil the berries, and only then extract juice from them. During heat treatment, hydrocyanic acid is destroyed, and aromatic, coloring and other compounds pass into the wort. By the way, after heating the juice will be much easier to squeeze out.
You should also focus on the fact that elderberry wine has many beneficial properties. Useful, of course, only with moderate use. This drink can relieve fatigue, give strength, it has a mild diuretic, diaphoretic and laxative effect, and also acts as an antiseptic. However, people with diabetes, gastrointestinal diseases, and heart patients should refrain from tasting it.
Attention! All of the above applies exclusively to black elderberry! Red elderberry is not suitable for winemaking or making tinctures due to its high toxicity. Be careful, pick only ripe, deep black berries!
A simple recipe for black elderberry wine without water
- Black elderberry juice – 3 liters;
- Sugar – 0.5 kg (originally – 2 cups of honey).
The preparation of the drink is as simple as its composition. Mix the juice squeezed from the berries using any convenient method with honey or sugar until completely dissolved. We pour the whole thing into a wide-necked container, cover it with gauze and send it to a warm place. If after 3 days fermentation (sour smell, foam, bubbles) has not begun, you need to add yeast or starter to the juice.
Pour the fermented wort into a bottle with a water seal or, at worst, with a pierced glove so that no more than ¾ of the volume is occupied, and set aside in a dark, warm place. Fermentation time ranges from 10 days (at CHKD) to 4 weeks, it depends on many factors. If the glove is inflated or the shutter gurgles, the process continues. When fermentation has stopped, we drain the young wine from the sediment using a tube, pour it into another suitable vessel so as to fill it 90-95%, and transfer the wine to the cellar or basement. Quiet fermentation will continue for another 2 months; if you notice that sediment has appeared at the bottom of the bottle, the drink should be decanted again.
After 2 months, the wine can already be tasted (sweetened if necessary), but it is better to pour it into bottles, seal it and let it stand for another 3-6 months - it will become much more noble over time.
Dessert elderberry wine with yeast
As already mentioned, yeast should be taken for wine, either universal (multiflor), or for Madeira, port, malaga. According to this recipe, black elderberry wine will be sweet and dessert-like; sugar is added in 2 stages - at the beginning and before quiet fermentation. This method is more economical than the previous one; according to the given proportions, you will get about 16-17 liters of the finished product.
- Black elderberry juice – 10 liters;
- Water – 5 liters;
- Sugar – 6 kg;
- Yeast - according to the instructions on the package;
- Yeast feeding is advisable.
Preparation:
- Add water to the juice, stir ¾ of all available sugar into the wort - 4.2 kg. We ferment the ChKD and add it to the wort along with fertilizing. Pour everything into the bottle, leaving ¼ of the free space. We put on the water seal and leave it in a dark place with a stable temperature around 22-25°.
- Active fermentation will last from 5 to 14 days. When the gurgling in the shutter has stopped, the wort must be immediately removed from the sediment, otherwise the wine will subsequently become bitter.
- Now you need to add the rest of the sugar to the young wine - 1.4 kg. I recommend trying the drink first - there might be some sweetness left in it, in which case the sugar should be added in portions, according to your taste.
- Now the wine is poured into a smaller bottle, 90-95% full; it is advisable to put the water seal on top again and put the container in a dark but cool place - a cellar, basement. Quiet fermentation will last 2-3 months, during which time the drink needs to be decanted a couple of times when sediment appears in it.
- At the end of quiet fermentation, the wine is decanted for the last time and bottled. You can drink it now, but it’s better to wait a few more months - it will taste better.
Elderberry wine using Cahors technology
In this way, elderberry wine can be made in the same way as - roughly speaking, boiling the berries, which will make it easier to extract juice from them, and will also destroy the remaining hydrocyanic acid. The drink will be enriched with coloring and tannins and will receive a characteristic almond aroma.
- Black elderberry berries – 10 kg;
- Water – 8 liters;
- Sugar – 6 kg;
- Yeast - according to instructions;
- Feeding is advisable.
This method is the most economical, but you will definitely need special yeast and long-term aging, and it takes more effort than in previous recipes.
- Elderberries, peeled from branches, should be placed in a saucepan and filled with 4 liters of water. Unlike Cahors, the pulp according to this recipe is boiled, and not simmered at a temperature of 60-70 degrees. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring, for 15-20 minutes.
- Slightly cooled berries should be crushed or rubbed through a sieve, covered with a lid and left to cool completely.
- When the mass has cooled, squeeze out the juice in any convenient way, without crushing the seed or leaving it in the wort. Fill the cake with another four liters of boiling water, cover again with a lid. After cooling, squeeze it out. The pulp is no longer needed.
- Make syrup from all the sugar and the remaining two liters of water. Mix the cooled syrup with both juices. Add fermented yeast and fertilizing and place under a water seal.
- Then everything is as in the previous recipe: primary fermentation for 5-14 days, decanting, secondary fermentation for 2 months in a full container, repeated decanting. Before bottling, the wine can be sweetened to taste.
Preparation of moonshine and alcohol for personal use
absolutely legal!
After the collapse of the USSR, the new government stopped the fight against moonshine. Criminal liability and fines were abolished, and the article banning the production of alcohol-containing products at home was removed from the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. To this day, there is not a single law that prohibits you and me from engaging in our favorite hobby - preparing alcohol at home. This is evidenced by the Federal Law of July 8, 1999 No. 143-FZ “On the administrative liability of legal entities (organizations) and individual entrepreneurs for offenses in the field of production and circulation of ethyl alcohol, alcoholic and alcohol-containing products” (Collected Legislation of the Russian Federation, 1999, No. 28 , art. 3476).
Extract from the Federal Law of the Russian Federation:
“The effect of this Federal Law does not apply to the activities of citizens (individuals) producing products containing ethyl alcohol for purposes other than sale.”
Moonshining in other countries:
In Kazakhstan in accordance with the Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Administrative Offenses dated January 30, 2001 N 155, the following liability is provided. Thus, according to Article 335 “Manufacture and sale of home-made alcoholic beverages”, illegal production of moonshine, chacha, mulberry vodka, mash and other alcoholic beverages for the purpose of sale, as well as the sale of these alcoholic beverages, entails a fine in the amount of thirty monthly calculation indices with confiscation of alcoholic beverages , apparatus, raw materials and equipment for their manufacture, as well as money and other valuables received from their sale. However, the law does not prohibit the preparation of alcohol for personal use.
In Ukraine and Belarus things are different. Articles No. 176 and No. 177 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses provide for the imposition of fines in the amount of three to ten tax-free minimum wages for the production and storage of moonshine without the purpose of sale, for the storage of devices* for its production without the purpose of sale.
Article 12.43 repeats this information almost word for word. “Production or acquisition of strong alcoholic beverages (moonshine), semi-finished products for their production (mash), storage of apparatus for their production” in the Code of the Republic of Belarus on Administrative Offenses. Clause No. 1 states: “The production by individuals of strong alcoholic drinks (moonshine), semi-finished products for their production (mash), as well as the storage of devices* used for their production, will entail a warning or a fine of up to five basic units with confiscation of the specified drinks, semi-finished products and devices."
*You can still purchase moonshine stills for home use, since their second purpose is to distill water and obtain components for natural cosmetics and perfumes.