Hello all. New guy here. I need advice with making elderberry syrup

We have 10 fully grown bushes, and wanted to make as much elderberry syrup as possible, with it still being potent and effective enough. We currently have almost 100 lbs of fresh berries,removed from the bushes and de-stemmed (lots of tedious work 😩), in our deep freezer. Maybe another 10-15 pounds on the bushes, still ripening.

My girlfriend is an herbalist, and has experience making syrup, but not on this scale! Lol.... She has come up with a great tasting recipe using two pounds of berries to make one quart of syrup. She adds one cup of water after cooking the berries in a pressure cooker and straining. Along with lemon juice, honey, glyceride, ect....

Does this sound like a correct ratio? Just wanted to make sure we aren't short changing our yield. Could one pound or a pound and a half make a quality quart of syrup and still be an effective immune booster? We don't want the syrup to be "weak", but we also want to make sure we make as much profit as possible from selling the syrup (she already has buyers lined up and waiting).

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help 👍

Hi Brandon,
That sounds like a good problem to have... too many elderberries. :)

I cannot speak to fresh berries yet, as my bushes are still growing, and I currently buy dried elderberries when I am making syrup. My recipe that I modified from https://wellnessmama.com/1888/elderberry-syrup/. It uses 2/3 cup of dried berries which makes around a pint of syrup when it is all said and done (but there is nearly as much honey in it as there is elderberry juice, so keep that in mind.  It suggests using 1 and 1/3 cup of fresh or frozen berries. I'm not sure how much a cup of fresh berries weighs... so you might have to check that out, but it could be a good comparison to see if you are in the same range as other people.

It seems like your post has a sense of urgency in it. Personally I wouldn't worry too much about getting it all done quickly (unless you are running out of freezer space). The vast majority of food will do better keeping its nutrients and flavor as a whole product, than it will after it has been processed. I would suggest making it as you go (within reason) to keep the best flavor and nutrition.

Thanks for recommendations. We're not really urgently trying to make all of the syrup now as we are trying to find people who have experience with making it. Yes, we have a TON of berries, lol. But still plenty of room in the freezer, fortunately.