Elderberry wine recipe

I've had to explain that funny comment to many people over the years. Perhaps this recipe will help clear some of the confusion.

Put 3 quarts of elderberries in crock.
Pour in 1 gallon boiling water.
Cover & let stand for 24 hours.
Strain liquid & place back into crock.
Add 3 lemons & 1 orange sliced thin with rind.
Add 3 lbs of sugar. Let stand for 14 days.
Stir wine every day. After 14 days strain again & add 1/2 yeast cake or 3 small Fleishman's yeast packs. ***
Let stand for 3 weeks then strain & put into bottles. Fill to within 1 inch of top.

*** actual wine yeast is better

Good looking wine recipe, I'm saving that!

My elderberries didn't fruit this year due to weird weather, I was hoping they would, the plants look good. Then when it got drought-ish, the deer grazed them, they were hungry, I don't begrudge them it, elderberries are tougher than that, they don't kill off that easy.

I generally have either a kombucha culture or a water kefir culture running, wonder what either one would do with elderberries? Got kombucha right now, but no berries to test.

Watch the killer bunnies on your elderberries!! Rrrrrr!
How many plants did you end up putting in? I recall you saying someplace you got given a bunch?
I got mine from Missouri Conservation tree sales, I'm not fond of the idea they are all the same genetic stock, I'll be adding others soon for genetic diversity.

Thank you for wine recipe!

It's an old timer recipe. Fairly certain the recipe is originally from Switzerland. The deer & all the other wild critters are welcome to eat anything they want here. I would prefer they stay out of the veggie garden. They mostly seem to respect that. Elderberry kefir sounds awesome. Will definitely try that. I posted an elderberry cough & flu prevention syrup recipe last week. Sometime soon I'll post one for jelly. Planted 18-20 plants recently. Already had another bought from the co-op 2 years ago. Hoping for some diversity there. I'll be planting another 20ish plants at home later this week. Another 10-20 more at one of my apiaries. It's part of a native species & wildlife migration project. Birds spread it easily. The plants are from an elderly Swiss gardener immigrant. He's been using elderberry his entire life. Takes a shot glass full of the flu prevention syrup daily. He & his wife are very healthy. I think in future years 1/4-1/3 of my honey harvest will be used to make huge batches.

I just put my elderberry wine into secondary fermentation a couple weeks ago!

I ended up going mostly by this recipe here: https://andhereweare.net/making-elderberry-wine/

Although, in the future this one is a lot more… sophisticated, but requires a bit more specialty equipment: https://honest-food.net/elderberry-wine-recipe/

One thing I would definitely recommend is freezing the elderberries (stems and all) to remove the berries easier. I just put the whole grocery bag of them in the freezer, then picked them out one at a time and kind of massaged the berries off the stem into a big bucket.

I'm almost at the 14 day mark for this elderberry recipe,  at this point all i have for yeast is 3 enveloppes of 8g each of active dry yeast ....will this work? And do i put the 3 enveloppes ?

I used this recipe but substituted Beautyberries for the elderberries. I also did not have a crock so I just used a plastic bucket. I have no way of measuring the alcohol content but it seems to be pretty potent, more than regular wine. Turned out pretty good for the first try!

Beautyberrries make excellent jelly too!

I've never made nice elderberry wine, I don't know why but it doesn't seem to turn out well for me.  I usually combine them with blackberries with much more success.  My recipe is similar to Mike's though I mash the berries (50:50) and let them sit in the water with the yeast for about a week before straining them into the demijohn with sugar.  And no citrus, but a mug of strong black tea.  I just tasted last year's batch yesterday:  a little sweet, with nice berry flavors.