Greeting Kinsman,
I ususally go out to stream beds west of Madison, (thats in WIsconsin) and
pick them for free of course till someone was able to prove to me what actual
elderberries looked and tasted like I was pretty slow to do so. I was worried
about getting the wrong thing.
I took about a gallon of destemed berries ( I did that with a fork )
Froze them in a gallon ziplock, defrosted and squessed them in a piece of
cheese cloth and ended up with about about a half gallon of juice. (which
suprised me as the berries are tiny and the seeds seem to make up most of the
berry)
It was an instense blue black and I used that half gallon in a six gallon
batch of mead with 3 lbs of my honey per gallon of must so ended up with a
1.105 SG using K1V-1116 yeast and pectinase it came out a very dark red with an
intense flavor that completly hides the honey.
I have yet to bottle it it had an end sg of 1.004 I have stabalised it and
plan to sweeten it to 1.01 or so to make it more pleasnt on the tounge.
Got to run to wrk but plan on two to three years for aging on elderberry from
all the books I've been reading.
Cheers,
Dutch