We've decided to make wine with the 7lbs of elderberries now in our possession. It was mostly Quinn's idea. I wanted to make jam, but she thought it would be too bitter. When I mentioned that my friend's grandfather used to make elderberry wine, she got really excited about the prospect of homemade wine, even though neither of us are big into wine. Quinn says it made her think of the currant wine that was part of a key plot twist in Anne of Green Gables. She thought that homemade wine must be delicious! But that's the power of wild food foraging, it makes foods you typically take for granted much more delicious and appreciated.
Of course, neither of us have ever made wine before. So we did what we normally do when starting a new hobby--we googled it. Specifically, we googled elderberry wine recipe. I eventually landed on this article and decided to go with their recipe, which they call "basic." A good place to start when you're just beginning.
Typically, the more involved the procedure for harvesting and processing something--the more I enjoy it. This recipe calls for about an eight-month process so it definitely fits the bill. Plus, we might move out of the region in about a year and a half and a couple of bottles of home-brewed wine will make a great memento. It will also make a great Christmas gift.
Although the recipe itself isn't hard to follow (at least it seems that way), I had trouble with some of the lingo. Here's a rough breakdown of that lingo:
Primary: Essentially, it's a bucket or some sort of container that you mix the berries and ingredients in. It is called a primary because it is where the initial mixing is done before transferring it to a carboy.
Carboy: A glass jug. They come in 1, 3, and 5 gallon sizes. You want to match the size of your carboy to the quantity of wine you are producing. Otherwise, you will be doing a lot of topping up.
Topping Up: Apparently exposing wine to air for an extended period is bad. So you "top up" your carboy until the wine fills the entire thing. This can be done by simply adding water, another wine, vodka, or sterilized glass marbles. But it's best to add as little as possible. Hence the need to match carboy size with expected wine quantity. You'll likely have to top up every time you rack.
Rack: This is simply transferring wine from one carboy to another empty carboy. It's done about 3-5 times throughout the six or so months. Its purpose is to remove the wine from the sediment that has settled to the bottom. You keep racking and topping up until no sediment remains.
Here's some additional supplies, all of which can be found online or at your local brewing store:
- Siphon hose
- Funnel w/ filter. For transferring wine from container to container.
- Airlocks: Google it. They have something to do with keeping air from touching the wine. If you get the plastic ones, they're relatively cheap.
- Stoppers: They plug the hole at the top of the carboys. If using an airlock, you will need a stopper with a hole through its middle.
- Bottles: Nothing wrong with use old wine bottles.
- Corks: Surprisingly expensive.
- Straining Bag: For putting the berries in to soak in the primary. We bought a small bag, but probably should have gotten a large one.
- Corker: For affixing the cork in the bottle. They can be ridiculously expensive or rather cheap. At this point, we haven't bought one yet. But when we do, it will be the cheap variety.
All in all, we spent about sixty dollars on supplies (although we got the primary from a local grocery store), including ingredients to make the first batch. That about gave Quinn a heart attack, but very few hobbies offer an inexpensive start-up fee and this hobby is no exception . Hopefully, we get good use of our equipment over the years and recoup our investment (below is the plant I found the other day that could easily make that wish a reality. It has enough berries to feed a small army). To put that cost into perspective, though, a hunting and fishing license in New York State costs up to $96 dollars. And that price doesn't include all the necessary gear.
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