We've had a can of elderberry puree for a while now. I'm finally taking the plunge and making an elderberry melomel with it: I'm basing the recipe roughly on the recipe on the can, but substituting honey for the white sugar that recipe calls for. We picked up most of the honey in this batch on our way back from New Orleans, on a recent road trip: there's a jar of Mississippi wildflower honey that we picked up at the farmer's market in Jackson, and a jar of dark Ozark Mountain Honey that we picked up at a small market off of a small highway in Arkansas.

So, in honor of a goddess to whom the elderberry was sacred, we're calling this batch Δημήτηρ. I think I might add just a little bit of spice in secondary, though I'm still pondering what it will be, exactly. Black pepper, maybe.

Ingredients in this batch

  • 2 lb., 12 oz Ozark Mountain Pure Honey.
  • 1 lb., 14 oz Bee Hive Apiary (MS) pure raw honey.
  • 3 lb. Kirkland clover honey.
  • One 96-oz. can Vintner's Harvest elderberry wine base.
  • untreated Denver tap water to 3 gallons.
  • 1 tsp. LD Carlson yeast nutrient.
    • Note: no SNA planned for this batch.
  • 3 tsp. potassium carbonate.
  • Approx. ¾ of (1 pouch of Lalvin 71B-1122, rehydrated in tap water at 95℉), shared with batch 105.
  • 1 lb. dark brown sugar, added on 14 June 2018.
  • 8 oz. Brewer's Best dried elderberries, added 14 June 2018.
  • ½ c. tap water, added 14 June 2018.
  • 3 lb. Kirkland clover honey, added 21 August 2018.
  • 3.1 lb Bennett's Honey Farm buckwheat honey, added 21 August 2018.
  • enough untreated Denver tap water to make the total volume of today's addition 2 gallons, added 21 August 2018.
  • A hop bag added on 7 October 2018, containing:
    • 1 tsp. Spice Hunter powdered Chinese Five-Spice Blend;
    • ¼ tsp. Penzeys apple pie spice; and
    • ½ oz. whole Penzeys Indian Tellicherry black peppercorns.
  • 2 oz. BSG medium-character Hungarian oak cubes, soaked for an hour in warm water, and added to the bucket on 26 May 2019.

Procedure

Standard procedure: Sanitized, then mixed honey and juice and water and powders, then agitated thoroughly by stirring vigorously through the carboy neck for fifteen minutes. Pitched yeast and measured gravity. Popped in and filled an airlock.

Brew date: 8 April 2018.
Original gravity: 1.115 (but I'm using 1.086 for calculations due to later volume-building additions).
Bottling date: 20 June 2019
Final gravity: 0.996.
Estimated ABV: Approx. 12%.

Yield:

  • 37 x 12 oz. beer bottles;
  • 6 x 500mL wine bottles;
  • 2 x 750mL wine bottles; and
  • 1 x 7 oz. soda bottle.

Total: Just over 600 fluid ounces, or about 4.75 gallons.

Observations

  • 2018-04-09T12:33: There's regular carbon dioxide discharge in the carboy.
  • 2018-06-14T19:41: Tasted. The wine has gotten surprisingly thin, and there's less elderberry flavor than anticipated. Put in a pound of dark brown sugar and a half-pound of dried elderberries.
  • 2018-08-21: Tasted. Well, the elderberries sure do come through strong: there's a real tart earthiness here. Perhaps too much. Added two gallons of unfermented must to a new sanitized container—a six-gallon bucket—then racked the wine on top of it, leaving the elderberries behind, then discarding them.
  • 2018-09-03: Tasted. Coming along beautifully. Adding more honey must was a good idea. Fermentation is clearly going slowly, but is clearly progressing. There's a nice balance of all of the flavors for the first time here.
  • 2018-10-07: Added spices in a hop bag to the carboy.
  • 2019-05-26: Added oak cubes to the carboy.
  • 2019-06-20: Bottled, yielding almost five gallons of 12% dry mead.