Bottling The Elderberry Wine



     The elderberry wine has been fermenting since last Oct.  It's now nice and clear, and ready to be bottled.  One gallon of wine equals 5 bottles of wine.  This year I made 3 gallons of elderberry wine so I have 15 bottles ready to go.

     Bottling the wine can be messy, but not really hard.  Having the right equipment is a must.  (I'm still missing a clip to stop the flow of wine when I want.)  A siphon is needed for sure, and a bottle corker.



The bottle corker and the corks (size 8 x 1 3/4).
This corker works slick...about $30 at the wine supply store.

 .

The siphon and corker get washed in One Step.
I will put the siphon together and siphon some One Step water through it
to make sure the tubing is all sanitized.  I will do it again
after we are done, before I store the siphon.

    The carboy (jar) of wine is on the table, and we are filling bottles that are sitting in the chair.  The carboy has to be higher than the bottles.  When I first started wine making, I had it the other way around and couldn't figure out why the wine wasn't coming out --LOL!  So....if you should make that mistake, just remember that dr momi has been there, done that first :-)





I waited until I had help.  It's really a two person
job.  Turns out this ended up being a 4 person
job :-).  One daughter held the siphon, one daughter filled the bottles,
my husband took the filled bottle and exchanged for an empty bottle.
....and I took pictures :-).
Here the siphon is in place, pumped, and the wine is flowing.



As the bottle fills up, Katie will raise it so
the flow stops.  Bottles are exchanged and then
she will lower it again to fill.
She only overflowed a bottle once :-)









The little boys were helping.
....who would have thought wine bottling could be family entertainment :-)











The bottle corker is easy to load with the cork. (Soak the corks in One Step
for a couple of minutes before loading.)  Pushing down with even
 pressure on both sides, Kristy corks a bottle.  You have to use a
little muscle, but, if I can do it -- anyone can.

The bottle on the left...the cork is too high.
The bottle on the right...the cork is too low.
Neither of these bottles will be fair entries :-)

Elderberry wine is just plain pretty.

15 bottles of elderberry wine that will get stored in the cool basement.
One will be a fair entry, some will be gifts, the rest to be enjoyed over winter.
(Especially when there are colds going around.)
....we sipped it -- my best effort ever :-)

.....dr momi