Saturday

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

11 comments:

TexWisGirl said...

very cool. would love to taste it. i bet it's great. i'm a red wine person but have never had elderberry...

dr momi said...

texwisgirl....merlot it's not, but my girls and I like a drier wine --- and this fits the bill. We all liked it a lot.

~Kim at Golden Pines~ said...

I'm glad it turned out, and you'll have something for the cold of winter, or the chill of fall, or the heat of summer... :-)))

SparingChange said...

That's awesome! We make our own wine, but out of a kit (Vinter's Choice or Orchard Breezin'). We love it! It ends up being less than $2/bottle to make, and we are planning on giving it away as gifts this Christmas. :-) The equipment is expensive at first, but if you plan on making lots of wine, it's well worth it.

Great post!
We would love to make real, true, homemade wine some day.

Candy C. said...

You're right the color is beautiful! Enjoy your wine!

dr momi said...

SparingChange.....sounds like you're all set to go on making it from scratch. I haven't done a kit yet, but I have heard it is so reasonable.

Candy C.....it tastes even better than it looks :-)

Kim....wish I could share some :-)

Gina said...

Do you grow your own elderberry? I'd love to plant some and have a spot picked out.
Gina

dr momi said...

Hi Gina.....I just started some bushes last year (like a lot of them), but these were from wild ones. In a few years I won't have to go fight the ditches for my crop. :-) Elderberry is easy to grow....and, you can start your own plants easy. Check out my post about propagating elderberry. http://homesteadingatredtailridge.blogspot.com/2011/05/elderberry-trimming.html

dr momi said...

ya well, that didn't work did it? lol! Look under my medicinal herbs section in labels. Hope you get some planted!

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Mary said...

This is really fascinating. It would never have occurred to me to make my own wine. If only I had berries growing nearby! I need to work on that. Way to go!