Elderberry mead recipe

At a glance

Style

Melomel

Alcohol

About 13% ABV

Finish

Semi-sweet

Difficulty

Intermediate

Honey

Wildflower or clover

Yeast

Lalvin RC-212

Ready in

6 to 12 months

Batch

1 gallon, scalable

Ingredients

Quantities are for one US gallon (3.8 liters). Pick a batch size and every amount updates; one packet of yeast covers up to six gallons. Not sure how much honey your own twist needs? Use the mead calculator.

Swapping the fruit or changing the amount? Adding fruit to mead covers how much to use per gallon, when to add it and how long to leave it. The dose and timing of the enzyme are explained in how much pectic enzyme per gallon of mead. This recipe ferments dry and is sweetened at the end: how to backsweeten mead has the stabilizing doses and a honey chart for any batch size.

Equipment

• Saucepan with lid
• 2-gallon bucket with lid
• 1-gallon glass jug
• Airlock and drilled bung
• Hydrometer
• Nylon straining bag
• Auto-siphon and tubing
• No-rinse sanitizer (Star San)

New to this? Our mead making kit checklist covers what each piece does and what you can skip.

Step-by-step method

1. Simmer the berries

   Bring 1 quart (about 1 L) of the water to a boil, add the dried elderberries, cover and simmer gently for 15 minutes. This is the standard way elderberries are prepared for syrups and wines, and it also rehydrates them. Take the pan off the heat and let it cool, lid on, to below 90°F (32°C).

2. Mix the must

   Sanitize the bucket and set the straining bag inside it. Pour in the berries and their liquid, then dissolve the honey in the rest of the water and add it, topping up to the 1-gallon mark. Stir in the pectic enzyme. After a good stir the reading should be close to 1.099.

3. Pitch the yeast

   Rehydrate the RC-212 in 50 ml of 104°F (40°C) water with the Go-Ferm for 15 minutes and pitch once it is within 18°F (10°C) of the must. Keep it at 64 to 72°F (18 to 22°C) with the lid and airlock on.

4. Feed and punch down

   Add a quarter of the Fermaid O at 24, 48 and 72 hours and the last quarter at the 1/3 sugar break (about 1.066) or on day 7, whichever comes first. Degas gently before each addition and push the berry bag under once or twice a day.

5. Pull the berries on day 7

   Lift the bag and let it drain for a few minutes without squeezing. By now the berries have given up nearly all their color; pressing them or leaving them longer mostly adds harsh tannin from the seeds and skins.

6. Ferment dry and rack

   Let it finish: the gravity should hold around 0.998 to 1.000 for three days, usually 3 to 4 weeks in. Rack into the glass jug off the heavy sediment and top up to keep headspace small.

7. Bulk age

   Leave it 2 to 3 months to clear and soften. Young elderberry mead is tannic and a little green; this is the stage where it starts to taste like a red wine rather than a raw fruit ferment.

8. Stabilize and sweeten

   When it is clear and stable, add the crushed Campden tablet and the sorbate, wait 48 hours, then add honey 1 oz at a time (about 0.002 gravity per ounce per gallon). Around 6 oz takes it from 1.000 to about 1.012.

9. Bottle and wait

   Bottle into about five 750 ml bottles. It is drinkable at 6 months and noticeably smoother at 9 to 12, as the tannin softens.

Timeline

1. Day 0Simmer berries, mix the must, pitch yeast
2. Days 1 to 7Nutrient additions, punch down, pull berries on day 7
3. Weeks 3 to 4Fermented dry; rack to the glass jug
4. Months 2 to 4Bulk age and clear
5. Month 4 to 5Stabilize, sweeten, bottle
6. Month 6 and onDrink; best from about 9 months to 2 years

Why this recipe works

Elderberries need to be prepared before they go anywhere near a fermenter. Raw elderberries, and especially the stems, leaves and unripe green berries, contain cyanogenic glycosides, which can cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. The usual safe practice is to use only fully ripe, dark berries of the blue or black elderberry (Sambucus nigra and its American subspecies canadensis), remove every stem, and cook the berries before use. This recipe simmers even dried berries, which costs 15 minutes and removes the question.

Dried berries are the practical default. They are sold year round, they are already sorted from stems, and 4 oz per gallon gives as much color and flavor as about 2.5 lb of fresh fruit. They add very little sugar, so almost all of the 1.099 starting gravity comes from the honey, which is why the honey stays close to a standard batch.

The fruit goes in primary, which is unusual on this site. Elderberry is not an aromatic fruit you are trying to protect: its value is color, tannin and an earthy, dark-fruit flavor, and those extract best during fermentation. Seven days is enough; after that the seeds add bitterness faster than the berries add flavor.

RC-212 is a red-wine yeast chosen for color stability and for fermenting tannic, deeply colored fruit, which is exactly what elderberry is. It tolerates about 16% alcohol, so it finishes this batch dry before you sweeten it back.

Variations

• Spiced elderberry: add one cinnamon stick, three cloves and a thin slice of fresh ginger during bulk aging for 5 to 10 days, tasting every couple of days.
• Elderberry and blackberry: replace half the elderberries with 1.5 lb of frozen blackberries in the same bag for a fruitier, less earthy mead.
• Dry and oaked: skip the backsweetening, add 0.5 oz of medium-toast oak cubes during bulk aging for 2 to 4 weeks, and serve it like a red wine.

Troubleshooting

More mead recipes to try

• Blackberry mead recipe: Fruit in primary for a deep purple, structured mead that drinks like a light red wine.
• Blueberry mead recipe: 4 lb of berries split between primary for color and secondary for aroma, with acid adjusted to taste.
• Spiced mead (metheglin) recipe: Cinnamon, clove, orange and vanilla added by taste in secondary. The holiday mead.

More fruit mead recipes: Strawberry mead, Raspberry mead, Cherry mead, Cyser (apple mead), Peach mead, Mango mead (and pineapple mead), Joe's Ancient Orange Mead (JAOM), Pyment (grape mead), Banana mead, Pomegranate mead, Pumpkin mead, Cranberry mead, Apple pie mead.

Or browse all our mead recipes. If this is your first batch, start with the traditional mead recipe or the step-by-step guide to making honey wine.

Frequently asked questions