Mushing elderberries

Today I finally began the actual wine making. This was just crushing elderberries in a sterilised bucket with a sterilised spoon then adding boiling spring water, and a campden tablet and 1tsp pectinase when the mixture had cooled down. Then covering it with a lid. Tomorrow around about 5pm I'll add the yeast, nutrient, citric acid and vitamin B1. Then I'll leave it for a couple more days before straining, adding sugar and putting into demijohn.

I had left over elderberries so I made some elderberry cough syrup with raw manuka honey and spices. It smells delicious and should be useful over winter.

Yesterday I had collected most of the bits of pieces but I was still feeling a bit absent due to lingering cold so I didn't click that the beautiful glass demijohns my brother had lent me are for 20Ls. If I wanted to make 20L of elberberry wine I'd need almost 8kgs of fruit, I'd also need a whole week at my current rate of collection and preparation. It's not going to happen so I'll head back to the brew shop to get a modest 5L jar.

The large jars did get me thinking about potato wine. I have potatoes that grow wild in my garden, so they almost count as a wild harvested material. I'd certainly have enough to make a 20L brew. Question is, if there's anyone who wants to drink 20 litres of potato wine. At this point potato wine is the in the 'very experimental, I'm not convinced' category. Parsley wine is looking intriguing and it grows all over campus.

No playlist for today. I was kind of listening to national radio, mostly listening to the most welcoming sound of rain outside.