Elderberry Mead

Step 1

Sanitize all of your tools and supplies you will be using to make this mead.

Step 2

Put the elderberries into the crock and mashed them up a bit with a potato masher to get the juices flowing.

Step 3

Add about a gallon and a half of cool water, along with a cinnamon stick and a few whole cloves to the berries in the crock.

Step 4

Pour in five pounds of raw honey. Since the water is cool the honey won’t totally dissolve right away, but that’s ok.

Step 5

Sprinkle the yeast on top of elderberry mixture. (Stirring isn't necessary.)

Step 6

Cover the crock with a towel and put in quiet corner of your house. By the next day you should see some bubbling action.

Step 7

Stir the berries down once a day.

Step 8

After about a week, when the bubbles start to slow down just a bit, but are still going strong, rack the mead off of the berries into gallon glass jugs with airlocks. Use an auto siphon to transfer the liquid into gallon jugs.

Step 9

Equal out the levels of mead, then add more honey water to top it off. This will help to reinvigorate the yeast and give them a little more to chew on. Then fill the airlocks with a little water to the line, and put them into the jugs. They should start bubbling away again pretty quickly. Let this go for several weeks until all signs of bubbling has stopped.

Step 10

Once the bubbling has completely stopped, you can bottle the elderberry mead and age it for several months.