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You are here: Home / Food Preservation / Fermenting / Winemaking & Brewing / Small Batch Elderberry Mead

Small Batch Elderberry Mead

December 12, 2017 by Ashley Adamant 23 Comments

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The very best medicine is the one you’ll take. When you turn your medicine into mead, it becomes a true pleasure to take.  No arm twisting required. 

Homemade elderberry mead combines honey with elderberries to create a sweet mead that will boost your immune system naturally.

Wild foraged elderberries can be sparse, and it’s often hard to find a dense patch.  Birds often beat us to our own elderberry patch. 

That means we rarely have enough for a full one-gallon batch, let alone a traditional 5-gallon batch.  Using a small batch method, we’ve started making a one-quart batch with a mason jar fermentation kit with great results.

small batch elderberry mead

There are a lot of great reasons to make a micro-batch mead.  Since elderberries can be sparse, a small batch is a perfect way to get a full-flavored mead with a small amount of fruit.

While other fruit meads, like this small-batch raspberry mead, have you throw in fresh fruit.  Elderberries are different. 

There’s some evidence that they’re toxic if consumed raw.  It’s best to juice them on the stove and add the juice to your jar in place of water.

All you need to get started with this elderberry mead is a bit of honey, elderberry juice, a quart mason jar and a mason jar fermentation kit.  There are a number of brands to choose from.  Try this one.  Or this one.

I use a kit by Fermentools that looks a lot like a homebrew setup, and if you choose to do bigger batches later you’ll need the rubber stopper and water lock that are included in the kit.

I’m hoping at some point to try out these silicone fermentation lids from Mason Tops because they look super easy to clean.

Small Batch Elderberry Mead

Elderberry mead fermenting in a one-quart mason jar, using a home fermentation kit.

Small Batch Elderberry Mead

Start by adding a bit of honey to the bottom of a quart mason jar.  The basic instructions for a one-quart batch of mead have you add between 2/3 of a cup of honey and 1 cup of honey to get the right ratio of honey to water in your jar. 

Since elderberries don’t have much sweetness on their own, I opt for a full cup of honey.  The end result will be a bit sweet, but the honey is part of the medicine, so drink up!

Add 3 cups of freshly strained elderberry juice, still hot from the stove.  The heat in the juice will help dissolve the honey, without cooking it.  Use a wooden spoon and stir the juice into the honey to fully incorporate.

Add the yeast once it’s cooled to room temperature.  If you’re not patient enough to let it cool to room temperature, it should be allowed to cool to at least 90 to 100 degrees so it won’t kill the yeast. 

For meads, I use packages of champagne yeast.  One pack is enough to pitch a 5-gallon batch, so using the whole packet is overkill for a small one-quart batch.

I usually use about 1/4 of a yeast packet because it’s hard to actually extract less than that from a tiny packet.  Dissolve the yeast in room temperature chlorine-free water and pour it into your mason jar.

Related: How to Make One Quart of Mead (Small Batch Method)

Once it’s all said and done you should have 1 cup honey, 3 cups elderberry juice and about 1/4 of a packet of champagne yeast in your mason jar.  Be sure to leave about an inch of headspace to allow for expansion and bubbling during fermentation.

Cap your mason jar using the mason jar fermentation kit of your choice and allow it to ferment at room temperature, out of direct sunlight for about 6 weeks.

The initial fermentation phase can be a bit intense, so after the first week if any juice has made it into your water lock, pop it off and clean it out.  Be sure to get it back on tight for the rest of your fermentation time.

When fermentation is complete, carefully pour off the mead into another jar, leaving the sediment behind.

I bottle mine, and allow it to age in Grolsch bottles for at least 2 weeks, preferably a bit longer.

Then, enjoy!

If you’re looking for more details on how to make a small batch mead, you can read an introduction to the one-quart small-batch method here.

Small Batch Elderberry Mead #elderberry #elderberryrecipes #mead #meadrecipe #homebrew #honeywine #fermentation #fermenteddrinks

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Filed Under: Winemaking & Brewing

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Dawen

    February 24, 2019 at 1:30 am

    Can you use dried elderberries to make the juice instead of fresh? Or would dried berries be okay to add to the mead straight, like the raspberry mead recipe?

    Reply
    • Ashley Adamant

      February 24, 2019 at 8:19 pm

      Yes, you can definitely use dried elderberries. What I’d do is simmer them in water to make 3 cups of strong elderberry tea and add that instead of the fresh elderberry juice. You could also just add dried elderberries to the bottom, as you mention, like in the raspberry mead recipe. Since they’re dried, they’ll be much stronger than fresh so I’d guess maybe 1/2 cup dried berries to a quart? That’s a guess, so use your best judgment on the quantity.

      Reply
  2. Dawen

    February 27, 2019 at 5:15 pm

    I haven’t even made a batch of any kind of mead, I don’t have a best judgement yet. 😉 This does give me some avenues for experimentation, though. Thank you for the prompt response!

    Reply
  3. Sherise Faber

    February 18, 2020 at 2:06 am

    Hi there! Just wondering how long this mead keeps once the two weeks in the bottle are up? Does it have to be refrigerated after the two weeks, too? Thanks!

    Reply
    • Ashley Adamant

      September 14, 2020 at 3:56 pm

      It should keep in the bottle for years.

      Reply
  4. Theresa

    April 11, 2020 at 9:21 pm

    Ashley I would like to make a half gallon to start. Can I just double your recipe?

    Reply
    • Ashley Adamant

      April 11, 2020 at 10:17 pm

      Yup!

      Reply
  5. Patti

    September 3, 2020 at 3:04 am

    Doesn’t cooking the elderberries kill the good nutrients

    Reply
    • Admin

      September 9, 2020 at 10:42 pm

      Nope! Raw elderberries are toxic.

      Reply
      • Chris

        August 23, 2021 at 2:11 am

        That’s only if they’re not ripe.

        Reply
  6. Carol

    January 6, 2021 at 10:53 pm

    Thank you for these recipes. I make small batches of wine. Now I can add mead to the list. 🤗

    Reply
  7. Patricia

    January 16, 2021 at 8:54 pm

    Would you consume this by tsp or as wine or?

    Reply
    • Ashley Adamant

      January 17, 2021 at 10:00 pm

      This is consumed as a wine, though you could consume it in smaller amounts if you choose. Elderberry syrup and elderberry oxymel are usually taken by the teaspoon/tablespoon.

      Reply
  8. Alyson

    May 15, 2021 at 9:53 pm

    Hi there! How many cups of elderberries should I use to get 3 cups of elberry juice?

    Reply
    • Administrator

      May 25, 2021 at 4:13 pm

      I would start off with 3 to 4 pounds to be sure that you have enough juice and then you can use any leftover juice for other recipes or freeze it for later.

      Reply
  9. Rae

    April 3, 2022 at 8:40 pm

    Is it common to have some residue at the top of the Mason jar after the mead has been fermenting for a while? Mine bubbled up into the water lock and I had to pull it out and clean it and put it back into the rubber grommet. Then some residue appeared at the top of the jar, above the liquid.

    Reply
    • Administrator

      April 7, 2022 at 1:46 pm

      It sounds like you might have some kahm yeast. This sometimes forms on the top of ferments. It’s not harmful and you can just skim it off the top.

      Reply
      • Rae

        April 7, 2022 at 5:22 pm

        Thank you very much, I’m so relieved! I was afraid it was ruined.

        Reply
        • Administrator

          April 8, 2022 at 4:30 pm

          You’re very welcome.

          Reply
  10. Heddy Johannesen

    October 8, 2022 at 1:25 am

    My honey didn’t dissolve. I have the bottled elderberry and honey – no yeast in a warm pot to liquify the honey. Will that work?

    Reply
    • Administrator

      October 10, 2022 at 7:29 pm

      Yes that should work.

      Reply

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I’m an off-grid homesteader in rural Vermont and the author of Practical Self Reliance, a blog that helps people find practical ways to become more self-reliant. Read More…

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