Elderberry Syrup

Since both my elderflower syrup and my lilac syrup have been emptied or given away for a long time now, I was happy to realize that nature has cleverly built the elder in such a way that you get your second chance and can make elderberry syrup from August to October! Like the other syrups,  elderberry syrup is excellent with  sparkling wine, prosecco, mineral water, ice cream and other desserts. 
I still knew the elder picking places, thus I set out to collect some berries on a sunny bike ride home. Well. Turns out that the biggest and ripest elderberry clusters are hanging high up, where it's nice and sunny and impossible to get there for the picking them. I managed to get some, and even experimented with different methods of juicing and made ​​two batches of elderberry syrup... because  elderberries are healthy, high in vitamin C, boost the immune system, and can even be used to reduce fever, says the Internet - I will test that some time!
For the first attempt I had collected everything that looked ripe at 4 different locations and yet only yielded about 800 g elderberry clusters. After sorting out the green berries and plucking the berries from the twigs, there were 600 g elderberries, with which I  started. As with the elderflowers, one must again be careful not to pick the wrong berries of the snowball (right). You can distinguish the different bushes by the leaves!

Ingredients for version 1 (about 2 L):

600 g elderberries, black, plucked

700 g of water

1100 g sugar 

30 g citric acid 

Preparation 1:
Pluck the black elderberries, that works well with a fork, place them in a pot and sort out the green berries. Cover the berries with 700 g of water and refrigerate them for 24 hours.

Mix the (cold) berries with a hand blender and boil them with 200 g sugar.

Sieve the mix with a coarse sieve (I've tried it with a cheesecloth, but it was much too fine!).  Weigh the juice and boil it with the same mass of sugar, add the citric acid. Pour it into sterilized bottles or jars while still hot and seal the bottles.

On the second try, I found new elder plucking locations which yielded a richer harvest. Meanwhile, I had also organized an electric juicer and wanted to give it a try, and I also wanted to cook the juice this time instead of pressing it cold, since I thought that would yield more liquid.

Ingredients for version 2 (about 3 L):

1200 g elderberries, black, plucked

1000 g water

1400 g sugar 

20 g citric acid

Preparation 2:
Pluck the black elderberries, that works well with a fork, place them in a pot and sort out the green berries. Cover the berries with 1000 g of water and refrigerate them for 24 hours.

Then boil the berries with 200 g sugar and filter the mix through a coarse sieve. I sent the part that remained in the sieve through the juicer, which didn't yield much juice, but rather a kind of jelly.

Add the jelly to the juice, stir in the citric acid and briefly boil the mix, then pour into sterilized bottles or jars while still hot and seal the bottles. 

I think the syrup keeps about 1 year - but will probably be empty before that ;-) 
For elderberry liqueur, you can mix the elderberry syrup with cherry brandy or applejack 1:1.

Conclusion: The juicer is not worth it really, because the jelly in elderberry syrup clots and thanks to the coarse sieve, one always has a few elderberry cores in the syrup anyway. I think I'll stick with the method of boiling the berries with water and sugar, then passing them through a coarse sieve and pressing out the rest by hand with cheesecloth for the future!