Elderberry Syrup | Harvest To Canned

hello everybody and welcome back today i'm gonna be picking some of these elderberries and even though i have an older video on making elderberry syrup i figured i would do kind of a little bit of update one right now because now is when they are coming into season and see here you go look at that they look beautiful and there's a lot here and i'm actually at one of my county parks and most county parks unless posted you're allowed to take plant specimens and you know whatever so i'm gonna pick a bunch of these so i'm gonna let's take a look real quick here now they look they look real um ripe of course but just to be on the safe side we're gonna grab one of these and squeeze it now see how rich that color is that means they are fully ripened sometimes they'll be the color you need them to be but um the juice will give it away it'll be much much paler but i'm going to grab some and i'll be right back but here let's take a look hope you can see in there now that's a little loosely packed and i want to say about half of a paper grocery bag there that will get me a lot of syrup so i have made sure to leave plenty of berries here for the birds and other you know creatures but also other people if they want to come and get some too you never want to take all of anything you know if there's not a lot then don't take more than a third and i certainly don't need a third of these elderberries okay i am home and i'm gonna wrap these up tight well not real tight just fold it over like that and i am putting them in the freezer and i'm doing that because one i'm not making syrup today um i'll probably be making it tomorrow but even if um even if i were gonna make it today i still probably um we'll put them in the freezer and there's a reason for that so um i will let you know as soon as i take them out alrighty they're out of the freezer i haven't opened a bag or anything but this is why you want to freeze them if you can you're going to shake the dickens out of this bag i think that's good enough we're going to check there's still a few on there and if you get something like this you can keep shaking the bag or you can take one of these like a really big um tooth comb and brush your comb and they come right off okay so once you get all your berries cleaned up well off the stems and rinsed then you're going to put them in your pot and here i have four cups berries and all my leftovers i put back in the freezer so in case i want to make another batch if i run out you know in the middle of winter or something i'll still have them um you don't have to make this big of a batch you can um use it you know half it or if you don't have fresh berries that's okay too you can use dried just use half the amount so you're gonna end up um like here i have four cups you would use two cups of the dried so however you're doing your recipe when it's dry you use half when um fresh it's you know the full amount so anyhow i have four cups in here so i've already added four cups of water and i'm gonna add four more and what we wanna do is just get this to a simmer now you can see there's some berries in here that aren't fully ripened that's okay don't sweat it and if you've never made elderberry syrup or anything with elderberries before you know you might be uh worried a little bit about the stems and yes of course you don't get the bigger stems out of there but the little ones you you're fighting a losing battle there you don't have to worry about it you'll get rid of those later so just uh put your heat up to like maybe a medium-high and get this to boil and then um we're gonna let it simmer for about 30 minutes okay i almost forgot if you have any cinnamon sticks or dried or fresh uh ginger go ahead and put a little bit in there this is ginger um i dried here at home myself i very rarely have fresh ginger on hand so i don't have any cinnamon sticks otherwise i'd put that in right now too but i put a good amount of ginger and it's nice to have some warming spices to go along with this because a lot of times when people are using it it's winter time and you know they have a cold or flu and you just feel chilled and warming spices like cinnamon and ginger and clove really do help to warm you up internally besides the other benefits they have so we're gonna put that in there and it's gonna go along uh simmering with the berries okay you guys we're about halfway through and that's when you want to come in with a spoon like this a lot of people use a masher but my masher the holes are so big that the berries go right through so you're just going to want to squish them a little bit you know make sure if you can to um get them broken up so that more of the juice comes out and we're going to do this again um at the end of the 30 minutes um just you know to get as much goodness out of there as we can okay time is up so i am straining this now you're going to want to use a fine mesh strainer if you have one if you don't just use the whatever colander you have at the smallest holes and line it with cheesecloth my tripod started to tip i don't even know what it looks like right now but anyhow i'm just squeezing down on this to get as much out as i can if you have a compost pile go ahead and throw this in there i don't know if your chickens will eat it mine used to eat almost anything now let's see here now we're gonna put the juice back into um a clean pot and finish it up okay so now to the juice we're gonna add two cups of sugar now i know a lot of recipes call for honey but there's a couple of reasons why i'm doing sugar instead and the first reason is because if you think any small children and i mainly mean children a year and younger could be using this then you're going to want to do sugar because they can't have honey um babies you know a year and younger are not supposed to have honey there's some kind of bacteria in there that's okay for you and me but not for them because their immune systems can't handle it yet and then also the reason why i'm using sugar is because i'm going to can this and canning you can use honey it's perfectly fine but to me um when you're putting it in the boiling water for any length of time you're really kind of killing off all the good enzymes in that honey so you're not really getting the benefits of them so why bother you know go ahead and use sugar and then my third reasoning is sugar is just easier to get for people wherever they may be it's it can be very difficult especially in the winter months for many people to get any kind of raw honey so sugar it is now if you're making some just to keep in the fridge that's fine go ahead and use your honey that would be ideal but not if you're gonna can it like i am so what we're doing here the sugar has now dissolved and we're gonna get this up to a simmer and we're gonna we're gonna let it simmer and stir it a little bit here and there just until it thickens and that won't take long at all probably five minutes okay well we're ready to pan this up now and so i'm using jelly jars so these are um eight ounces a cup each and we're just gonna go ahead and start ladling it in and you may be thinking sandra that looks like kind of thin syrup well it is but it's going to thicken further during the canning process now if you're gonna use you know just go ahead and put this in the fridge instead of canning it up then yeah go ahead and simmer it a little while longer until it thickens and you know you can use this on pancakes in oatmeal or yogurt or whatever it doesn't have to be you know just like a medicine it's technically a food but it's a good food i'm checking this really close because you want about an eighth of an inch headspace now usually we don't go you know that high so i'm trying to get a little picky here i think that's good so go ahead and get yourself a wet rag make sure to clean that off real good and get your lid on and get them in the canner and so you're going to water bath these for 10 minutes that's all you need to do and when i finish them all up i will be back okay everyone i ended up getting seven jelly jars or half pint jars of um elevator syrup from that recipe so i'm thrilled about it and i did take a little taste and it was good um remember i put all the measurements um the ingredients and measurements down in the description so always make sure to check the description on any of my cooking or canning videos and as just a guideline if you want to take this for um as a preventative an adult would take one tablespoon a day and a child would be one teaspoon if you do happen to get ill adults should take one tablespoon three to four times a day and children a teaspoon three to four times a day and with children i mean like 12 and under teenagers can you know go the higher route and um it really is a food so you can't overdo it i just just don't suggest you because you don't want extra sugar in your body if you can help it but it really does work you guys and for what they're charging in the store oh my goodness you can make so much more i mean basically i made this for free i had everything i needed on hand the canning jars and and the sugar and the water i just had to go pick the berries but even if you have to buy the berries you will still come out far far ahead first of all you're going to make a superior product because you're not going to add other stuff in there you may not want you're going to have you know the pure good stuff so anyhow i hope you guys enjoyed the video thumbs up if you did i appreciate it it was nice talking to you and you take care you

Channel: Homesteading Ways & Beyond

Views: 17,830

Keywords: homesteading ways, homesteading ways and beyond, how to make elderberry syrup, harvesting elderberries, canning elderberry syrup, making elderberry syrup, cold and flu remedies, cold remedy, flu remedy, immune boosters, immunity booster, home remedies for colds, home remedies for flu

Id: ZyK91TuoW2k

Length: 15min 0sec (900 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 03 2020