Things You'll Need:
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Step 1
Wash berries, and remove the stems.
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Step 2
Put the still-wet berries into a pressure cooker, and heat until the pressure indictor rises and stays elevated for 30 seconds to one minute. Turn off the pressure cooker. Alternatively, simmer the berries on the stovetop with just a little water covering them, crushing the berries as they cook.
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Step 3
Place cooled elderberries into a jelly bag (a cone-shaped bag made of porous fabric, like cheesecloth or nylon, used to squeeze the juice from berries in jelly preparation). Place the bag in a shallow pan, and allow the juice to bleed out overnight.
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Step 4
Cook the drained juice until it is reduced by about one third. The concentrated juice will still be thin. Another way to separate the concentrate from the excess water is to pour the juice drained from the jelly bag into glass jars and freeze overnight. Remove the jars from the freezer the next morning, and allow them to partially thaw, pouring off the concentrate (which will melt first) and leaving behind the ice.
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Step 5
Add 1 cup of honey to each pint of concentrated elderberry juice to sweeten and help preserve the juice. Gently heat the mixture in a pot, and stir to blend. Commercially produced elderberry concentrate may have a sweeter, richer flavor, owing to the more liberal use of sweeteners, like corn syrup.
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Step 6
Freeze the elderberry concentrate in glass or plastic containers. It may also be home canned.
