Elderberry(Sambucus canadensis)

[Durgan]

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?YIZEK 18 September 2011 Elderberry(Sambucus canadensis)
Walking through the bush, a clump of elderberries was found with large clusters and totally ripe, so I picked 18 pounds and made into juice. These will be the last of the current 2011 season.

The berries were weighed,and removed from their support structure on a half inch screen mesh. Total time to remove the 18 pounds from the fan structure was about 15 minutes with no effort by swiping across the half inch screen. The berries were washed, covered with water, and boiled gently for about 15 minutes, mashed into pulp with the hand blender, screened and placed in litre jars (7 litres) for pressure canning at 12 PSI for 15 minutes. The small screen removed all the seeds. Each litre requires about 2 pounds of fruit.

The strained residue was put through the juicer and water added to the output, boiled to extract maximum nutrients. This step is probably not necessary.

[boboff]

Durgan, on top of your impressive gardening and blogging, you now appear able to time travel!
Although I know you mean September and not December ( oh and once you edit it, I will look silly!)
I just picked a bucket of Elderberries too. I am going to make wine with them!!!!!

[Durgan]

I guess I have been drinking too much elderberry juice. There is a major difference between December and September in climate and the spelling.

[boboff]

My elderberries became Elderberry and Crab apple juice, which will shortly become Crab Apple & Elderberry Mint Jelly.
I managed to extract 12 x 750 ml Apple juice out in about 6 hours, which seems excessively slow to me, and not as good as freezing, thawing and pressing, but actually allot less physical effort and mess involved.
Any ideas on speeding it up?

EDIT: the apples weren't that bad!