How to Forage and Use Elderberries to Make Elderberry Syrup.

It’s elderberry season! Elderberries are a foraging favorite around here. Both black and blue elderberries are nutritional powerhouses that are well deserved the hunt it often takes to find them. They are most known for warding off colds and flus although they are great just for syrup, tea, and baking as well. Before you work with elderberry you need to know elderberry safety.

The Dangers of Eating Elderberry

Before I cover how to make elderberry syrup I need to cover the dangers of elderberry.

Many of the plants that are foraged are wholly edible. This means that you can eat the whole plant from root to stem to leaves to flower and eat it raw. Queen’s Anne Lace and Cat’s Ear False Dandelions are both examples of plants that are wholly edible. This is not true of the elderberry. Only the flowers and the berries are edible and the berries must be cooked.

All elderberries fall in the genus Sambucus in the family Adoxaceae. Some regions do refer to the plant as Sambucus or simply Elder. There are different species of red, white, blue, and black elderberries. Here in coastal Oregon, red elderberries abound. In fact, I find the red elderberry almost synonymous with the Oregon Coast and they line the road ways. Red Elderberry is the most toxic of the elderberries and is probably the type responsible for giving the elderberry it’s reputation for being poisonous. There are many different opinions on if red elderberry is edible cooked and if blue and black elderberry are safe to eat raw. I personally choose to go with the most conservative recommendations and that is to only consume blue and black elderberry cooked.

Parts of the elderberry plant, namely seeds, contain glycosides. Glycosides are also found in other seeds such as apples. They cause a build up of cyanide and you will show signs an symptoms, including death, of cyanide poisoning if ingested in excess. In fruit such as apples, the core of the fruit is usually discarded and the seeds not eaten so this is avoided. That isn’t as easy or practical with the little elderberry. The good news is that cooking destroys the glycosides and renders the berry safe to eat and nutritious.

Not only do you elderberries have toxic glycocides in them, they also contain high amounts of lectins. Lectins are something you may already be taking steps to reduce in your diet without realizing it. When you soak beans before cooking you do so to deactivate the lectins. The same is true with soaking grains. Lectins can cause upset stomach, vomiting, bloating, and leaky gut. Lectins are another reason to be sure your elderberries are cooked.

The bark, roots, stems, and other parts of the elderberry are not edible. There is a lookalike called Hercules Club. However, Hercules Club is easily identifiable because it has thorns. Elderberry is thornless so you if you see thorns, it is Hercules Club. Hercules club is not edible.

Making Elderberry Syrup

I mixed both blue and black elderberry for my syrup. I found both while I was foraging in Eastern Oregon and choose to just mix them. You can see the black elderberry in the picture below. It is the elderberry featured on top. It has dark red stems and is a darker berry all around. The bottom of the picture is blue elderberry. The stems varied in color from reddish to green depending on what year growth they were but the red was not as dark as the stems of the black elderberry. Both of these were foraged in the same area along the John Day River. Make sure your berries are ripe. Most of the berries should be blue and black and not green. The green berries remain poisonous even if cooked.

Remove your berries from the stems. You can do this by running your fingers along the stalks and stripping the berries. You will be left with a bowl of berries. You can sift through the berries and remove and stems, green berries, and other debris that needs removed. Wash your berries in cold water well.

In a large non-reactive (non-aluminum) stock pot cover your berries with water. Use equal parts of elderberries to water. I used four cups of elderberries and 4 cups of water. Cook on medium-high heat until boiling and boil covered for half an hour.

Strain the liquid out of the elderberries and discard the solids. For most herbal recipes you do not want to squish or squeeze the herbs you are straining. However, for elderberry syrup feel free to smash the berries against the strainer to fully utilize all the liquid. My set up involved putting my funnel on top of my strainer which was setting on top of a mason jar.

How you sweeten your elderberry syrup depends on what your final product is and how you plan to save it. Elderberry juice freezes quite well and you can freeze in mason jars as long as you follow a few rules.

Elderberries do not contain enough acid to can safely without adding lemon juice. Also, there is no USDA guidelines for canning elderberries. Adding 2 Tablesspoons lemon juice for 4 cups of elderberry juice should suffice to make them safe for canning. Sugar is also a preservative which will help make your elderberry syrup safe for water bath canning.

Elderberry Syrup for Healing

To make a healing elderberry syrup you will want to use honey as your sweetener. Add one cup honey per four cups juice. Boil until it reaches just slightly runnier than the consistency you want. It will thicken slightly when it cools. If you add 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice per four cups of juice then you will be safe to can it. You can add cloves, cinnamon, and ginger to taste. Fill jars using 1/4” headspace and process half pint jars for 10 minutes in a water bath canner.

Elderberry Pancake Syrup

Add three cups sugar per four cups elderberry juice to make a nice, sweet pancake syrup. Boil the mixture for a minimum of 10 minutes to reduce slightly. Elderberries do not contain natural pectin so you can not make a jelly using this method like you can other berries. Add 2 Tablespoons lemon juice per four cups of juice if you plan on canning the syrup. Fill jars to 1/4” headspace and process half pints for 10 minutes in a water bath canner.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and foraging and using elderberries. Let me know how you like it. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to keep updated on our foraging recipes.