A New Kettle, a Smoother Process, and More Elderberry Wisdom
By David Mora, Urban Forestry Coordinator
There is something satisfying about watching a piece of equipment arrive at a small farm and realizing just how much it can change the work we do. At Elderberry Wisdom Farm, the newest addition to our processing area is a commercial tabletop tilting kettle. We installed it at the end of August, and already it has begun to make one of our most important farm products – Wisdom of the Elderberry Syrup - easier, more efficient, and more enjoyable to produce.
Before we had this kettle, making our elderberry syrup was a much more complicated
undertaking. Our team had to rent commercial kitchen space in Salem whenever we needed to process larger quantities. That meant coordinating schedules, transporting ingredients and equipment, and making sure we had everything ready to go during our scheduled kitchen time.
The most challenging part was dealing with the big vat of elderberry juice. Depending on the batch, we might be working with three or four gallons at a time. We needed to manage that larger volume while keeping the juice at a steady temperature of approximately 170 to 180 degrees Fahrenheit to make it safe for human consumption. Holding that much liquid at a consistent temperature was not always easy, particularly when we were working in a rented kitchen and trying to juggle multiple steps at once. Now the automatic thermostat control in our stainless steel cooking kettle is more foolproof.
Once we have the elderberry juice where we want it, we turn it into our syrup by adding a combination of organic honey, organic lemon juice and organic cinnamon. We pay close attention to temperature and acidity because we are producing a food product for our community and we want the people who purchase our elderberry products to know that we are putting care into every batch.
Having a commercial kettle right here at the farm gives us much greater control over the
process. Instead of packing everything up and heading to a rented commercial kitchen in Salem, we can process our elderberry juice on the farm using equipment designed for this kind of work. The tilting feature is especially helpful because moving and pouring several gallons of hot liquid is no small task. Being able to work with the kettle rather than wrestling with a large vat makes the process more manageable for our team.
For us, this isn't simply a new piece of equipment. It represents another step toward building a more efficient farm operation and keeping more of our value-added production here at Elderberry Wisdom Farm.
And, of course, all of this work eventually makes its way to our community at the Salem Saturday Farmers Market. Every Saturday, we bring our elderberry syrup to the market in jars. The syrup is one of the ways we share the harvest from our elderberry plants with our customers, and we take the preparation and handling of the product seriously because our goal is to provide something people can enjoy without getting sick.
We've also been having fun finding new ways to enjoy the syrup. One of our favorites is an elderberry spritzer. We add some of our elderberry syrup to ginger ale or club soda for a refreshing, fizzy drink. It's a simple combination, but the result is a great way to enjoy the flavor of elderberry in something a little different from a spoonful of syrup.
The syrup and spritzer, however, are only two of the things you can find at our market table. We also sell blue elderberry starts in one-gallon pots, giving gardeners and land stewards an opportunity to bring elderberry plants into their own landscapes. For us, growing elderberry isn't just about producing a finished product. It is also about encouraging people to grow useful, medicinal and traditional plants, and become more connected with the plants around them.
Another product we offer is our elderflower skin salve, which we make for people looking for a traditional plant-based option for soothing skin irritation, bumps and bruises. Like our other elderberry products, it reflects our interest in finding practical ways to work with what the farm grows and sharing those possibilities with our community.
That is what makes the new kettle so exciting to me. It isn't just about making syrup faster. It is about creating more capacity for Elderberry Wisdom Farm to grow, experiment, and continue developing products from the plants we care for.
As Urban Forestry Coordinator, I spend a lot of time thinking about trees, plants, landscapes, and the relationships between people and the natural world. At Elderberry Wisdom Farm, those ideas come together in a very tangible way. A plant grows in the landscape, we harvest it, we process it carefully, and eventually someone at the Saturday market takes a jar, a plant start, or a salve home with them.
We are excited to see what it allows us to do next, and we hope you'll stop by the Salem Saturday Farmers Market, say hello, and see what we've been making. We also look forward to returning to the Salem Holiday Market on December 11-13 and to the Corvallis Winter Market in early 2027. Whether you are looking for a jar of Wisdom of the Elderberry Syrup, an elderberry spritzer, a one-gallon blue elderberry plant start, or a jar of Wisdom of the Elderflower Skin Healer, there is always something new from Elderberry Wisdom Farm to share.
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