diff --git a/site-cookbooks/kosmos-mastodon/metadata.rb b/site-cookbooks/kosmos-mastodon/metadata.rb
index 4e91875..4e9883f 100644
--- a/site-cookbooks/kosmos-mastodon/metadata.rb
+++ b/site-cookbooks/kosmos-mastodon/metadata.rb
@@ -8,7 +8,6 @@ version          '0.2.1'
 
 depends 'backup'
 depends 'elasticsearch'
-depends 'java'
 depends 'firewall'
 depends 'postgresql'
 depends 'kosmos-nodejs'
diff --git a/site-cookbooks/kosmos-mastodon/recipes/dependencies.rb b/site-cookbooks/kosmos-mastodon/recipes/dependencies.rb
index 6cec72f..f0ff8a0 100644
--- a/site-cookbooks/kosmos-mastodon/recipes/dependencies.rb
+++ b/site-cookbooks/kosmos-mastodon/recipes/dependencies.rb
@@ -9,11 +9,13 @@
 node.override["kosmos_nodejs"]["version"] = node["kosmos-mastodon"]["nodejs_version"]
 
 include_recipe "kosmos-nodejs"
-include_recipe "java"
 include_recipe "firewall"
 
 elasticsearch_user 'elasticsearch'
 
+# Elasticsearch 7.x ships a bundled JDK and no JAVA_HOME is configured, so no
+# system Java is needed (the java cookbook's openjdk recipe no longer supports
+# Ubuntu 24.04 anyway).
 elasticsearch_install 'elasticsearch' do
   type 'package'
   # The current version of the elasticsearch cookbook doesn't like versions