We have an abundance of dandelions as we do every year. Since we’re rained out of the fields for the moment I decided to make a batch of dandelion wine.
First step, pick about 4 quarts of dandelion blossoms.
Both dogs and all 8 chickens found picking blossoms endlessly fascinating. Owen would periodically chew on a blossom, spit it out, and look at me for some sort of explanation.
After picking the blossoms I trimmed off most of the greenery.
Next step is to boil the blossoms for about an hour.
Looks yummy, doesn’t it! It smells like the boiled dandelion greens Grandma used to make, i.e., pretty nasty.
After it cooled, I stirred in sugar, oranges, lemons, a banana, and wine yeast and dumped it all in the fermenting pail.
Looking even more yummy, isn’t it! Like making sausage, making wine goes through some fairly ugly steps.
I let it set in the primary fermenter for 3 days, then strained out all the blossoms and fruit. I added golden raisins and chopped dates and poured it into carboys to complete fermentation.
Starting to look better now. It’s still very cloudy, but you can at least imagine the beautiful dandelion color it will eventually have.
As you might guess, dandelions on their own won’t produce a beverage that tastes much like wine. Adding the grapes and dates will give it a more winey taste (or like the wine books like to say, “a vinous nature.”)
The Brix (a measure of how much sugar is in the liquid) is a high 1.11. If I ferment to bone dry (which is how I like my wine) it’s going to be pushing 15% alcohol.
Nothing to do now except wait for fermentation to complete and to let it settle.
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