{"id":216,"date":"2010-05-02T12:55:55","date_gmt":"2010-05-02T17:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/?p=216"},"modified":"2010-05-02T13:03:41","modified_gmt":"2010-05-02T18:03:41","slug":"where-have-all-the-flowers-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/?p=216","title":{"rendered":"Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have an abundance of dandelions as we do every year.\u00a0 Since we’re rained out of the fields for the moment I decided to make a batch of dandelion wine.<\/p>\n

First step, pick about 4 quarts of dandelion blossoms.<\/p>\n

Both dogs and all 8 chickens found picking blossoms endlessly fascinating.\u00a0 Owen would periodically chew on a blossom, spit it out, and look at me for some sort of explanation.<\/p>\n

After picking the blossoms I trimmed off most of the greenery.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Dandelions<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next step is to boil the blossoms for about an hour.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Boiled Dandelions<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Looks yummy, doesn’t it!\u00a0 It smells like the boiled dandelion greens Grandma used to make, i.e., pretty nasty.<\/p>\n

After it cooled, I stirred in sugar, oranges, lemons, a banana, and wine yeast and dumped it all in the fermenting pail.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Ready to Ferment<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Looking even more yummy, isn’t it!\u00a0 Like making sausage, making wine goes through some fairly ugly steps.<\/p>\n

I let it set in the primary fermenter for 3 days, then strained out all the blossoms and fruit.\u00a0 I added golden raisins and chopped dates and poured it into carboys to complete fermentation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
In the Carboys<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Starting to look better now.\u00a0 It’s still very cloudy, but you can at least imagine the beautiful dandelion color it will eventually have.<\/p>\n

As you might guess, dandelions on their own won’t produce a beverage that tastes much like wine.\u00a0 Adding the grapes and dates will give it a more winey taste (or like the wine books like to say, “a vinous nature.”)<\/p>\n

The Brix (a measure of how much sugar is in the liquid) is a high 1.11.\u00a0 If I ferment to bone dry (which is how I like my wine)\u00a0 it’s going to be pushing 15% alcohol.<\/p>\n

Nothing to do now except wait for fermentation to complete and to let it settle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have an abundance of dandelions as we do every […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}