Dandelion wine

[tonyhibbett]

There are so many nearby and of such good quality that it would be a shame to give this a miss. Also a good way of preventing the bloody things from going to seed and taking over the lawn and veg plots even more.
With the help of my little Albanian visitor, I collected a gallon of the finest blooms and stripped most of the green, leaving just over half a gallon of the yellow peril. I now appreciate why saffron is so expensive. It was a pleasant afternoon in the sunshine and I treated it as a Zen meditation, laboriously stripping the flowers in the bucket and thinking of nothing else.
I will use Berry's recipe 1 as a basis rather than number 2, but with modifications. I boiled filtered tap water pint by pint and added it to the stripped dandelions. As for aroma, it may have just been grass cuttings. Yet another case of stone soup, I suspect, although, judging from my experience with birch sap, the stone may actually contribute something. The recipe is very similar. I will make a gallon. There are more dandelions, but not enough to make 2 gallons, yet.
They will steep in the water for 2 days, as directed, while I gather oranges, lemons and sultanas, rather than raisins. By this time, more flowers will appear, so a second gallon could be made. Once again, the 3 pounds of sugar in the recipe for a gallon will be reduced to a kilo to produce a dry wine.
Meanwhile the rhubarb is offering itself up.

 

[Teenage Kicks]

use the leafs for wine and the roots for beer :thumb:

 

[oldbloke]

Yep, CJJB's recipe is fine except for being heavy on the sugar.
The dandies aren't out yet in any numbers worth counting round here, but as soon as they are I'll be doing a gallon (or two)

 

[tonyhibbett]

Yes, for 3 pounds, read 1 kg. for a dry wine of 13% abv. and reduced risk of diabetes. As I have some in stock, I will use brewing sugar as this is a flower wine.
To assist in my pursuit of sultanas as the grape ingredient, I picked up a Kenwood Gourmet food processor from the boot fair for a mere £15. Needless to say, it did not work but when I removed the bottom cover and threatened to disembowel it, it burst into life. Among the vast array of accessories is a citrus fruit extractor, otherwise known as a lemon squeezer. 2 lemons and an orange are involved, so the plan is to pare off the peel, extract the juice into the container and then add the sultanas and pulp them with the juice.
At the same boot fair was a stainless steel Burco boiler which I stupidly did not buy, along with a couple of decent wine racks. I hope they are there next week!

 

[tonyhibbett]

I have read 2 more recipes, both of which omit lemons, preferring tartaric acid, or a blend of tartaric, malic and citric acid on a 3, 2, 1 basis. In both cases, 15g per gallon. I'll take the first option, mostly because it's the simplest!

 

[tonyhibbett]

Having left them for 2 days, with warnings not to leave them longer as they can aquire an unpleasant taste, I was keen to move to the next stage. The Berry (1) recipe says add the rind of the orange and lemons plus the sugar and boil for 1 hour. No reason is given and a considerable amount of liquid would be lost and the sugar would start to caramelise, so I chose to omit this step, which is not mentioned in other recipes.
I put 500 g of sultanas into the 'new' (9 year old) processor and it literally made mincemeat of them in a matter of seconds, but half a kilo is probably the upper limit per batch and 4 times that of my original processor. I then tried the citrus juicer with the orange, which was very efficient and filtered out the pips. I then mixed the results in with the dandelions, along with the kilo of brewing sugar, which dissolved almost instantly. I then added 3 teaspoons of tartaric acid and took a reading. PH 4.0. Rather borderline. 3 of my teaspoons only gives you 9 g., so I used the digital scales to make up to 15 g., giving a pH of 3.9. I then added a teaspoon of tannin, pectolase, nutrient and yeast. As you could literally stand a spoon up in it, taking the sg was a meaningless exercise, but 1090 seemed a fair estimate, probably higher when the sugars have been fully assimilated from the sultanas.
Meanwhile, like mythological beasts, there are just as many new dandelion flowers as I picked 2 days ago. Talking of myths, picking them does not make you wet the bed, but apparantly drinking the wine is not suited to those with weak bladders!
The total bulk is 6 litres and with everything added, the flavour is quite distinct and very pleasant, so hopefully worth the effort.

 

[Jonny69]

What is the recipe out of interest? I have a LOT of dandelions to deal with in the lawn and I might as well top them up with some from the meadow too :)

 

[oldbloke]

Wot I dun:

2012-05-07 Picked 2 gallon of dandelion heads, giving about 1 gallon of petals. Left to steep in 2 buckets with 2.5l water with 1lb sugar dissolved in it, with campden tablet, each.
2012-05-10 Each: Dissolved 1.5lb sugar in 2/3 kettle of water, not boiled, heated in large pan. Zest of 2 large oranges grated in. 3 or 4 Tbsp of cold tea added. Juiced oranges, added via strainer. Strained in dandelion infusion. Left to cool to pitching temperature. Strained into fermenting vessel (to lose orange zest). Added nutrient, pitched yeast (Gervin D)
2012-06-15 Racked. Tastes quite good. Not clear yet
2012-06-28 Bottled. Sorbate+sulphite. Good flavour, bit harsh, will soon be nice
Was very nice after a few weeks in bottle

The next year I did basically the same but without any of the sugar in the original flower soak for 1 of the 2 gallons just to see if it made any difference. I think having a denser solution thanks to the sugar helps suck flavour out of the dandelion petals. Maybe. And in the other gallon I wasn't so picky about losing all the green bits - just made sure to lose all stem - was fine.

 

[tonyhibbett]

Mine took ages to get started, 36 hours or so, then took off like a rocket.

 

[tonyhibbett]

I strained out about a pound of solids, leaving 5.5 litres of liquid, divided between 2 jars. There is very little sediment because the fibrous nature of the petals screens out the fine solid particles, so very efficient. The downside is more liquid than will fit a single jar, so lots of airspace. Next time I will use 1 pint less less water to allow for this.
The colour is revolting but the flavour is most promising, so I'll go and pick more flowers.

 

[Gayle]

Glad to see a thread on this! I started a dandelion wine on Tuesday, by that i mean today i will have to strain the flowers and get the sugar in. I didn't pull the petals out of the flower head, but just snipped off most of the leafage with scissors. It took a surprisingly long time to get through the whole carrier bag full! My bucket is in use too so it went in a large saucepan with not nearly enough water, but I'll top up when it's in the DJ. I'm looking forward to the results of this, the sugar cost me 85p so I haven't wasted much if it doesn't go to plan :)

 

[goodolpete]

I have just started an easy white with the addition of 2 pints of dandelion petals blitzed
in boiling water to see how it comes out.

As I have some in stock, I will use brewing sugar as this is a flower wine.

Tony,
what's the connection between flower wine and brewing sugar?

Pete

 

[Gayle]

Just strained and topped mine up with water, added sugar and yeast.

Christ it's an awful colour :?

 

[tonyhibbett]

A number of answers here.
I have found that light white wines that require a lot of sugar, like flower wines, the flavour is somewhat marred by a residual taste of sucrose, typically derived from sugar beet, even with a dry wine. Sugar cane derived sucrose (Tate & Lyle) may be different. Brewing sugar is more refined and more closely resembles the sugar which is found in grapes. Given that the main ingredient (flowers) is free, the extra cost of brewing sugar (at least double that of ordinary granulated sugar) is somewhat offset. The advantages claimed by brewing sugar are valid. It dissolves quickly, starts fermenting more quickly and more important, gives a cleaner taste to the finished wine, which may not be apparant to those who like sugar generally, for example in tea and coffee. The more expensive wine kits use invert sugar, which is similar to brewing sugar.
Having started a second brew of dandelion wine, I must say that removing the green parts of a gallon of dandelions is extremely tedious and not something I intend to repeat for a third brew and I am grateful for the earlier comment that this process may not be required anyway. Given that the recipe I used resulted in significantly more than a gallon of liquid must, I suggest the following revised recipe for a gallon:
Up to 7 pints of dandelion heads, stripped of as much green as feasible
500 g of sultanas, run through a standard size food processor until you have a ball of it minced
7 pints of boiling water, preferably mineral water, poured over the petals and sultanas to extract flavour and dissolve natural sugar.
When cool, add 15 g tartaric acid, a teaspoon of pectic enzyme, nutrient, tannin,yeast, juice of 1 orange and a kilo of sugar, preferably brewing sugar. Optionally substitute some of the sugar with honey.
Take a hydrometer reading at this stage, because it will be impractical later. 1095 is nice for a dry wine, but if it is lower, don't worry, because it will take a while for all the sugar in the sultanas to be released.
The last batch took 36 hours to get going, but stir twice daily anyway.
After 4 days, strain and transfer to dj. 6 g of oak chips may be added at the stage, but not before.
More nutrient may be required if fermentation gets stuck.

 

[tonyhibbett]

Yes, the colour and texture are truly excremental!

 

[Gayle]

I used ordinary sugar. We do have a few packs of brewing sugar in the cupboard that DH used to use for kit ales, but they've been opened for maybe a year and not sure if it'd still be ok...

A few questions...
What are the sultanas for?
Can I use malic or citric acid in place of the tartaric?
I left the flowers to soak for 3 days (as instructed to by CJJ Berry book), smells very slightly cabbagey, (but not awful) is it ruined?

 

[oldbloke]

The sultanas will provide a bit tannin and a few nutrients: I used tea and nutrient
My recipe used oranges so all citric. Ideally, I guess, a citric/malic/tartaric mix would be best, but basically: you need some acid.
They do smell a bit vegetably. As long as there's a Campden in there they'll be fine

 

[tonyhibbett]

Berry says leave them to soak for no more than 2 days to avoid the off smell.
Sultanas provide the all important grape element and are much cheaper than grape juice concentrate. They are 70% sugar. Dried fruit contains less acid than the fresh fruit. Sultanas are preferable to raisins, which are somewhat caramelised, hence darker.
A fully ripe wine grape contains mostly tartaric acid with some malic and a tiny amount of citric (which is consumed during fermentation). Commercial wine usually undergoes a malolactic fermentation at the end, converting the malic acid into the milder lactic acid. It therefore makes sense to use just tartaric acid.
In a recent brew I used only lemon juice, (citric acid) as per the recipe, but a considerable amount of this acid was consumed during fermentation, which runs the risk of a 'medicinal' flavour developing, so I had to add tartaric acid to compensate.

 

[tonyhibbett]

I used some of the first brew to start the second then racked the first. The sediment was rather green. This must be chlorophyl from the green bits and once removed, the colour has improved. It all now fits in 1 jar. SG 1030 and a nice flavour.

 

[tonyhibbett]

I forgot to mention vitamin B1 tablets because I didn't use them. The first brew took a long time to get started on account of this omission. Flower based wines need it as a kick starter, apparantly.