Dandelion wine

[sheena]

Can any of you kind ishers please tell me how to make dandelion wine - preferably in the step by step idiots guide to dandelion wine making

[jampot]

hiya sheena ive found a "foolproof" recipe for dandeloin wine here in the country kitchen wild food yearbook

ingredients:
lots of dandelions (heads only) about a bucket full
two kettles of boilling water
juice of 2 lemons
1kg sugar
a teaspoon of yeast

method
put flowerheads in a muslin bag in a bucket and pour over one kettle of water ,
mash it ( with a masher) to extract all the "juice",
allow to cool and filter through more muslin into demijohn
make up sugar syrup with 1litre of water to sugar
allow to cool again and "chuck in yeast" top up demijohn and put in airlock
leave to ferment then syphon and bottle.

(ive not tried it yet coz the tortoise eats all the dandelions in my garden)

hope that helped

[bluensm]

I was just wondering what to do with all the dandelions on the allotment and that sounds like a great idea! Thanks for the recipe, sounds easy enough too. Does it taste nice though?

Made some dandelion syrup today (recipe from the SSish Bible!), haven't tried it yet but it's cooling now and I'll bottle it soon

Still have millions more dandelions though, they just keep coming back. Thought I'd think of them as a crop and then it doesn't seem so bad

[badgercat]

Dandelion wine sounds good - my grandmother used to make Dandelion Coffee; does anyone know how to make this?

[MKG]

Dandelion coffee, I think, is made from the roots - roast 'em and grind 'em.

The wine recipe is basically sound, but I'd add that you need to get rid of most of the green stuff. You don't have to be anal about it, though - just pull off what's easy to get at. I'd also add that the steeping time is nowhere near long enough - leave that muslin bag in the liquid for a minimum of two days AFTER you've added the yeast. The result is a very refreshing white wine, but it does need to be matured for a few months. Mine always has a gingery taste - I find it puzzling that a lot of recipes actually add ginger when that taste is already there.

Oh - and a teaspoon of yeast nutrient will speed up the whole thing.

Mike

EDIT: the basic recipe works for any edible flower.

[frozenthunderbolt]

My dandelion wine was very . . . earthy? a bit bitter? i suspect that i wasn't careful enough about excluding the calyxes (green part) but four years on it is almost drinkable and quite interesting.

[sheena]

We have just tried a few of the bottles of wine which we made last year and it has to be said that a few of them were very interesting indeed;Dandelion was slightly earthy but immensely syrupy and enjoyed by all and the sweet grape was more of a dry finish which resulted in my poor friend diane losing the use of her legs and co-ordination - in all very successful i think and resulted in a fantastic reunion of friends that we haven't seen for a long time and those who used to mock my ish ways have now turned that corner and joined in at last - so to all of you i am pleased to say that i am so glad that you have realised that only dead fish go with the flow and am so pleased to see you embracing a fantastic way of life!!