# dandelion wine



## GeoS (May 10, 2013)

Since I have such a large crop of dandelions in my yard I was thinking about making wine from them. I have heard about it and have been told its good but have never tried it. 

What does it taste like?


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## Julie (May 10, 2013)

It is an acquired taste. I am one who will not tell you it is good. Plus there is a lot of work to it. You only use the yellow pedals and that is an awful lot of picking.


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## ffemt128 (May 12, 2013)

I've had good and I've had bad. Breightenbach winery in Ohio makes an excellent dandelion wine.


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## Bearpaw (May 12, 2013)

Hey,

It taste amazingly nice. 
There are a lot of recipes and they aren't all that good.
If you like i will post my recipe from this year.

Success, bearpaw


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## vernsgal (May 12, 2013)

Bearpaw said:


> Hey,
> 
> It taste amazingly nice.
> There are a lot of recipes and they aren't all that good.
> ...


I'd like to see your recipe


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## LoneTreeFarms (May 13, 2013)

I used this recipe from jack keller's web site. like someone mentioned above it's a hugh pain in the arse but it has turned into one of my better recipes. the biggest pain is pulling most of the greenery off of the dandelions.​*[SIZE=+3]Dandelion Wine (2)[/SIZE]




[*]2 qts dandelion flowers
[*]2 lbs granulated sugar
[*]4 oranges
[*]1 gallon water
[*]yeast and nutrient 

This is the traditional "Midday Dandelion Wine" of old, named because the flowers must be picked at midday when they are fully open. Pick the flowers and bring into the kitchen. Set one gallon of water to boil. While it heats up to a boil, remove as much of the green material from the flower heads as possible (the original recipe calls for two quarts of petals only, but this will work as long as you end up with two quarts of prepared flowers). Pour the boiling water over the flowers, cover with cloth, and leave to seep for two days. Do not exceed two days. Pour the mixture back into a pot and bring to a boil. Add the peelings from the four oranges (again, no white pith) and boil for ten minutes. Strain through a muslin cloth or bag onto acrock or plastic pail containing the sugar, stirring to dissolve. When cool, add the juice of the oranges, the yeast and yeast nutrient. Pour into secondary fermentation vessel, fit fermentation trap, and allow to ferment completely. Rack and bottle when wine clears. Again, allow it to age six months in the bottle before tasting, but a year will improve it vastly. This wine has less body than the first recipe produces, but every bit as much flavor (some say more!).

*


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## Bearpaw (May 13, 2013)

Hey, 

I will use liters and things like that. 
Alright, first of all I start collecting the flower at 3 PM when the sun shines.
At home I will throw them in the fridge included the green stuff. 
When I have enough I will take them out and while they are frozen, pull the yellow leaves of. 
This recipe is for 5 liters what is enough for 7 bottles.

4 bananas 
4,4 liters of water
800 milliliters of yellow leaves
42 milliliters of concentrated lemon juice 
1160 grams of table sugar
120 milliliters of mint leaves 
Yeast

First cook the banana meat in the water with the mint and sugar. 
When the water almost boils, turn the gas of. 
Crush the bananas in the water and put the flowers in while stirring.
Let it all cool down and steer now and then. 

Now take a piece of cloth and sieve and filtrate it all. 
You will now have an brown/yellow juice, while fermenting the color will change.
Put the juice in a bottle, sparkle some yeast on top of it (when it has finally cooled down) and place an water seal on top.
Wait for 6 hours and throw the lemon juice by the wine. 
It will be a fermentation-bomb so watch out. 
After a few days the fermentation will slow down a bit and the color will be a beautiful yellow color.

This wine is a bit sweet, so if you don't like that take less sugar.
Success,
Bearpaw


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## Bearpaw (May 13, 2013)

1,5 liters as an experiment from last year..

Success,
Bearpaw


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## dlriggins (Jul 9, 2013)

peach dandy
2 gal
1.5 tubes frozen Welch's white grape peach
8 cups dandelion petals No Greens
1 cup hot tea (I used orange pekoe and cut black)
4 lbs sugar
2 teaspoons nutrient
6 tsp acid blend
1 tsp energizer 
water to 2 gal
make a tea with the petals steep DO NOT BOIL about 2 cups water should do it to about 3 cups petals.
adjust to 1.095 sg
add 2 campden and wait
I used red star champ. yeast (but lalvin 1118 would be good as well) 
rack into secondary at 1.040
use honey to sweeten after clear and stabilized... let clear again as honey will cloud and drop pollen (chilling will help)
this stuff will smell horrible while active so do not be alarmed (you will want to throw it out)
it is quite lovely after about a month in bottles and keeps getting better I like to add a little lemon juice to the glass but is also good by itself.
Hope you like it as much as I do


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## sgx2 (Aug 13, 2013)

I decided to make a dandelion wine for the first time this year. It was May 1st, and there were all sorts of nice looking dandelion flowers on the fields near my home. I collected them between noon and 2:00pm, then rushed them home to chop off the green base and get rid of as much green stuff as possible. I then froze the petals overnight to get a jump start on rupturing the cell walls and extracting as much flavor as possible. I modified a recipe from Jack Keller.

Here's the record of this batch from my database (sorry for the mixed units -- I'm Canadian):

Batch Name: May Day
Varietal: Dandelion
Batch Size: 1 Gal/3.8 L Jug (5 bottles)
Date Started: May 2, 2013 4:43 PM
Cost of ingredients: $2.00

2.5 L Dandelion petals (bulbous green part and as much green stuff as possible removed) [2.5 litres = 10.5 cups]
1.36L jug of Welch's white grape juice [that's the 46 oz size]
4L water [about a gallon]
~1 kg granulated sugar [about 2 lbs]
2 lemons
1 orange
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1/2 tsp white acid blend
1 pkg Lalvin-1118 yeast

I picked the flower heads between noon and 2:00pm (when they were open). I quickly returned home and sliced off the big green part at the base and the green layer around the flowers, many of which had begun to close up. I froze them overnight.

I put the petals in a straining bag and tied it shut while bringing the water to a boil in large pot. When the water boiled, I placed the bag in the water, reduced to a simmer and covered the pot with a lid. I simmered for 20 minutes then removed from the heat. 

When it was cool I drained the petals (squeezing lightly) and returned water to a low boil. I then added the nutrient, the acid blend, the sugar and the peels of the lemons and orange (peeling very thinly to avoid any of the white pith). I again reduced the heat and simmered for an hour, then I added the juice and pulp (no pith!) of the lemons and orange and allowed the mixture to cool quite a bit. I then poured it into a one gallon jug and added the white grape concentrate. I took note as to how much more water it would take to fill the jug, knowing that if I had to add more sugar some of that volume would be the sugar...

Ignore the fact that it looks like swamp water. Really.

The next day I tested the SG and found it was where I wanted it (which was high, about 1.100), so i topped up with water, retested the SG (still awesome), added the yeast and a little more yeast nutrient, then put an airlock on it. It began to bubble within 15 minutes. About a day in it looked like something from an old sci-fi movie, what with the swamp water roiling around and tumbling about.

Leave it alone for about 5 days, then rack it off the citrus pulp and refit the airlock. A few days later you can rack into a stabilization jug with some clarifiers. Allow it to age about 4-6 months, then bottle and age another few months...

Current ABV level: 14.8%

Initial Chemistry:
SG: 1.105 TA: n/a % pH: n/a SO2: n/a ppm

History:

```
Date                  Event       Value  Details/Observations
May 2, 2013 4:43 PM   Start
May 4, 2013 2:00 PM   SG Reading  1.100  Took off like a rocket! Smelled spicy and quite citrusy at the very start, although it looked like swamp water...
May 6, 2013 11:14 AM  Note               Incredibly active at the airlock - really circulating! Now a pale yellow shade with lots of suspended solids...
May 9, 2013 11:00 AM  SG Reading  0.994  Looks good! Like wine! 
May 9, 2013 11:00 AM  Racked             Racked to fresh 1 gallon jug
May 9, 2013 11:00 PM  Stabilized         Also added one ampule each of the siligel/liquigel clarifiers and 1 pkg bentonite. It threw 1cm new sediment within 3 hours, but is still opaque. Will check in 1 week to see if it is truly clearing - may need racking and another dose of clarifiers (or time)...
May 27, 2013 3:05 PM  Battonage          Decided to stir on the lees. It took a day to resettle, and still looked a little cloudy.
Jun 13, 2013 5:28 PM  Battonage          Was crystal clear, did a second battonage - will do this when it's fully clear again.
Jun 27, 2013 2:30 PM  Battonage          Last battonage -- When clear I will rack, age for a couple of weeks, filter and bottle
Jul 4, 2013 2:00 PM   Racked             Crystal clear with a fair amount of fine lees
Jul 12, 2013 1:30 PM  Bottled            Tastes bright - better than expected with both ginger notes and nice floral notes.
```


I made a label too:


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## PamNoir (Sep 6, 2014)

Great post. I also made a dandelion wine this year. It is my first wine without a kit. I only did a 1 gal batch. What did you stabilize it with? I want to bottle mine in the next few days, but I have never bottled anything yet. I have a pinot noir which is to be bottled next. Thanks 


Sent from my iPhone using Wine Making


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## sgx2 (Sep 7, 2014)

If you're referring to my post, thanks!  
I stabilized with potassium metabisulphate and sorbate, as usual. There's no malic acid in my acid blend (or in the petals, as far as I could tell) so there was low risk of post-bottling MLF which you DO NOT WANT if you've added sorbate (or you get the dreaded Geranium Taint)...


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