It’s spring, and what better way to celebrate it than to make some Dandelion Wine? Doesn’t that sound at least a little tasty?
The Recipe
Based on a Thrifty Gardening article, with few alterations.
Ingredients
- About 1/2 Gallon of Yellow Dandelion Bits
- 1 Gallon Water
- 3 Oranges
- 2 Lemons
- About 2.65 lb of Sugar
- Some Wine Yeast
Yield
About 1 gallon.
Process
- Pick dandelions and separate yellow bits
- Bring 1 gallon of water to boil
- Pour water over dandelion yellow bits, cover with a cloth, and let sit for 2 days to steep – like a tea!
- Add sugar and citrus zest
- Boil the mixture for 10 minutes
- Let cool to room temperature
- Pour into a gallon jug
- Pour citrus juice into jug
- Pour yeast into jug
- Put an airlock on the jug and let sit until fermentation is done and liquid has cleared
- Bottle and age for at least 6 months, 1 year or more preferred
Notes
- I didn’t spend a whole lot of time getting ALL of the green bits separated from the yellow bits, but I don’t think it’ll affect flavor to much in the end. I hope.
- There’s a diagram that shows mostly the same process with pictures! yay!
Pictures and Progress!
First, I picked the dandelion bits (with Jess’ help), and tried to separate the yellow bits from the green bits… but I still had a lot of green!
Next, I boiled the dandelion (mostly) yellow bits.
And then, the dandelion bits steeped for 2 days.
Then, the steeped mixture had the sugar and citrus added, it was boiled for 10 minutes, cooled to room temp (somewhere around 76°F), then strained and poured into the gallon jug. The citrus juice and yeast were pitched, and then the airlock was added:
And 3 weeks later, fermetation has mostly stopped, and now I wait to let it settle a bit before bottling it, and then age it for a year.
