How does dandelion wine taste

Can I reactivate my yeast with a pinch or two of white wine yeast if need be? Hi, I just put my dandelion wine into secondary…. There was nothing moldy going on and everything looked pretty great. It also actually smelled really lovely!

I tasted it as I racked it into secondary discarding all the petals and not dredging up the settled and it is slightly sour. At this point, could I do the above regarding adding more room temp simple syrup, or do I just need to let this batch do its thing and see what happens. Thanks R. You can definitely add more simple syrup if you want to sweeten it.

What amount of raisins do you suggest adding based on the recipe you provided and when should they be added? My house, at night, gets down to 60 degrees. We are abut to hit day temps that will consistently be in the mids to 70 range. This is my first try! Hi Ashley, just wondering about something… I tried to do the primary ferment in a carboy narrow neck , but it began overflowing, so I moved everything into a wide-mouthed glass container and put a towel over it for days to give it some time to calm down.

Is days enough time to extract enough flavor into the wine? Or should I have put all the contents back into the carboy for the remainder of the first ferment? That should be totally fine. The vast majority of the flavor comes out in the first day or two. Good luck with your wine! I was SO happy to have found your site so I could try my hand at Dandelion winemaking. Imagine my delight at finding your wonderful information!

Is it not necessary for dandelion wine? I just discovered your blog and it is so chock full of great things! Tannin is optional in any winemaking recipe, and it affects the final flavor and mouthfeel, but not how it ferments.

Do they stay in the fermenter for 3 weeks? We followed your recipe but have still not seen any bubbling in the airlock. Can we add more yeast at this point? You may still be able to save it if you pitch yeast now, but 10 days in, something else may have colonized in there and if may have already spoiled. Give it a smell, and if it still smells fine, maybe try to re-pitch the yeast and save it. Use your best judgment though. Hi there!

In the comments to another question you mentioned making pineapple wine. Do you have a recipe for pineapple wine? Hopefully soon. It comes from the book Artisanal Small Batch Brewing. She uses bottled pineapple juice, but I substituted fresh pineapple juice that I extracted myself. How do I know when it is time to rack the wine? Do I just wait for 3 weeks to go by? Do I watch to see if there are no bubbles in the air lock for a certain amount of time? My carboy is in a cool basement.

Thank you so much for sharing your recipe and experience! Usually a few weeks is good, maybe weeks at most in colder spots.

You want to get the petals out of there sooner rather than later because they can mold. A good rule of thumb is to wait minutes between airlock bubbles, but you may just never get there. Thank you for responding to all these comments! Should I bail on one of these? Or let them both sit in second fermentation for weeks? They were in my kitchen for 3 weeks but I think fermentation may have finished after just a couple days….

I often forget things in primary for way too long, no worries, it happens. Did you use the same recipe for both? I have kept it in a cool basement of about 65 degrees. Should I go ahead and rack it to get the petals out of it?

Do you ever clean the airlock? Thanks in advance for any advice. Kandace Lee. In the height of the lock down I figured I would give it a go. SInce I have a 5 gallon kit, of course I wanted to make 5 gallons and used your recipe. It took a long time to gather all those petals! Recipes online seem to vary from qts of petals per gallon of water. I only found one example where it was done by mass which was 75 g of petals per liter of water essentially a qt. Using the yeast nutrient and champagne yeast, after just over two weeks in primary ferment I transferred into a carboy with air lock.

It still bubbles a couple times a minute so maybe I did it a bit early but maybe not. Right now it is a cloudy When I siphoned into the second vessel. I took the opportunity with the wine thief to give it a taste. Fairly strong alcohol taste but quite a sweet taste, almost like a liqueur. Not at all unpleasant. I have never had dandelion wine for comparison but I am hoping after secondary fermentation and bottle aging I will get the dandelion flavor.

If not, it will still be good. Hi, Ashley. My wine is also a bit dark in color. Do you recommend a particular sanitizer or a way to sanitize it? Dark colored lees at the bottom is totally fine and normal. I just made this recipe this year and its delish! My friend and I are trying to brainstorm new flavors and we were thinking of trying rose. Could you just substitute rose petals for the dandelion?

Maybe not use as much citrus? Any suggestions? Less citrus sounds about right, or at least skip the orange and go with all lemon. For a more neutral taste, you can also use acid blend, which is formulated for brewing and will get the pH right without adding citrus. This recipe uses blueberries or blackberries for color, though I think a splash of pomegranate juice or raspberry juice might really compliment roses.

Best of luck and let me know how it goes! Much more accessible. Hi I just came across this post. I have a question, is it necessary to use yeast.

What if I have on hand my own homemade fermentation starters made from fruit can I use that in replacement of the yeast? As with other yeast-sugar fermented beverages, dandelion wine does, indeed, contain alcohol. Wine made from dandelions was once considered a health tonic. Making wine is a great way to preserve some of the dandelion's nutrients.

Some benefits attributed to dandelions that will also be present in the wine include the following. Dandelion wine is a great way to preserve the flavor of spring and summer in a bottle.

This aromatic, floral wine may become your new favorite. Basic Recipe for Dandelion Wine Make dandelion wine with the flowers or with the flowers.

Instructions In a large pot, bring one gallon of the water and the sugar to a boil, cooking until the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature do not chill. Rest it for five minutes.

In a one gallon carboy, add the dandelion flowers, yeast nutrient, lemon juice and zest, orange juice and zest, and raisins and pour the cooled sugar water over the top. Pour in the yeast mixture.

Mix gently. Add water to top off the carboy and cap with an airlock. Siphon through a filter into a clean container, discarding any solids including raisins, orange and lemon peels, and dandelion petals. Seal with an airlock. Ferment for another two to three weeks or until bubbling has stopped. Siphon through a filter a third time into a clean container, discarding any sediment.

Bottle in to clean, sterilized corked or capped bottles. Like, way more than you think you will. Once those are collected, remove the petals from the stems and store them in a large bowl.

Next, boil some sugar water until all of the sugar has dissolved. Then, zest up some oranges and lemons. Lastly, pour a packet of wine yeast into a little bit of warm water and let it sit for a few minutes to get it activated. This recipe captures the sunny color of spring's dandelion flowers in a bottle. Despite the sugar in the recipe, once fully fermented, the result is a deliciously dry wine.

Dandelion wine has been likened to mead , with a hint of honey taste to it. This wine should be served chilled, and although it won't technically spoil, if it is aged too long it may not taste quite as good.

If you've never made wine before, be prepared to be patient— fermenting dandelion wine takes about two years. Zest and juice from 3 medium lemons. Zest and juice from 3 medium oranges. Optional: 1 cup simple syrup. Snip off most of the calyxes green parts from the base of flowers and all of the stems.

Compost or discard the calyxes and stems. Put trimmed petals in a nonreactive vessel no aluminum, copper, or iron. Bring water to a boil and pour over flower petals. Let mixture sit for 2 hours. Place a colander lined with cheesecloth or butter muslin over a large, nonreactive pot and strain dandelions, pressing gently on the flowers to extract as much of the liquid as possible. Compost or discard dandelion petals. Place pot over high heat and bring strained dandelion infusion to a boil.

Stir in citrus juices and sugar, mixing to dissolve sugar. Add lemon and orange zest and chopped raisins. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. When mixture has cooled to room temperature, stir in yeast nutrient or cornmeal and wine or baking yeast.