My daughter and I made Dandelion Wine this year! We had a bumper crop of dandelions here on the Jason Farm this Spring. We also had Grandpa Price's Dandelion Wine Recipe, along with Grandpa Price's two gallon crock.
I'd never done anything like this, so, of course I was more than a little nervous. I did a lot of research first and decided to "tweak" Grandpa's recipe. I used a Dandelion Wine recipe I found on a website called Common Sense Home. It was pretty much the same as Grandpa Price's recipe with a couple of small changes. The lady who owns the site, Laurie Neverman, is awesome! She is very specific when she's giving you directions, and she posts a lot of videos showing you the process. Visit her site (link above) to see the pictures she posted on the Dandelion Wine making process.
Here's the recipe:
Dandelion Wine
A smooth and hearty flower wine with citrus notes that will warm you from head to toe.Author: Laurie Neverman
Yield: 4–5 bottles
Ingredients:
- 3 quarts dandelion blossoms
- 1 gallon water
- 2 oranges, with peel, preferably organic
- 1 lemon, with peel, preferably organic
- 3 pounds sugar
- 1 package wine yeast
- 1 pound raisins, preferably organic
Instructions:
- Collect the blossoms when they are fully open on a sunny day. Remove any green parts.
- Bring the water to a boil and pour it over the flowers in a large pot or crock. Cover with a towel to keep dust out and let steep for three days. Stir daily to keep the petals submerged.
- Prepare the oranges and the lemon. Zest (finely grate) about half of the rind and peel the rest off in very thin strips. You want to minimize the amount of white pith added to the brew.
- Finish peeling the citrus, and slice them into thin rounds.
- Add the lemon and the orange zest to the flower-water mixture and bring to a boil. Remove from heat, strain out solids, then add the sugar, stirring until it is dissolved. Allow to cool to room temperature.
- Add the yeast, orange and lemon slices, and raisins to the liquid. Put everything into a crock (or wide mouth carboy with airlock) to ferment. I cover my crock with a clean cotton towel held down by a rubber band. Stir daily with a wooden spoon or non-reactive stir stick. When the mixture starts to ferment, you'll hear and see a lot of bubbling. This happened almost immediately for my mixture. It's ready to "finish" when the bubbling stops. It took about two weeks for my batch to be ready to transfer to the Carboy.
Bottling the Wine:
You have two options for bottling your homemade dandelion wine. You can let it finish in bottles, or move to a Carboy and then bottle.
To finish in bottles: When the primary fermentation mixture stops bubbling (1 -2 weeks), fermentation is almost done. Strain the liquid through several layers of cheesecloth or a flour sack towel and transfer to sterilized bottles.
Slip a deflated balloon over the top of each bottle to monitor for further fermentation. When the balloon remains deflated for 24 hours, fermentation is complete.
Cork the bottles and store in a cool, dark place for at least six months before drinking.
If you would like a clearer wine, rack the wine into a gallon carboy with airlock before the final bottling. Allow to ferment in the carboy for 2-3 months, and then rack into the bottles.
To finish in bottles: When the primary fermentation mixture stops bubbling (1 -2 weeks), fermentation is almost done. Strain the liquid through several layers of cheesecloth or a flour sack towel and transfer to sterilized bottles.
Slip a deflated balloon over the top of each bottle to monitor for further fermentation. When the balloon remains deflated for 24 hours, fermentation is complete.
Cork the bottles and store in a cool, dark place for at least six months before drinking.
If you would like a clearer wine, rack the wine into a gallon carboy with airlock before the final bottling. Allow to ferment in the carboy for 2-3 months, and then rack into the bottles.
Notes from Laurie:
Do not seal bottles tightly before they finish fermenting, and don’t put them somewhere warm. Otherwise, you’ll end up with exploding bottles, like my sister, Mary, when she stashed them in a closet. Apparently, it sounded like there were bombs going off or they were being shot at.
I put the yeast, lemon, orange and raisin mixture back in the crock to ferment. Then, as you can see, I transferred the wine into a gallon "Carboy" that allows the wine to finish in one container. I let it sit for almost three months, just to make sure the fermentation process was done. You can see the sediment that has settled at the bottom of the bottle. I'm just so pleased with how the wine turned out - It's delicious!!!
Next we're going to try Pear Wine and Apple Wine!
