making dandelion wine

Trying my hand at making dandelion wine. so far I have been very surprised at how yummy this is tasteing!
the petals made a beautifully yellow/orange juice, I was surprised at how vivid the color stayed even after cooking the petals

This is something I'm hoping to make this year for the first time; I recently read that dandelion wine is one of the best tasting hedgerow wines.. The dandelions ain't flowering just yet so I have to wait a little longer - just as well really, both our fermentation buckets are otherwise occupied at the mo.

when i picked the petals...I just took a pair of scissors out and snipped the pettals right off the green bud....so to avoid getting the bitter part....some people recoment plucking all the pettals, but i did not have time to pull them all off....so snipping was easy and I harvested 1 quart of petals in about 15 min.

Is this an alcoholic drink or is it just called wine, I don't drink alcohol but this sounds so good almost as good as that honey over the moon honey moonshine recipe i saw on the forum.
I still want to make it really bad maybe I can just use it in cooking if it's booze, we make our own ginger beer/ale almost everyday so this would be a nice change and the lions are in bloom right now.

I harvest loads of petals on a nearby organic farm, I cook them with water and a sliced lemon. Part of the strained liquor I use to make a jelly (using pectin and sugar), another part to make a syrup for non-alcoholic drinks (honey or less sugar than with the jelly) and a part is fermenting to make some boozy wine (with sugar and yeast). You can start with one extract and vary a lot of details around to make all kind of nice things. I'll be drying some petals next to use in tea and cooking (as a saffron-replacement).

Thanks for the ideas Kat. I was thinking that the syrup would be good for other uses....I put orange peel and a small amount of citrus juices.....The end result tasted kind of like orange honey. So I was thinking a soda flavor would be really good, a jelly crossed my mind too.

now I want to try another batch , and I definetly have enough dandelions for another batch. haha

I will try drying them too...they keep their color so well......is dandelion used for a dye for wool??

Adding Eaglesong's dandelion wine recipe to this thread.



Yum. Great pics, Thelma!

My talented 'Executive Assistant' Janet is making some dandelion balsamic vinegar. She says all you do is fill a jar with blossoms, push them down some. Cover completely with balsamic vinegar (or whatever vinegar you desire). You can cap it or cover with a towel/cloth/rubber band. Store in a dark cabinet for about a month. The top might get a little funky but it is easily removed. It will be ready at the same time as the chard.

I made a few gallons of dandelion wine three or four years ago. It's been sitting in half gallon mason jars in a cabinet since then. I also made a few gallons from some wild grapes that my son helped me pick that fall. I don't drink alcohol anymore and I never got a chance to try it. I know that wine can be turned to vinegar but does anyone have a good idea how to go about that?

Also, have you ever heard of wine jelly? Basically it's just that, jelly made from wine instead of juice. I've done it with white wines and it works really well. It's crazy good on toast with a little bit of butter. I'm thinking I might try making up some Dandelion Wine Jelly. What do think?

Wine Jelly Recipe

Craig Dobbelyu wrote:I made a few gallons of dandelion wine three or four years ago. It's been sitting in half gallon mason jars in a cabinet since then. I also made a few gallons from some wild grapes that my son helped me pick that fall. I don't drink alcohol anymore and I never got a chance to try it. I know that wine can be turned to vinegar but does anyone have a good idea how to go about that?

If the wine is uncorked and unrefrigerated, I think it just turns to vinegar on its own. At least I've done that to my wine many times. Though I'm shooting from the hip here, and don't know how much alcohol might remain.

I've heard some folks add a "mother" to their apple cider vinegar to help, so I wonder if that would help the wine vinegar as well.

Craig Dobbelyu wrote:Also, have you ever heard of wine jelly? Basically it's just that, jelly made from wine instead of juice. I've done it with white wines and it works really well. It's crazy good on toast with a little bit of butter. I'm thinking I might try making up some Dandelion Wine Jelly. What do think?

Wine Jelly Recipe

I had not heard of this. Here is a pic from your link.

Mouth is now watering.

I love this post.

My sister Cheri and I were talking about wine while at Sam's Club about a week ago. I asked about my mom's dandelion wine.

The story goes that my mom had made a big batch in a wash tub in the basement but was having trouble with it dehydrating so fast. One day she caught my 3 oldest sisters. all under 10 at the time, taste testing the koooooolaide!

Cheri said, "It was soooo good!"

My Father in law and myself have both made a few batches of Dandelion wine. It looks like you've got alot of green in the kettle, I try to pop all the petals out of their heads. It's a bit of work but keeps it from getting bitter or off-tastes.

Brown sugar adds it's own flavor that can detract from the delicate floral flavor (true for most flower wines) and in this case I think that dextrose, white sugar, or turbinado works better than my usual plain dark brown.

If you want to make it sparkling/ carbonated then let it ferment to dry, then back-sugar before bottling. I like alot of fizz so I'd go for around 3.0 for your volume of C02, you can figure out how much sugar you need on an online priming calculator-
http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/

If you want a sweet wine you can just bottle it shortly after fermentaiton begins. just make sure to drink it fairly quick because it will continue to build up pressure. This is one instance where a plastic bottle is an ok idea because you can feel how much pressure is in it.

Hope some of that is helpful.

I made dandelion wine and I liked very much your idea with the scissors. It was quite yummy even I only used some basic recipe and had quite some green in more than in the picture above.

I have made dandelion wine for many years I always pick them daily before noon and immediatrely put the petals with all green rem0ved in a gallon jar adding a cup or so of water with each addition . I usually make one or 2 gallons/year . It takes several gallons of petals to make one gallon of wine . The primary collection is gathered during the entire dandilion spring season. I then add sugar heated to dissolve, wine yeast for a bubbly white wine ,  thinly sliced lemon and orange (organic )a stick or 2 of cinnamin and a couple of star anise to the mix . and put it in a sterilized container with a fermentaton lock. After it has stoped I strain it and bottle it in gallon jugs and age 6 months before decanting it into bottles . Heavenly ...