Drunk on Dandelions

Transform summer’s ubiquitous weed-flower into a sweet, flowery wine.

By Sarah Crump
Published: June 2nd, 2010 | 12:00am

Home brewing is a DIY adventure I’ve always wanted to try. I had read about it occasionally and daydreamed about how cool it would be drink a tasty beverage I’d crafted myself. But it took coming across a recipe for dandelion wine for me to stop reading and start brewing.

I read Ray Bradbury’s novel Dandelion Wine a couple years back and it got me curious about this sweet dessert wine. Since it’s impossible to find in stores (with hours of petal-plucking required, the reason for this is obvious), I knew I’d have to make it myself if I wanted to have a taste. Plus, it seemed like such a romantic place to start with home brewing.

I enlisted a couple friends to help with the plucking and brewing and we had a ball. Of course it will be a few months before we can sip our fermented flowery drink (which I’ve heard should taste very sweet and floral-y, with citrus undertones); we can’t wait.

What you'll need

Yeast Mixture
2 packages dried yeast (we used Red Star Champagne Yeast as recommended by our local brewing store)
100ml warm water

Dandelion Mixture
4 Liters dandelion blossoms
8 Liters water
500 ml orange juice
1 fresh lemon
1 fresh lime

Fermentation Mixture
1/4 teaspoon cloves (or 16 whole cloves)
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
1 coarsely chopped orange peel
1 coarsely chopped lemon peel
12 cups sugar

Additional Tools
funnels
coffee filters/cheesecloth
strainer
carboy or "brewing bucket"
measuring cup w/ ml
sanitizer
bottles
corks
corker

Yield
about 10 bottles of wine

1. Collect dandelions from an open field away from sprays or pollution. Young buds just opening are said to be the tastiest. The bad news is you have to use just the dandelion blossoms as green makes the wine bitter. We quickly found that picking absolutely no green is an impossible feat, so just do your best. We plucked dandelions on the spot so we could measure them and make sure we had collected enough. Ask your friends to come along for this part. The plucking takes a while and besides having the extra helping hands, good company makes the time go by much more quickly.

2. Once you and the blossoms are home, create your yeast mixture by combining the yeast and warm water in a separate bowl; then set aside. In a very large pot (or a few smaller ones) combine the blossoms, water, orange juice, and the juices of 1 lemon and 1 lime, and bring the mixture to a boil. Let it boil for a few minutes; then let stand until cooled to room temperature. After the mixture has cooled, add the yeast mixture and let it stand for 24 to 48 hours.

3. Strain the blossoms out of the mixture while pouring into the carboy or bucket. Once you've relocated the concoction, add cloves, ginger, orange peels, lemon peels, and sugar. Close it up, shake well, and let sit for one week while the fermentation gets started.

4. After a week has passed, it’s time for bottling! Use any type of empty bottles you've collected, but make sure you sanitize them all properly first (see howtobrew.com for different sanitation methods). Next, strain the mixture again while funneling it into the bottle. I took the this opportunity to really try and get the sediment out and strained through coffee filters, which took forever.

Cheesecloth is also a popular option and other people choose to rack their wine by filtering it a few times throughout the process until nearly clear. I decided one good filter and the use of a decanter while serving would be fine for my wine. Once you the wine is in the bottles, you're ready to store them in a cool dark place for 3 to 6 weeks before corking. I'm waiting the full 6 weeks—if you cork it too soon, it could cause the bottle to explode. Also, while your bottles are sitting open, it will be very tempting to little critters who smell your sugary wine fermenting. To help keep pests out, I rubberbanded breathable fabric scraps tightly over the top so that air can still reach the wine.

5. Six weeks later your wine should have fermented fully—and it'll be ready to consume, but it will taste even better if you allow it to age further. Since it's hard to be so patient, we decided will have our first tasting with half the bottles at the 2-month anniversary and another one year from now.

 Happy brewing!

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Highball (about 1 year)
It has been a long long time and I have never done so with dandelion wine, but put a clean balloon over the top with as little air as possible. The baloon goes up with fermentation and goes down when it stops (6 weeks??), hence balloon wine.