A little twist on a country wine - dandelion mead

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BernardSmith

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Many folk in the NE of the US who make country wines make a dandelion wine this time of year, but what about making this wine as a mead? Just replace the sugar with honey (I would use a honey whose flavor won't dominate the flowers - clover, perhaps) and I would use a yeast that won't strip off all the flavors from the petals either.
For this batch I made a dandelion tea (after snipping off the flower receptacle from the petals - It takes an unnecessarily long time to pull the petals from the ovary and receptacle, but scissors make quick of that job) with boiling water and am allowing the petals (sitting in a nylon painters bag) to steep for about 1.5 - 2 days. My plan is then to add 2.5 lbs of honey to the bucket with 100 g of gesho I had used earlier in a t'ej. (and some lemon juice and nutrients) My thinking is that the enchet, the twigs, are likely covered in yeast and bacteria and I will add these to the must and allow this to ripen it for about three days. If there are enough viable yeast in the gesho I will let them do their thing and if there are insufficient cells I will add some cultured yeast - probably 71B.
I have another batch of dandelion wine that I started last week so it will be interesting to compare tasting notes.
Thoughts? Thanks
 
are you going to use golden raisins ? next clover honey , or a more flora wildflower honey, and if you can find it spanish needle honey, spanish needle honey is very pale , non over powering honey, i have not found spanish needle honey for quite some time, but i'm not much on meads although i in the past have made 5 true meads(type of honey determine the bouquet an flavor, or melomels, i made close to 20 batches, but you must remember pallet is not complete, the tracheostomy way restricts a refined pallet, yet for some reason sweet country wines i can detect the different notes, and i bottle at around SG 1.040,, but at least i can produce and enjoy something,,
wishing you much luck,
Dawg
 
Never thought to use raisins. Is that for mouthfeel or to mask some of the floral notes? I used clover honey because that is what I had. And I guess I prefer my meads a little more dry than you. I often backsweeten a gallon with about 4 oz of honey - so I am looking for a final gravity of about 1.008 -010.
 
Never thought to use raisins. Is that for mouthfeel or to mask some of the floral notes? I used clover honey because that is what I had. And I guess I prefer my meads a little more dry than you. I often backsweeten a gallon with about 4 oz of honey - so I am looking for a final gravity of about 1.008 -010.
it smooths out your mead if using wildflower honey, and 1 ounce of steller hop from australia
sorry i thought i was on my banana post,
Dawg
 
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it gives mouth feel and banana tends to finish weak or lackluster, with golden raisins the finish is more smooth and robust,
Dawg
But so does tannin, and I would hope that the wine is neither lackluster (I add lemon juice) or weak (there should be enough flavor from the petals that are steeped for days before I pitch the yeast)... But proof of the pudding is always in the eating ... so we shall see. We shall see.
 
A question on dandelion wine... I made a batch last year... all the fermentables are sugar and whatever fruit you add in. Taste can be further modified with spices. You can dilute to any ABV you want... The dandelion flowers have very slight aromatics... If you made two batches of dandelion wine and the only difference between the two was that one had dandelions and the other didn't, would you really be able to tell them apart?
 
A question on dandelion wine... If you made two batches of dandelion wine and the only difference between the two was that one had dandelions and the other didn't, would you really be able to tell them apart?
Hi AnnArbor Craig, and welcome...
If you made TWO batches of dandelion wine then wouldn't BOTH have dandelion in it? If only ONE did and the second didn't what would make the second a dandelion wine? So my guess is that if you made two batches and only one had dandelions in it, Yup, you COULD tell the difference, because the other wouldn't have any taste of dandelions. :slp
 
Hi AnnArbor Craig, and welcome...
If you made TWO batches of dandelion wine then wouldn't BOTH have dandelion in it? If only ONE did and the second didn't what would make the second a dandelion wine? So my guess is that if you made two batches and only one had dandelions in it, Yup, you COULD tell the difference, because the other wouldn't have any taste of dandelions. :slp
Sir would you mind documenting this ideal of yours,i am not interested in making any, unfolds, that is but i would love to know how you project comes about, with my so called pallet tastes very heavy fruits and berries that are sweet, i have drank dandelion wine 40 years ago, bue never thought of, your ideal of dandelion mead is something no one i' know of has never thought of at least in my neck of the woods.
Dawg
 
Dawg, Happy to offer feedback on the dandelion wine and mead. It may take a month or two before I am ready to bottle and another few months before the wines are ready to (hopefully) enjoy ... but I think that finding fruits, vegetables and flowers that were the mainstay of home wine makers for centuries is one of the things that attracts me to this hobby.
But see my private note to you about your post at 1.07 AM today. The only things we should carry are the things we need to help us on our journey through life. Everything else we should put down as soon as we possibly can. The less weight we carry, the more we can help others carry what they may need.
 
Dawg, Happy to offer feedback on the dandelion wine and mead. It may take a month or two before I am ready to bottle and another few months before the wines are ready to (hopefully) enjoy ... but I think that finding fruits, vegetables and flowers that were the mainstay of home wine makers for centuries is one of the things that attracts me to this hobby.
But see my private note to you about your post at 1.07 AM today. The only things we should carry are the things we need to help us on our journey through life. Everything else we should put down as soon as we possibly can. The less weight we carry, the more we can help others carry what they may need.
Amen
 
that dandelion mead still in the works, funny when young i secretly help old timers, um well really i was a fetch and tote , hehe, but anyway here in my neck of the woods there were many $h!ners, many beer brewers even though, i swear every one's secret beer recipe must of been one and the same,, yeasty alcohol, yuck,, lol but the winemakers all made 3 wines period muscadine, elderberry and dandelion, now i was young and my world was small, so all i knew was 3 types of wine , and i did not like dandelion, to light a flavor, i'm not interested in drinking any, but i don't know why but you peaked my interest in your project, i got this thread watched, and i know time,, time,, time but when you mosey along i do want to know about this project, keep safe,,
dawg
 
Thanks, Dawg. So I am making 1 gallon of dandelion wine and a second gallon of dandelion mead and so far neither are clear enough for me to want to bottle. They are starting to clear but I think they have a few months still to go. Not a big problem as most people who have made the wine say that you make it in the spring and crack open a bottle in the winter.
The "lightness" of flavor may be the result of too few petals. I imagine that the more petals you use the more intense the flavor. But that said, I believe that dandelions have a diuretic effect on the body (they make you pee!) and I would think that for some people with certain medical conditions a diuretic may be contra-indicated.
 
Question:. If I wanted to try dandelion wine is it just the flowers used in the tea or do you use the plant leafs also to make the tea.
 
Great question. The roots , leaves and petals of dandelion are all edible and the leaves (especially of young plants) make great salad greens and I hear make a great tea too, but I believe that dandelion wine uses only the petals. In other words, I bet you can make a good wine from the leaves but it won't be recognizable as "dandelion wine" by anyone who has seen or tasted the wine made from petals.

The roots - when roasted make a wonderful beverage too. In Scotland there was a company that provided this as a dandelion coffee - and when I was in my twenties that was something I loved to drink
 
I have never made it, but I always thought that the green stuff was poisonous. Maybe not the leaves though, I might remember them eating dandelion greens on the Beverly Hillbillies way back when! I thought that the yellow petals were the only thing used, correct me if I'm wrong.
 
now the roots are new to me, the greens yes, the flower/pedals are for wine,
like poke salad, you must pick in under about 8 inches after that, poke is poisonous, until my grandma passed i'd pick her poke come early spring, she'd wilt it with hot bacon grease, but let it get just a little to tall and you're a goner, native black elderberry has strychnine in bark , leaves; berries, but when you make syrup or wine you're fine, but red elderberry, you die, on elders it's like this, the flowers an/or berries are shaped like umbrella you're good to go, but if the elder is bunched hanging like grapes then don't mess with, in the Ozarks we have black and red, native to our area, i think blues and whites are from across the pond,,, i've only seen them online,,
dawg
 

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