beginner dandelion wine experiment!

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Dandy

Junior
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Hello all, about three weeks ago I got some good advice on the dandelion wine I'm trying to make. The recipe (1 gallon) called for fermenting for three weeks then a first racking. Then three months for it to clear and then a second racking. It seems to have stopped fermenting and it is not clear. My question is do I now rack it into another glass 1 gal container and keep it closed with an airlock for these three months? Or do I do something else?
I assume I need to sanitize the transfer tube and container. Then at the end of three months I can bottle and store until mature enough to drink (around Christmas it says).
Is the cloudiness just an aesthetic issue or does it affect taste, etc?
 
Hi Dandy - and welcome. Cloudiness is often more an aesthetic issue but its presence can point to issues that can be big or small. For example, cloudiness can simply mean that various chemicals that are in suspension are in suspension because of the amount of CO2 in the wine and until the wine is "degassed" those particles are going to remain in suspension. Is that a big problem? Well, CO2 can add acidity to your wine and that acidity can /could have stressed the yeast. That stress can/could have caused off flavors. So the cloudiness itself is not a problem but the reason for it could be. BUT that said, a) three weeks is no time at all in wine making - and it might take 3 months or more for a wine to clear. And , b) check out the number of wine makers who refer to cloudiness in their dandelion wines.
Truth is I am not very knowledgeable about making dandelion wine (made it only once and it was clear and very tasty but I have problems getting enough pesticide free flowers for this wine) . I know. I know. Could be that dandelions and the other ingredients you may have added contain enough pectins that when you heated the water to extract the flavor you helped set those pectins so the most effective means of removing them would be to have added pectic enzymes. But these enzymes tend to be far less effective in the presence of alcohol.
Bottom line: Have patience. It can take months and months for a wine to clear (you can help to clear it by adding finings such as Bentonite, egg whites, and other chemicals that cause the particles to drop out of suspension, and you can help the wine clear by degassing (by stirring or pulling the CO2 up through the wine by applying a vacuum to the fermenter - or by causing the gas to nucleate by adding tiny particles of stable compounds like silicon that will allow the gas to collect and be expelled through the mouth of your fermenter - but be careful as this third method can turn your carboy into a volcano and you can lose a large volume of your wine as it rockets out the fermenter and paints your ceiling.):a .
 
Wow! All interesting information. I will wait to see how it is after three months. Should it still be in a glass container with an airlock during this time? Or is the container closed? should it be in a dark place or does that matter? Thanks again.
 
What is the gravity reading? Unless you know that it has fully finished fermenting and you have stabilized it , you want the wine to be under an airlock. In my opinion, it does not really need to be kept in the dark but UV light can affect both color and flavors. Direct sunlight is not good. (I say that as someone whose make room is in my basement)
 
This is what I've got so far. I realize the color would be lighter and more golden if I had used white raisins instead of red.
 

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So far I've had it in the basement as well. Thank you. I will rack into a sanitized gallon container and keep it with the airlock for three months. With fingers crossed!
 

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