Spring Harvest Time for The Dandelion Wine

So, you see them everywhere, adding as much color to lawns as disdain from Homeowners and Lawn keepers, but of course you know there's a cadre of fanatical #homemadewine devotees who've been biding their time all winter, waiting for the right time to pounce on these other "kind buds" for the production of Dandelion wine varieties, sweetened with all manner of sugars, from cherries to plain cane. 

I picked these along a steep hill, akimbo to a parking lot, and got them soaking in boiling water withing 2 hours.  I've kept them soaking for a day, adding lemon juice to bring the acid up high enough to preserve them, before adding a variety of sugars, including orange, cherry and cane.



There should be plenty of wine, but I'm going to set aside a batch for ultra high potassium Kambucha this year, to see where that goes. 

I'm thinking along these lines: carbonated dandelion tea, sweetened back with honey and maybe Cherry juice.  Here are some photos of the stages of Dandelion wine production, from field, to plucking to the big soak, and fermentation. 



Here's how it starts:

You'll need to soak the buds for 24 to 48 hours before you add sugars and yeast.

After the addition of orange juice and cane sugar, we're using Red Star, Montrachet yeast, which is more of an experiment than a known entity in this recipe's evolution.  Sure, others have used it for white wines, but my preference is the Epic EC-1118 for white grapes, and funky stuff, such as pumpkin, cherry or plum based wines.  But since I'm plum out of EC-1118, I'm going to bite my lip and take a trip on this gallon. 

This is the kind of thing one eats "while you're at it", as you're harvesting Dandelion buds to make wine.  Take the extra 3 seconds to pick a few leaves from the weed, rince, boil and "Bob's your uncle". 

Cooked dandelions with garlic taste great, and are loaded with potassium and iron. I juice them too, but the raw taste is a little bitter, the way eating dirt is a little dirty, so adjusting the other flavors is vital (lemon, grapefruit juice and apple help).

Fermentation started straight away with the Montrachet in this gallon, in spite of the high acid from citric juices

Still gathering the juice, adding citric acid and cane sugar to preserve it while I head to Fairway to get some cherry, blueberry, or apple juice for other sugars.