Dandelion wine

[White Rabbit]

So, yesterday, before the dandelion blooms closed up for the night, we picked about a gallon or so of them. Then we spent the rest of the night picking the yellow petals out of the blooms so we could boil them up in a sauce pan to make dandelion wine. I also got a hellacious sinus headache from leaning over a bucket of pollen-covered blooms for two hours.

[Sirius]

cool you got a recipe for that?

[Anne]

Interesting. I've learned something new, that you can make Dandelion wine. Was it good?

[White Rabbit]

cool you got a recipe for that?

Well, there's a million different ones on the internet. Just search for dandelion wine recipe on Google and you'll find gobs of them.

The one I used, though... You get about a gallon of dandelion blooms and pick off all the green parts (they'll make the wine taste sour). When you've got about a gallon or so of the yellow petals, you add about a gallon of water to that, and let it simmer for three hours or so until the water's nice and yellow and dandelion-y.

Then you strain out the petals and add 4 pounds of sugar to that liquid. Then you take two oranges and two lemons and cut off the rind (or use a cheese grater) and dump it in. But NO pith (the white inside part of the skin)! Just the rind (the outside colored part), because the pith will sour the wine. And actually, any part of the lemons and oranges besides the rind isn't really good for the wine. Then, just squeeze the juice from the lemons and oranges into the liquid.

Then, you let that liquid cool to room temperature and you add a cake of yeast. You can use just plain old bread yeast, but you can get special yeast for wine, too. But the liquid has to be room temperature. It can't be hot off the stove, or it could kill the yeast. And it can't be chilled in the fridge, either, because then the yeast won't work well. Just room temperature.

So, after you've added the yeast to your bucket of crap, you stick it in a dark, warm place to ferment for three days (like a closet). In three days, you strain it off really well, like with coffee filters, and bottle the liquid (or put it in any container). But you DON'T want to seal it, although you can cover it or cork it lightly enough that the cork can pop out, because fermenting stuff builds pressure and it'll explode.

Then you let it sit in a dark warm place bottled for anywhere from 2 months to a year depending on how you like the taste of it.

Interesting. I've learned something new, that you can make Dandelion wine. Was it good?

I won't know for a few months. But I also made dandelion jelly last year, which I still have a ton of. It was really good. It tastes kind of like lemons and honey.

[Sirius]

that sounds cool i'll have to try it. by the way i see this was before you dyed the cat...

[Kit]

seems he was really really bored this weekend lol

[Sertile]

No kidding. I wish I had time to be that bored... I've been wanting to find the time to turn my pickup into a rolling pirate ship.

[Kit]

out in nixa there is a pirate ship about the size of a large truck

[Sertile]

With wheels?

http://www.maakies.com/archive/m356.html

[Kit]

i am sure you could put wheels on it.

[Willard]

Holy Ship!

[Mindscape]

Interesting. Gonna have to try that out if I can find a suitable supply of dandelions. My fiance's from Oregon's wine country and we end up drinking a lot of it.

[White Rabbit]

Interesting. Gonna have to try that out if I can find a suitable supply of dandelions. My fiance's from Oregon's wine country and we end up drinking a lot of it.

Dude, you can't find a suitable supply of dandelions here? Just go walk around the neighborhood about noon when the dandelions are fully open

[spicachu]

seriously, you have too much free time.

[Mindscape]

My yard here's pretty much dandelion-free. There are some, but you've gotta remember, I live in Joplin. My yard's only seven years old. Well, the top foot or so of it, anyway.