How To Make Dandelion Wine
Disolve sugar into 5 pints/2.5 litres of boiling water.
Pour the syrup over the stripped back flower heads, sultanas, and orange pieces avoid adding any pith.
Leave mix for 2 days stirring a minimum of twice a day.
On day three stir strain off the flowers orange and sultana fragments into a sterile demijohn.
Add the yeast yeast nutrient and citric acid to the mixture.
Top up the demijohn with some cold water.
Adgitate the demijohn vigorously, fit airlock and move to a warm but dark place to ferment, shaking daily for 3 days.
When fermentation is complete leave wine to clear (no more agitating the wine).
Rack the wine and top up with cold water or apple juice then add a crushed Campden tablet.
Leave to mature in a cool place racking at 3 month intervals.
After the wine clears bottle on.
This wine is drinkable at 9 months but leave it at least 6 months after bottling.
Dandelion wine is a classic wine, producing a medium dry white table wine. It’s one of the best forager wines you can turn your hand too. The dilema of remembering when to pick dandelions is easy to remember in England, as the traditional day for starting to pick dandelions is St Georges day, which is the 23rd April.
Preparation time: 45 minutes
Initial fermentation time: 14 days
Time to be ready to drink: 12 months
4 pints/2.5 litres dandelion heads (yellow petals only)
2¼lbs/1kg sugar
1 teaspoon/5 grams citric acid
1 teaspoon/5 grams yeast nutrient
1 packet white wine yeast
2 oranges
½lb/225 grams chopped sultanas
1 Campden tablet (crushed)
Sweetness: Medium dry
Calories per bottle: 400 approx
Yield: 6 bottles
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