Dandylion/Celery?

Hey ya'll,

I live in the desert but have been spending the winter in the Pacific NorthWet helping family in the house I grew up in and it's given me a bit of an opportunity to experiement. When I first got here in the Fall the Crabapple tree next door was packed with fruit so I got permission to pick what I wanted, got a 3 gal carboy from my brother, some raspberry honey from the local brew shop and am now waiting for that to settle.


Now with spring here I'm wanting to do one more small batch of something but I may not be here more than another month, so it can't be anything that'll have to sit in the carbory too long. I've been picking and cleaning dandylions and freezing them for later, and have just come across mention of a celery wine on another site that intrigued me, and now I'm wondering about combining them... perhaps as an aperitif....

Any thoughts?????

Hmmmmmm never had celery wine but have read about it a few times. I would bet it would be bitter but if done right could be refreshing. Jack Keller has a couple of recipes posted here:

jack Keller's site

The floral dandelion might actually balance this out into a nice wine. If it were me this would be my experimental recipe:

1 gallon recipe

3 qt dandelion flowers
4 lb celery
1/2 lb golden raisins
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1.5lb sugar (or sugar to gravity of 1.066)
Yeast nutrient
Yeast energizer
Yeast (lalvin K1v-1116)

I would do a light boil for a half hour on the dandelions, lemon and sugar and then pour that over the chopped celery and raisins topping up with additional water to a gallon and then adjust gravity with sugar if needed. Rehydrate the yeast and pitch it with nutrients. If you can ferment this cold 1116 will accentuate the floral quality of the dandelions. Once fermented dry I would let clear and then add sorbate and a crushed Camden tablet to stabilize and back sweeten to 1.004 - 1.006ish for a nice crisp off dry refreshing wine.

Where TF is Creamy?

cheezydemon3 said:

Where TF is Creamy?

Click to expand...

Haha just had to laugh.

That looks about like an appropriate recipe, thanx!! I'm gonna have to get this started soon so it can be ready to bottle soon enough. I'll try to post updates.

I have a recipe for celery wine if you're interested , it's in one of my wine making books but I've never made it.

Well, get ready to cringe!
The brew shop was closed on the day I went by so I didn't get the chance to get what i wanted, and I didn't really feel like driving all the way out there again so decided to see what i could do with what was around the house.
The only yeast I could find was either fleishmans or a couple packets of old Red Star that my dad had stashed away, one champaign and one pasteur champaign, both expired in mid 2012. I put a pinch of each in separate jars of warm water to see if they would take and they did so I added more warm water and a tbsp of honey and dumped the rest of the two packets in the starter. Then I took what I had so far of dandelion flowers, greens removed: 8.6 oz. and diced up what celery I was willing to sacrifice: 9.4 oz. and simmered both at about 190 degrees for around 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile the starter was growing such a huge head it was starting to look like one of those ash snakes I used to play with on New Years eave so I had to transfer it to a larger container.. haha!!
Put about 6 cups of sugar and a tsp of Irish moss into a different container and poured the dandelion/celery on top of it and let it meld for 5 minutes. Sliced an orange (yes, pith and everything) and put that with eight of my moms fresh grapes (forgot to get raisins at the store..) into a sterylized 1 gal glass pickle jar. Added a little bit more water to around 1.075 sg, checked that it wasn't too hot anymore and pitched the yeast. Rubberbanded a plastic bag over the top and set it in the cooled room in the house which seem to average the usual 68 degrees.

That was around a week ago and it's been going really well so far, and smells great! I removed the orange slices today.
This may seem strange but of all the batches of both wines and meads (mostly meads) that I've made I almost always get better product when I make these little 1 gal batches. Not really sure why.
I'll try to post a pic real soon.

Just an fyi - this celery dandelion turned out amazing!!! I've been in the semi truck on the road with the hubby, and this has been sitting in my brothers wine room since it was bottled. Every time I get a chance to come by and visit we have a glass. It starts out with a nice, almost refreshing celery on your tongue and ends with a mild dandelion finish and aftertaste. No bitterness at all. I'm very happy with it, and if I have a chance I may try a bigger batch another time.