Dandelion Metheglin

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brandonjonesVW

brandonjonesVW

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Getting ready to try making a dandelion metheglin. Adapted a bit from my uncle's recipe, using honey instead of sugar. What do ya'll think?

1/2 lb. Dandelion Petals
3 lb. Orange Blossom honey
1/4 lb. Golden Raisins
1 Orange (zest & fruit)
1 Lemon (zest & fruit)
water to 1 gal.
Lalvin EC-1118 yeast

Thinking I will prep the dandelion similar to YooperBrew's recipe, minus boiling the sugar portion (in my case the honey).
 
I made a dandelion mead a few years ago.
I pretty much boiled the water, poured it onto the petals and then used the "tea" as my water for the batch.
I only used the dandelion "tea", honey, nutrient, and yeast, no other additives.
Turned out pretty good.
I think I may still have a bottle in the "cellar", I may have to break it out on Thanksgiving. :)
 
I'm hoping for a good balance of the citrus & dandelion. The orange blossom honey tastes amazing on it's own. Will bulk age this for at least a year. Should be putting this all together either this weekend or early next week. :drunk:
 
here's my ghetto-fabulous free fermenter. #2 HDPE 5 quart ice cream buckets I use at work.

DSC02312.jpg


Exactly 1/2 lb. dandelion petals. Kept them in the freezer until I had enough.

DSC02313.jpg


Boiled 1/2 gallon water with 1/2 Campden tablet in my stock pot. Poured over dandelion petals, let cool and snapped lid on bucket. This is to sit in the bucket for 2 days, stirring twice daily.

DSC02315.jpg
 
I read that you are not supposed to put any green parts of the dandelion into the mix. It looks like you got some geens in the fermenter. Hopefully it comes out ok.
 
I picked a few of the green bits out after taking the pictures last night. There were only 4 or 5 that I had missed. Picking that many dandelion petals is a test in patience & requires nimble fingers. :mug:
 
Your photo caption answered my question, which was, "Where the heck did you get dandelion blossoms in November?" :D
 
jcobbs said:
Your photo caption answered my question, which was, "Where the heck did you get dandelion blossoms in November?" :D
Click to expand...

I've still got a ton in my yard & I'm in Middle TN above Nashville.


After stirring twice daily for 2 days, I got everything together. The orange blossom honey I got is pretty dark. As I only had 44oz of orange blossom honey, I added 4oz of clover honey.
DSC02318.jpg


Took my time & got every bit of zest off one orange and one lemon. Added them in the pot with the 1/2 gallon of steeped dandelions. Boiled for 1 hour covered.
DSC02320.jpg


Strained solids through a muslin bag & added liquid to honey. 3lbs of honey dislpaced nearly 1/4 gallon. Mixed thoroughly & sat in cool water bath.
DSC02323.jpg


Added bag with dandelion petals, orange & lemon zest, as well as the fruit from the orange & lemon. Topped up to 1 gallon.
DSC02325.jpg


Color is a nice orange/yellow.
DSC02328.jpg


Pitched Lalvin EC-1118 dry when ~78 degrees F. One hour later I checked & saw this lovely little krausen.
DSC02329.jpg
 
I forgot to mention that I added some 1/4 tsp yeast nutrient before I pitched the yeast.

After 3 days in the primary bucket, I pulled the muslin bag out with all the petals, fruit & zest. Squeezed the remaining liquid from the bag & then strained all the liquid into the 1 gallon carboy on top of 1/4 lb golden raisins. Topped it up to 1 gallon and attached airlock.

DSC02337.jpg


Sitting next to my strawberry wine @ 67 degrees F. Will rack whenever lees accumulate ~ 1/2". Expected aging 1 year.

DSC02340.jpg
 
brandonjonesVW said:
Picking that many dandelion petals is a test in patience & requires nimble fingers. :mug:
Click to expand...
--
Find some girls around and teach them the "He loves me, he loves me not" thing and have them put the petals into a bucket for good luck. :)
Hopefully you can get around the child labour laws with that. :)

It looks really great, just a few things I noticed. Zesting to me is just taking tiny little flakes. I would call what you did peeling. Not a problem as long as you had no pith (white stuff) attached to the skins.
I just wish I could get good honey here, and forget about Dandelion's.
Best of luck and thanks for posting the pictures and recipe.
 
Kauai_Kahuna said:
--
Find some girls around and teach them the "He loves me, he loves me not" thing and have them put the petals into a bucket for good luck. :)
Hopefully you can get around the child labour laws with that. :)

It looks really great, just a few things I noticed. Zesting to me is just taking tiny little flakes. I would call what you did peeling. Not a problem as long as you had no pith (white stuff) attached to the skins.
I just wish I could get good honey here, and forget about Dandelion's.
Best of luck and thanks for posting the pictures and recipe.
Click to expand...

Yes, I basically peeled the fruits, removing all of the pith manually with a knife. Like I said, I took my time. It was most likely unnecessary to take it that far, but I wanted as much of the citrus to extract as possible in the boil.

Sniffs from the airlock provide a nice hit of citrus with an equally fruity hit (think Fruity pebbles + citrus). Fermentation has been pretty strong from the get-go. :ban:

DSC02353.jpg
 
Lot's of bubbling with this one! Smells amazing. :mug:

DSC02362.jpg


Good deal of sediment allready too. It's churning a good deal around in the murky depths.

DSC02363.jpg
 
LightningInABottle said:
I read that you are not supposed to put any green parts of the dandelion into the mix. It looks like you got some geens in the fermenter. Hopefully it comes out ok.
Click to expand...

I've "read" and "heard" lots of stuff about brewing, brother. Experience has taught me that most of it was false or just someone's opinion.
 
I do know that the green parts from the dandelion are extremely bitter, especially this late in the year. Taking account for the volume of petals versus a few green bits that might have been missed, as well as the length of aging, I would say that the bittering effect will be next to nil. Waiting a year is nearly as much of a test in patience as it was collecting & picking all those flowers. :D
 
Let us know how it comes out! It looks good so far. I can't wait till spring. We have used any lawn chemicals in years and I look forward to putting my yellow friends to use.

I've "read" and "heard" lots of stuff about brewing, brother. Experience has taught me that most of it was false or just someone's opinion.
Click to expand...
Have you made a batch with the greens included? I have researched 3 wine recipes and they all say the key it to not have any green bits. I imagine it is the same for mead. I haven't read yooper recipe but intend to before I make mine.
 
what's a metheglin? i've been considering a dandelion beer. Think its possible? i'm still pretty fresh so wouldnt even know where to start off to make a good dandelion beer, but sometime in the future i will.
 
nbspindel said:
what's a metheglin? i've been considering a dandelion beer. Think its possible? i'm still pretty fresh so wouldnt even know where to start off to make a good dandelion beer, but sometime in the future i will.
Click to expand...

A metheglin is a mead style, much like porter is a beer style. What it means is a mead that is flavored with spice. Melomel is a mead flavored with fruit.

Technically, this mead should be called a Rhondel which is a mead flavored with flowers.

I suppose you could make a beer with dandelion. It might be a bit bitter, suppose you could cut back on the hops on it a bit. Should be tasty if done right.

The main diffrence is clasification here.

Wine= fermented fruit (possibly sweetened with honey only).

Mead= fermented honey. The active fermenting agent is honey.

Beer= fermented grain. The sweetness comes from the sweet starches of grains. I think a defining characteristic is that it has hops as a bittering agent in it.

Braggot = fermented grain and honey. Sort of a combination of beer and mead.

There are many other styles but that is the basics.

The Dandilion metheglin looks good. How much sweetness are you going for here. I have heard dandilion wine is very dry.
 
Matrix4b said:
The Dandilion metheglin looks good. How much sweetness are you going for here. I have heard dandilion wine is very dry.
Click to expand...

All the dry recipes I found call for 3 lbs of sugar & a high alcohol tolerant yeast. I made a mistake by not taking an OG reading, but the EC-1118 should ferment this to dryness.

The "tea" I made from the dandelions, orange peel & lemon peel smelled pretty darn good. I'm sure it could be used as a flavoring for beer. You would definitely have to have a lot of dandelions for a 5 gallon batch of beer though. It took me a couple of months, collecting 10-20 flowers out of my yard every couple days.
 
Coming up on 1 month in the primary & this is still bubbling steadily. Accumulated approximately 1/2" sediment in the bottom. The golden raisins have little colonies of yeast on them, munching away. I might rack after Christmas & add some more yeast nutrient. :)
 
Well, finally got this one off the back-burner & racked to secondary last night. It had already started to clear quite a bit, but was still bubbling slowly. I've been keeping it around 67 degrees F now for 2 1/2 months. Sediment/lees have accumulated to approximately 3/4".

DSC02804.jpg


Color is amazing. A fairly deep golden orange.

DSC02808.jpg


Siphoned to secondary with: 1/4 lb golden raisins, 1/4 tsp yeast nutrient and 1/2 Campden tablet. Topped up and attached airlock.

DSC02810.jpg


Took a sip out of the siphon tubing. Heat from the alcohol was present, but there was a very nice floral hit up front, finishing with a hint of citrus & honey. Active bubbling this morning, 3 or 4 per minute, about 8 hours later.
 
Looks amazing and sounds like it will be very tasty. I'm going to have to start picking some dandelions and follow your footsteps when I'm able to gather enough. Thanks for posting all the details...will be very helpful when I look to setting up my own!

--R
 
Have you tried this yet?

I get a ton of dandelions around here and might start saving..

edit: he hasn't been around in a while. Hopefully he'll make an appearance.
 
Rahahb said:
Have you tried this yet?

I get a ton of dandelions around here and might start saving..

edit: he hasn't been around in a while. Hopefully he'll make an appearance.
Click to expand...

Wondering the same, myself. Missed out on the dandelion crop last year, but I've rejuvenated my mead-brewing, so hope to harvest dandelions for this mead this spring as they start popping up.

--R
 
I didn't use honey for my first try, but here is how I PICKED the flowers....

Sit on the ground with your legs out in front of you in a "V". Get your handy ice cream bucket. Pull off blossom with one hand, and immediately pull off the yellow only with the other... usually 3-4 pulls get it all. Toss leftovers away from you.... keep going until you need to move..."skooch" your butt to a new spot.... do this until you get tired of that position. Next go to kneeling on 1 knee... one knee down, one knee up..... again, pick and pull as fast as you can. When this position gets tiring, stand up and bend over as in picking strawberries. Go back to the first position with "V" legs. Only pick as much as stays fresh. Get it in a zip lock bag, squeeze the air out and get in the freezer. Letting it heat up and degrade would alter the goodness, I would think. Keep adding until you get enough. I found a recipe that listed grams instead of "quarts of loosely packed blossoms". I used 64 oz of petals for a 6 gal batch. Mine is still in the carboy from last year. Will bottle in a month or so.
My feeling on picking....
I tried picking and bringing in the house to destem.... the flowers wilt quickly and are very hard to destem once they start to close up. It was double duty to handle them twice, so you'll get more blossoms faster by doing the work all at once.
It was nice to go out in the spring sunshine and pick. I actually MISSED this activity when the dandelions were done! I would pick 2-3 hrs at a time. Take music with you, meditate, pray or just enjoy nature. It can be a calming experience, if you let it be!

Happy Picking!

Debbie
 
deb_rn said:
I didn't use honey for my first try, but here is how I PICKED the flowers....

Sit on the ground with your legs out in front of you in a "V". Get your handy ice cream bucket. Pull off blossom with one hand, and immediately pull off the yellow only with the other... usually 3-4 pulls get it all. Toss leftovers away from you.... keep going until you need to move..."skooch" your butt to a new spot.... do this until you get tired of that position. Next go to kneeling on 1 knee... one knee down, one knee up..... again, pick and pull as fast as you can. When this position gets tiring, stand up and bend over as in picking strawberries. Go back to the first position with "V" legs. Only pick as much as stays fresh. Get it in a zip lock bag, squeeze the air out and get in the freezer. Letting it heat up and degrade would alter the goodness, I would think. Keep adding until you get enough. I found a recipe that listed grams instead of "quarts of loosely packed blossoms". I used 64 oz of petals for a 6 gal batch. Mine is still in the carboy from last year. Will bottle in a month or so.
My feeling on picking....
I tried picking and bringing in the house to destem.... the flowers wilt quickly and are very hard to destem once they start to close up. It was double duty to handle them twice, so you'll get more blossoms faster by doing the work all at once.
It was nice to go out in the spring sunshine and pick. I actually MISSED this activity when the dandelions were done! I would pick 2-3 hrs at a time. Take music with you, meditate, pray or just enjoy nature. It can be a calming experience, if you let it be!

Happy Picking!

Debbie
Click to expand...

Around here, that's a recipe for a fire ant attack! I'll stick to the comfort of my table chairs. :)
 
I've been checking back here every month or so, hoping the OP would post an update. Such a shame after he went through all that work to post his process.

I made a 5 gallon batch following this recipe last summer and bottled a few months ago:
tFiGN.jpg


It tasted pretty great when I took a sip from the siphon. The dandelion definitely makes an appearance in the finish. There was a lot of heat from the alcohol though. My abv was around 16%, so I'm going to have to age this forever. I plan on opening one up on the anniversary of its brew day, and I will stop report my findings. So far, I'm quite pleased with this recipe.:mug:

Edit: Sorry about the picture size! Just zoom out a bit...
 
Looks great. I'm still going at the collection. Probably should pick a few today. There are probably 500 in the yard, literally.

I don't know if I want to make this strictly dandelion, or add some honeysuckle. Interesting combination and would definitely be a statement about the summers around here in NC.
 
Holy Super Image, Batman!

I thought about trying a dandelion wine and then had a sudden thought that maybe a mead would be interesting. Looks like someone already beat me to it!

That stuff looks very nice, so I might go for it after all. If I can get the kids to help me pick petals...
 
Dandelions in Texas right now. I think Im going to do thisas well. Ive already picked and deflowered them.. and can confirm that once the flowers retract, they are a raging PITA to deal with.... I picked from two different locations.. I may have picked up about half catsear (false dandelion), but Im not sure. Ive got OB honey, but was thinking about using dates rather than raisins (they are for body anyway)... it is blood orange season and thought about going that route as well.
 
Made a dandelion ginger mead. Just kinda threw it together. Just used dandelions and ginger. Steeped for 5 days and then strained and boiled in honey. (4lbs) per gal. Pitched with baking yeast and nutrient. ferm. Going well interested to see how it turns out

ForumRunner_20120429_231742.jpg


ForumRunner_20120429_231811.jpg


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brandonjonesVW said:
Picking that many dandelion petals is a test in patience & requires nimble fingers. :mug:
Click to expand...
I found out that to remove the petals from the green flower parts, its easiest to tare the flower in half first, then remove the petals from the base from each side. It's also best to pick more flowers than is needed so you don't need to be so meticulous about removing every petal.
 

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