Experiment: Roasted Dandelion Roots

[Hop]

Since I have two beers aging right now, I thought I'd take this weekend to do an experiment. The experiment was to determine the viability of using roasted dandelion roots as either a bittering agent (in place of hops) or aromatic in my beer.

Using dandelions in beer is rare, but not unprecedented. New Belgium has a rather tasty Dandelion Ale, so I decided to start working toward understanding the taste and bittering qualities of dandelion. Fresh dandelion greens are not generally available until spring, so I thought I’d see what dandelion roots were like first.

If you don’t want to read through my entire process, here’s a quick summary, prefaced by a note: First off, this is experimentation. I’m trying to share the results of my experiments as I go through with them, which means not all of them will yield positive beer-worthy potential.

Dandelion roots fall into the “not gonna brew with it” category. In short, they simply don’t taste very good. The bittering quality is poor, the aroma is off-putting, and the taste can be described as kissing someone who just finished smoking an entire pack of cigarettes at very high concentrations or shoving a stale-but-dirty sock in your mouth at half that concentration.

If you'd like to read through my entire process and thoughts, take a look here: Experiment: Roasted Dandelion Roots

 

[Netflyer]

Dandelion roots fall into the “not gonna brew with it” category. In short, they simply don’t taste very good. The bittering quality is poor, the aroma is off-putting, and the taste can be described as kissing someone who just finished smoking an entire pack of cigarettes at very high concentrations or shoving a stale-but-dirty sock in your mouth at half that concentration.

So, bad eh? The roots probably taste nothing like the leaves either, just unboiled. Just out of curiousity how did you make the root extract? Did you must put roots in the boil or did you grind them down? How many dilutions of roots did you try, how many batches?

I'm not trying to be a smart a@@ here at all so please don't get me wrong but if I were going to assess the viability of an item for say it's bittering power in beer and if I was going to do it using proper experimental methods I would brew at least 4 batches.
1. plain malt only no root. (control)
2. as much root as I decided was the Max
3. 1/2 the Max
4. 1/4 Max
5. 1/8 Max
6. etc. to as many dilutions as you want to make.

Also how long do you boil it, that would be another variable needing testing.

There would also have to be further consideration about the preparation of the root. Wash it off only? Shave the out layer off (like a carrot)? Grind it up?

Also, I'm sure you checked but some plants with leaves you can eat have roots you can't eat.

 

[fatsuperman]

I want to try it now