First try at dandelion wine....

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Pat82

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I am still pretty new at brewing/wine making but I have done several batches of this and that so I was super excited to try dandelion wine when the flowers began to bloom. So my wife and I picked flowers for 3 days and froze them until we had enough. And last weekend we set the wine in a wide mouth 1 gallon jar. So far it has not behaved at all like any other wine we have made. It is not noticably bubbling like the others and it has a ring in the middle of the jar. What's your thoughts? Is it contaminated? Is this just normal for a floral/herb brew? Should I toss it and try again? Thanks in advance, Patricia
 

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Not much info to go by. First, only use the yellow flower, no green leaves. What was your starting gravity? Did you use K- meta when you initially soaked the flowers, at least 24 hrs b4 checking gravity and adding yeast and yeast nutrients, and acid. I would use EC1118
 
The recipe I followed was 3lb sugar, 3 quarts petals ONLY, 3 oranges juiced and zest, 1 lemon juiced and zest, 1 tsp yeast nutrient, 1 wine yeast 71b
The recipe said nothing about soaking the petals in advance so I did not. I wanted to keep as much of the flower flavors as possible so I did not make a tea from the petals.
Again I'm new to this so I didn't take the gravity.
It's that cloudy ring that's bothering me the most it is something I have not seen before. It smells fine it definitely smells like it's fermenting so it's working.
 
I am thinking that the acid from lemon and orange juice may be fighting the 71B, if you added 3# of sugar your 21 brix has been met, a 25C room temp will help increase the yeast activity, try agitating the gallon by twisting this may Aldo help kick start the batch.
 
Thanks so much for the input! We removed the flower petals and raked it and the ring has mixed together with the rest of the must. We put in a regular narrow neck carboy now and it is bubbling in the airlock. It is slow bubbles but I see now it is doing its job. I was so worried about that floating ring because I have never seen that before.
 
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I've started my first batch ever, and I did follow Yooper's recipe, and I must say that it's a nasty-looking mess of stuff in there (can't tell if there's any ring as it's in a stainless steel pot right now, but it's not pretty, for sure.). Smells great though.

I'll be interested to see how yours turns out, so keep up posted!
 
Glad is is going!

Next time, punch down the mass of petals floating on top once a day - not doing so seems to slow the fermentation a bit?

I started a batch a bit over a week ago and did the first rack from the primary fermenter to a carboy yesterday. I was a bit worried that the airlock had quit showing signs of activity, then I remembered I forgot to punch it down. After I did, it went back to bubbling with a vengeance.

I think you will like it and it is worth the effort. Last year's batch is tasting great now!

As Petey said, EC1118 does great in both taste as well as being very active - it seems like that will ferment darned near anything, although gorgonzola mine might not be the best tasting :) Try that yeast if it gets stuck.
 
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