My family isn't known for its boozing, yet we have two dandelion wine recipes. #1 is from my maternal grandmother. #2 is from my maternal grandmother's mother, Léontine Lambert, and they differ! I remember my parents making one of them, only once, as a child, and it was a big deal, and really enjoyed by all. But I don't know which one it was they made...
Recipe #1
2 cups packed fesh dandelion heads, green parts removed
8 cups boiling water
3 oranges sliced thin
3 lemons sliced thin
4 lbs sugar
1/4 cup raisins
2 tsps dry active yeast (or wine yeast, or try making it without yeast but fresh apple or something yeasty)
Make sure all the green has been removed from the dandelion - it will make the wine bitter and spoil it.
Pour boiling water over the flowers and let stand for 24hrs.
Strain through muslin and then add the oranges, lemons and sugar. Mix until sugar dissolves and let stand 48 hrs.
Strain again, this time into a stoneware pot and add the raisins and the yeast.
Leave to ferment one or more weeks.
Strain through muslin again and bottle, leaving the corks loose until the fermentation ends (OR what is that thing when we make wine/cider that allows off-gasing?)
Makes 1 gallon
Recipe #2
1 lb dandelion flowers, NO GREEN PARTS!
16 cups water, boiling, for 20 minutes
4 lbs white sugar
1 orange, sliced thin
1 lemon, sliced thin
1/2 lb Thompson raisins
2 1/4 tsp dry yeast (or wine yeast)
Put the dandelion, boiling water and sugar together in a crystal or granit or non-reactive container. Mix occasionally until sugar dissolves.
Add the fruit and the yeast, mix, and leave to ferment, covered with muslin to prevent insects, for a bare minimum of a month; preferably much more.
Decant into bottles and seal.
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