Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Dandelion Wine Part II

Last week I harvested dandelion petals for a dandelion wine, boiled them up with some other ingredients and left them in a fermenter with some yeast. After a week or so the vegetable matter had risen to the top of the fermenter and was forming a raft, under which hopefully goodness was happening. Some people suggest stirring the mix daily to break up this raft, others view it as a 'cap' under which safe fermentation can take place. In my view it would depend on if you were around and if you could be bothered to regularly sterilise a spoon.  
After a week or so you've got all the flavours that you're going to get out of the solids, so strain everything into another fermenter or other container such as a demijohn - but don't fill to the top. Don't be too fussy about little bits getting through the sieve, they'll get filtered out further down the line. Equally the yeast will get through the sieve so you won't need to worry about re-pitching at this point. 
I like to mix & mash the remaining solids up with a spoon for a bit  to get all of the flavour & sugar out of it 
As you can see the next day the clingfilm / glad wrap was bulging because the yeast was fizzing away underneath, gobbling down sugars and producing carbon dioxide as a side product.
After that just cover and leave it for a month or so to fully ferment out - if you have a hydrometer you're looking for a gravity of around 1.006, but then again if you own a hydrometer then you probably know that already. If not, leave it until all signs of activity have died away!

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