The Yellow and Black Attack-No, not Stryper.

The dandelions are out so that means I am gathering them. It’s a slow start, I like when there are so many I can site down and fill a bucket from where I sit. Soon. I’m not sure where these will end up; dandelion mead, dandelion wine, dandelion jelly, dandelion tea, dandelion cookies, maybe a dandelion beer. Someday I plan on planting a bed of them and bring them into our diet regularly.

What my fingers look like after processing dandelion heads.

Small harvest for this early in the season.

The petals separated from the stems.

You Make Your Own Wine and Mead? Dandelion Day

Today I bottled up my Dandelion Mead and Dandelion Wine that I made in August. Hopefully that will get rid of these darn fruitbflies! It is ridiculous how crazy they are for the stuff, they would slip through the holes on the top of my airlock and dive into the vodka and die a drunken death after swimming and swimming to get to the wine or mead. I had to change the airlocks every few weeks because they were filled with bodies of fruit flies. Nobody made it into the fine liquor though. I’ve got small samples in of each in the fridge to try later. Last time I tried them, they were still pretty hot with fusel alcohols, I expect some improvement but I bet they need a lot more time, like maybe next August or the following summer.

From flowers to wine and mead

Dandelion Mead on the left and Dandelion Wine on the right

Dandelion Mead on the left and Dandelion Wine on the right

Bottle day

Bottled up my Roggenbier tonight. Racked the Dandelion mead and wine. Sampled the Skeeter Pee, rack that to secondary tomorrow.

You Brew Your Own Beer? Erm, wine and mead?

From left to right: New sprouter, dandelion mead, dandelion wine

You Brew Your Own Beer? Dampfbier bottle day and Mead!

Dampfbier making a Land Shark bottle happy

Dandelion mead racked onto golden raisins for a bit.

First Mead

Finally did it. I went and made my first mead. I’ve been waiting on the Homebrew club to get a bulk purchase and do a group “brew” but it hasn’t come to fruition. A buddy of mine took up homebrewing for the first time then went and jumped in the deep end and made a mead. One of the great things about being around new homebrewers is you get a little nudge sometimes to do things you haven’t done before or an interest gets a fresh spark. So I decided to go old skool and make a JOAM.
Thanks Dave!

Honey, clementines, yeast, cinnamon, cloves, raisins

Honey dissolved in warm water

Clementines, raisins, cinnamon, and clove added and shook up.