Dandelion Wine will be coming up soon, but until then, try this recipe for Dandelion beer! The great advantage of Dandy beer over wine is that it will be ready 10 days from when you make it. Wine will take at least 3 to 6 months. So—go ahead and make your wine if you want to, but while you’re waiting for it to ripen, try this lovely little beer recipe.
Ingredients: 1lb turbinado sugar, 1 oz cream of tartar, 1/2 oz fresh ginger rhizome, 1/2 lb dandelion roots and leaves, 5 quarts water and 1 Tbsp yeast (you can used bread yeast or beer yeast).
Equipment: Large cooking pot, large plastic or glass fermentation container (can be a bucket), large mesh strainer, 2 muslin cloths or cotton dish cloths, 15 clean beer bottles, bottle caps and a capper (I re-used flip-top (not twist-off) beer bottles that I boiled for 10 minutes to sterilize, and I got my caps and capper at the homebrew supply store in Great Falls).
Put sugar and cream of tartar into clean fermentation container. Put yeast in 1/4 cup of warm water and set aside. Wash and chop dandelions, and grate the ginger. Put dandelions and ginger in cooking pot with water and boil 10 minutes. Put one cloth in the strainer, and pour mixture through it into the fermentation container. Stir well until sugar is dissolved. When cooled to room temp, add the yeast. Cover with a clean cloth and let sit in a warmish dark place for 3 days. Siphon into sterile bottles and cap. Store bottles on their sides for 7 days. Open and enjoy!
I originally got this recipe from Susun Weed’s book, Healing Wise. I made a few small changes to it, but perhaps not enough to make it all my own so I do want to make sure to credit Susun Weed.
