Breaking the mold

And no, I don't mean that literally. With the temperatures in our corner of the world making it difficult to justify doing anything in the kitchen that requires the stove being turned on, I've been focusing my fermentation experiments elsewhere. Homemade wine. Not in any sort of mass quantities mind you, but I'm currently in the midst of my second 1 gallon batch.

The first batch, Front Porch Dandelion Wine, was started back in March when the dandelions in the yard were at their peak. It is made with only dandelions that I could see from the front porch. The recipe I used was very simple:

2 quarts of dandelion flower heads (whole)
1 orange
1 lemon
3 lbs of sugar
1 packet of Red Star Pasteur Champagne yeast

Slice citrus fruits and add to washed/rinsed dandelion heads in a large pot and then pour 1 gallon boiling water over it. Stir and cover with plastic wrap for 1 week. After 1 week, strain liquid into primary fermenter, add sugar, add yeast, and let 'er go. Rack as necessary. Bottle when finished working.

Here it is at the get go:


This wine will be bottled next weekend, but here's how it looks right now.


The second batch is also a 1 gallon batch and it is strawberry wine. The farmer's market has just been swamped with strawberries lately, so I decided I'd try this as well. This strawberry wine was just started yesterday, so I don't have much to report on it aside from that it smells fantastic.

Both of these wines were made with the hopes of creating a dry wine. I've tried too many fruit wines that were so sweet you couldn't hardly drink them, so hopefully mine will be good and dry. If they turn out well, you can look for TTBC to increase it's snootiness.