BeerBorg

Dandelion Candi Syrup
How do you make it, what are you using it for and what does it bring to the party?
I once bought a bottle of dandy-lion wine, was very expensive, and was the worst tasting drink I've ever had. I've heard of dandy-lion tea aslo, tried that? I've usually got a bumper crop of these yellow flowers come spring but have not tried to do anything with them. All that comes to mind when I think about it is the very nasty flavor of the wine we tried.

FrozenInTime wrote:Dandelion Candi Syrup
How do you make it, what are you using it for and what does it bring to the party?
I once bought a bottle of dandy-lion wine, was very expensive, and was the worst tasting drink I've ever had. I've heard of dandy-lion tea aslo, tried that? I've usually got a bumper crop of these yellow flowers come spring but have not tried to do anything with them. All that comes to mind when I think about it is the very nasty flavor of the wine we tried.

Dandelion wine can be tricky, because dandelion greens are bitter, and dandelion wine made with nothing but sugar and dandelions (so no residual sweetness) can then turn out bitter, which is not something people drinking wine expect. This is why they tell people who make it to painstakingly separate the green bits from the flowers to try to avoid this.

In beer, which is already bitter and has complex sugars left (which is why we bitter it to bring balance), this is totally unnecessary and I don't bother with it. Any extra bitterness it brings unnoticeable. What you do get from them is some color, and a little bit of a flavor that is earthy and nutty and a little bit of hay. And they are good for you in various ways.

I like to use the syrup I make in Saisons, where that type of flavor just adds to the already spicy, earthy yeast and hop flavors. They turn out delicious and have lovely color.

To make it, basically fill pot with dandelions, fill with water, bring just to a boil, turn off heat, let it steep for some hours, filter the liquid into another container, then follow normal candi syrup making directions using that liquid as your "water". If I have more liquid then I need to make the syrup, I will boil it down to the amount I desire first.

I do it with just heat, so basically I'm going with a 3-1 ratio of liquid to sugar, and then heating it to a set temperature using a candi thermometer (how hot that is depends on how dark you want your syrup, IE something like 285 will give you a darker syrup, or something like 230 a lighter one). I'll reserve about 1 cup or a bit more of liquid if I'm doing a darker syrup. When it hits set temperature, I throw a TBSP of reserved liquid in which knocks the temp back down, let it get to that temperature again, repeat, do this until there is about 1/3 to 1/4 cup of liquid left. Then turn off the heat and add the last 1/3 to 1/4 cup of liquid. If you are making syrup at higher temperatures it's better to be closer to the 1/3 cup side to keep it from cooking much longer at higher temps.

That is the basic process for making any sort of candi syrup with just heat, no acid is required. Acid is not necessary, nor is it used by authentic Belgian candi syrup makers. The sugar inverts over time in the boil on its own and adding the water additions to knock the temps down and having it creep back up over and over again gives you the time without burning it.

I do this type of syrup at lower temperatures, even so it will turn out a dark brown in color, because the steeped dandelion liquid starts off brownish when you use as much as I am. But if you splash a thin layer on a light colored surface you will see that it has yellow highlights still. When diluted this yellow does start to pop.

It gives me beers that look like this:

EDITED for stupid autocorrect errors.

I may have to try that some time. I remember giving up on getting enough dandelion flowers to make dandelion wine many years ago (and I lived across the street from a large field at the time). Leaving the green part on would make it simple. Maybe I'll raid my neighbor's lawn next year.

bpgreen wrote:I may have to try that some time. I remember giving up on getting enough dandelion flowers to make dandelion wine many years ago (and I lived across the street from a large field at the time). Leaving the green part on would make it simple. Maybe I'll raid my neighbor's lawn next year.

I pop off the stems, but don't bother with the green bits around the flowers. This has never caused me any trouble in beer, and it is what gives the "nutty" flavor in my experience. It is sort of like walnuts, which are a little bitter. In wine it would probably be nasty unless you stopped your fermentation with a little bit of residual sugar left. The residual sugar in beer is what makes it ok, the bitter doesn't come through in a bad way, it just blends with the already bitter additions.

If I am using a crazy attenuating yeast (Bella Saison / French Saison) I might bitter it slightly less then normal - but no more then 5-7 IBUs different, IE the basic "perception difference" amount - but that's all I'll change. If I felt like I had to pick off all the green bits I wouldn't do this, picking an 6 quarts of dandelions is enough of a pain. That is with using about 8oz of the stuff in a 1.05ish batch, or 1# of it in a 1.07ish batch if I'm feeling stupid (making a 1.07 beer with Bella Saison is my definition of being stupid LOL).

I bottled a Chocolate Milk Stout 5G Extract w/steeping grains recipe from CraftaBrew this morning. Afterwards I brewed a Beer. Simply Beer IPA 5G Extract recipe from Midwest Supplies.

I made ~6 gallons of session IPA with Eureka! and Citra hops.

For Big Brew Day, a group from our local Club got together @ LHBS to brew, I ended up doing a double (Wheat and Vienna Lager) and my thought on saving a bit of time and logistics of how to utilize the brew pot and HLT and MT efficiently I decided to do a full volume mash for the wheat beer Friday nite and do an overnite mash. Worked like a charm, only drawback was 10.5 lbs of grain and 8.75 gallons of water was a bit challenging getting up the stairs, it maxed out the 10 g cooler and even with the lid on was getting some but not much slosh out. Hit the preboil number on the nose, and .002 short going into the fermenter. I was going into the boil about the time everyone else was just about ready to start heating strike water and was just about finished with the Vienna Lager about the same time as the others with their batches. It paid off mashing overnite this time, having a pump, whirlpooling and counterflow chiller also helped speed up the process compared to using an immersion chiller. I can see doing overnite mashes again.

With a little luck, I'll be brewing Levitation this weekend. Fingers crossed.

Just did my first pressurized transfer from conical to keg. Went well and didn’t take long at all. It’s my Kolsch recipe and delicious!



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Sweet!

Kealia wrote:With a little luck, I'll be brewing Levitation this weekend. Fingers crossed.

Today was the day! I got to brew!

Rabbit, good to hear from ya!

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I bottled my 'Merican Wheat. Something seems off with it. But we will see for sure in 3-4 weeks. It might just be that I've never used Calypso hops before and they don't taste quite like I expected.

As a side note the Citra/Eurika! hop IPA in my other fermenters has an insane strong aroma and I haven't dry hopped it yet, and I'm afraid to now. I think Eurika! is known as a potent aroma hop, but this is nuts.

I've never made a cider before, but bought some apple juice today and started a batch of stupid easy cider.


Edited to fix autocorrect typo.

After a busy weekend, late Sunday afternoon I was finally able to bottle the couple 1G Extract w/steeping grains recipes from CraftaBrew, Fools Gold-a Golden Stout and Resin IIPA-a collaboration with SixPoint Brewery that I had brewed 3 weeks ago. The Golden Stout smelled great with the chocolate and coffee beans added to it. As I was bottling it, I was glad they were only 1G recipes, as I was running short on time, needing to get down to the barn for chores, but after smelling them, I kinda wished they were the 5G recipes. Anyhow, looking forward to trying them out.

Brewed a Red x - EKG I call sweet 'lil Red today, the third time I brewed it. The first 2 times was 1.054 og, today 1.052, don't know why. Not big deal though.