Fresh Dandelion Sorachi Saison - - Now with Brett C

[mashani]

And so it begins...

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This will be the recipe unless I change my mind about the yeast at the last minute.

2.5 gallon batch:

The pot full of dandelions you see above, that's an 8 quart pot with about 5 quarts of water covering the dandelions. That was boiled for 20 minutes and steeped for 6 hours afterwards, then drained through a fine strainer. Lid on the pot the entire time.

- I strongly suggest a fine strainer, to strain out bug parts or ants and such. Because they are in there.

2oz honey malt steeped in the resulting liquid.
Top up to boil volume, and add:
2.5# Pilsner DME
8oz 1L (Simplicity) Candi Syrup.

OG 1.051

IBUs based on hops I am using - 35ish or so I think based on how my hop stands seem to work out. I got lots of flavor from the short boil and hop stand, the wort had a nice lemon vibe. Dry hop will kick up the lemon/lemongrass vibe. I've never hop stranded sorachi, so it will be of interest.

Even though this sounds like it should have an SRM of around 4, it will a bit darker because the dandelion tea has a light reddish brown color when done, and nearly a gallon of it went into the boil.

0.5oz Sorachi @20.
0.5oz Sorachi 20 minute hop stand.
1oz Sorachi dry hop

If this was another month down the road I'd use Bella Saison, and would use 100% dme... but at my current temps, T-58 will make a great saison with the sugar adjunct to dry it out. If you have temps in the upper 60s/70s, go with Bella, if 60-62ish which is where I'm at right now, the T-58 route will work well. You get plenty of spicy/peppery saison like flavors similar to Bella/3711 out of the T-58, just not the crazy attenuation, so be sure to use close to 20% invert sugar or dextrose to dry it out. The 1L stuff I used has some nice flavors that will compliment the beer more then plain dextrose would. A bit of citrus, a bit of honey like sweetness, it will bring out the lemon and compliment the nutty flavors.

Either way, simple to make. And it will be yummy and sessionable.

EDIT: Got infected by my house Brett C strain, so it's got pinapple going on now too. Fascinating...

[russki]

Aren't you supposed to discard the green stuff?

[BigPapaG]

Dandelion Soup!

[Inkleg]

Where's the white fluffy part?

[mashani]

Aren't you supposed to discard the green stuff?

I pick off the stems, but not the greens around the flowers.

If you want very delicate flavor and you feel like spending half a day picking them apart you can do that. But it's not necessary, the green bits just give you some nice nutty flavors in the final product. Folks who say it ruins the stuff haven't bothered trying it and are relying on "folk wisdom". I've had saisons made with just the green leaves that were good too.

I think the picking the greens off of every flower when making dandelion wine/syrup was just a way to give your kids something to do and keep them out of your hair for half the day while you snuck into the barn with the spousal unit to celebrate spring.

I am NOT making syrup out of these, they are just steeping right now, and I am using the resulting liquid immediately to make my wort. This will be a low gravity and somewhat hoppy saison (2 oz of sorachi will end up in it as 2.5 gallon batch), mean to be consumed very soon.

[FrozenInTime]

I can't imagine making/drinking beer made from this. I had some dandy lion wine, once. First time in my life and the LAST! Was very, VERY nasty. Hope the beer is better.

[mashani]

I can't imagine making/drinking beer made from this. I had some dandy lion wine, once. First time in my life and the LAST! Was very, VERY nasty. Hope the beer is better.

It wasn't nasty because of the dandelions. It was nasty because something else about it was done wrong, like oh say 100% sugar adjunct and bad fermentation temps making fusels, or what not...

If you tasted the liquid from my pot you would understand, it's actually very pleasant as a tea, and tastes nothing like you would imagine it would taste like unless you have done this before. It's mild, slightly sweet, slightly nutty, and good. Add a touch of honey or um... honey malt... and you get yummy stuff.

[BigPapaG]

I'm thinking that's about right...

While I too have had some horrible dandelion products, I have also had some very delishious dandelion products...

Most notably, dandelion wine and a variety of foods cooked with them.

I think some people try to use the leaves and that's not nutty, sweet, yummy...

It's generally downright bitter... Which I do like in salads from time to time though...

[mashani]

@BigPapa: FWIW, I've had saisons made with the leafy greens that were actually good. But yes, in raw state especially they are bitter.

That said, the little bits of green around the flowers do not contribute noticeable bitterness to the tea when made like I did it here. They just enhance the "nuttiness" in the final product.

EDIT: And I posted working recipe, will adjust if I change my mind last minute.

[FrozenInTime]

Someone.... may have to send me a dandy lion beer when he gets it brewed/bottled. I would like to try one so I could say it's good, not the nasty stuff I had a couple yrs back.

The D. wine I had came from a regular winery noted for it. I told them it was nasty, they said is was me. WRONG... I know bad when I taste it, I have drank fine wine from fine wineries all over Europe. The stuff that ND winery made was, well... I would rather drink horse piss than that again.

[BigPapaG]

I was speaking of the large leaves, commonly used raw (and bitter) in salads and cooked in soups, egg dishes etc.

Really didn't think the small green bits around the flower had much of a bitter taste...

So it's good to know they provide a nuttiness... Hmmm... Ideas...

[mashani]

Where's the white fluffy part?

Hmmm... that would probably be yucky.

Anyways, it's in the fermenter, I updated the OP with the final recipe I went with and more commentary... because I like to blather about stuff.

[mashani]

So it's good to know they provide a nuttiness... Hmmm... Ideas...

I think this kind of tea would be tasty in an English brown ale or mild, but I've never tried it.

[mashani]

The D. wine I had came from a regular winery noted for it. I told them it was nasty, they said is was me. WRONG... I know bad when I taste it, I have drank fine wine from fine wineries all over Europe. The stuff that ND winery made was, well... I would rather drink horse piss than that again.

Consider that fine wine is made of fine grapes, and most Dandelion wine is made from mostly sugar with maybe some juice or raisins added if your really lucky. Would you make beer out of say 80-90% sugar and some lemon juice or orange juice or a handful of raisins and expect it to taste good? I would not as a general rule of thumb.

This however, is still just beer. It just has a tea as the base, or you could boil it down and make candi syrup out of them and use it as an adjunct in place of the 1L I used here. Yes this beer has 19.something% sugar, but that's an ok amount when used for the right reasons, which this is... especially if it's invert sugar.

Again, just make some tea out of dandelion flowers and you will see that they do not in of themselves taste nasty.

[Brewbirds]

In the end you beat me to it Mashani, we decided not to use the yeast from the first Kolsch because it was not behaving normally.

I went to go pick another batch of flowers to make tea for the wort in addition to our syrup but there were just to many aphids squishing on my fingers so I blew it off.

We're using Kolsch Malt, Northern Brewer hops, and hope to pitch on S-05 from a batch being cold crashed today.

I think we have 9.6 ounces of the syrup but the batch size will be 2.67 gal.