www.arthurmag.com/magpie/?p=2833
The Amana Colonies is an Amish community dating back to 1854. It was settled by the communally living German pietists then known as: The Community of True Inspiration or The Ebenezer Society. Their tenets included avoiding military service and refusal to take an oath. The Amanas are nestled in the middle of what is now a sea of genetically modified corn and soybeans known as the Midwest, more specifically Iowa. I had wanted something to drink at my campsite that evening. When I opened the bottle, I anticipated something more magic than what met my tongue. It was cloying yellow syrupy stuff, which resembled soft drink concentrate. I poured it out next to my tent, returning it to the earth where she could compost it. That was fifteen years ago, and now I have been drinking dandelion wine for about two years. The new stuff is stuff I've made myself from dandelion blossoms gathered in Chicago. I am sure now that the colonists actually keep the good stuff in their private cabinets. Upon mentioning "dandelion wine", Ray Bradbury usually comes to mind. However, after I heard a radio interview with him a few years back when he passionately made a case to colonize the moon so we can ditch this trashed planet and survive as a race, I got confused. So the point is, I am going to tell you how to make dandelion wine. I encourage you to do this because dandelions pop up everywhere and every place. They are nearly ubiquitous pioneers in our landscapes of disturbed and deprived soils. Consumed, they are a magnificent digestive, aiding the heath and cleansing of the kidneys and liver. Amongst vitamins A, B, C and D, they have a huge amount of potassium. As a beyond-perfect diuretic, dandelion has so much potassium that when you digest the plant, no matter how much fluid you lose, your body actually experiences a net gain of the nutrient. In other words, folks - dandelion wine is one alcohol that actually helps your liver and kidneys! When you notice lawns and parks spotting yellow, it's time to gather. The general rule of thumb is to collect one gallon of flowers for each gallon of wine you want to make. People will think you quaintly eccentric for foraging blossoms on your hands and knees. Note: collect blossoms (without the stem) that have just opened and are out of the path of insecticides and pesticides. I pour one gallon boiling water over one gallon dandelion flowers in a large bowl. When the blossoms rise (wait about twenty-four to forty-eight hours), I strain the yellow liquid out, squeezing the remaining liquid out of the flowers, into a larger ceramic or glass bowl. Then I add juice and zest from four lemons and four oranges, and four pounds of sugar (4-4-4 = EZ). Okay, now what I think is the best part - I float a piece of stale bread in the mixture sprinkled with bread yeast. This technique is used in Appalachian and some European recipes. Then I toss a dishtowel over it so the mixture can both breathe and the crud floating around my house stays out. I continue stirring the wine several times a day until it stops fermenting. When I am certain it has stopped "working", I strain, bottle and cork it up and bid it farewell until months later. In fact I wait until the winter solstice, when I can revisit that sunny spring day by drinking it in. Transition: as such an effective diuretic, dandelion is also know in French as "pis-en-lit" or "pee-in-the-bed". Admittedly, I haven't drunk my first whizz as part of my yogic practice, however, I habitually save my pee to potentize my compost as well as for making a nitrogen-rich fertilizer for my plants. Our bodies are nutrient factories - let's value our post-consumption products and offer them back to the Mother. We humans pee on average a bit more than a quart a day, at a dilution rate of 1:5 (the recipe). Each one of us are producing more than two gallons of free plant fertilizer a day. Or around 750 gallons a year - which is enough fertilizer to grow 75% of an individual's food needs for that year. Did you know that most of the algae blooms - whether in the Los Angeles river, the shore of the Great Lakes, the mouth of the Mississippi and many other waterways - are largely due to agricultural run-off of nitrogen fertilizers applied to our corn-fed nation's farmlands? So is collecting it in a jar or a bucket and dumping it into the pile later. Then just dilute it fresh (remember the recipe again, 1:5) with some water and use it directly on plants or let it oxidize and turn into a nitrate (ie leaving it out until it gets nice and dark) and then apply it undiluted. Not only is this something that has been done for ages around the world, it is still being done. Why are our municipalities cleaning water so we can flush our toilets with it? The separation of the solid and liquid body waste is an extensive and costly process for the water treatment plant and we pay that cost twice by flushing it all away. Before I sign off, I want to put a bug in your ear - this terrific yellow liquid that our own bodies produce can also produce gunpowder. But maybe I'll approach that topic in other column - or maybe you'll just have to do the research yourself. Nance Klehm is a radical ecologist, system designer, urban forager, teacher, artist and mad scientist of the living. She has worked in Australia, England, Scandinavia, the Caribbean and various places in the United States and Mexico.
I handed my neighbor a few tasty young lambs quater this weekend straight from my garden and she couldnt beleive it. For how long do you leave the stale bread with yeast in?
WINE the bread dissolves with the activity of the yeast. i bottle my wine when it has finished working' meaning once the yeasts have eaten the sugars. you can't bottle itif there is still sugars to eat as the bottle will explode or the cork will shoot out and you will have wine and glass everywhere. once you know that the yeasts are done eating, you bottle it and it stays at room temperature on its side so the cork doesn't dry out in my pantry or wherever. waiting to drink any alcohol allows it to develop - but you could drink it after a few weeks and avoid bottling entirely.
you strain the spent flowers out after you add the yeast. the yeasts should eat and drop out most particulates and clarify the liquid. just make sure there are no floaty bits of orange or lemon as these will attract mold.
and i understand why you want to use honey over sugar - connecting to another local product and bee energy, but fermenting honey is more complicated - it is a two-tiered fermentation. besides the oranges and lemons aren't local for anyone but the californians, texans and floridians, and you are using them.
Does the bottle have to be completely full, or is it ok to have some empty space? Also, would it be ok to use a large 4 liter wine jug with a screw on cap as opposed to using a cork? I am not sure exacly how air tight this must be in order to work.
i read an article online today about making mead that made the process sound a lot more complicated. i've followed your process, i think mostly accurately, but i just wanted reassurance about a couple of things: 1 - no need for an air lock in i wait to bottle till fermentation has stopped?
comment#9 - bottle should be just as full as a new bottle to wine is or slightly less. the gas that the burping yeasties are producing needs to escape and not build up (read bomb') and you do not want oxygen let in. and scoop out that nasty bread - too much as it should have disappeared and now this bread will attract other things. and all the while, keep it cleancleanclean as you do this. let me know if there is more - i will be more diligent in my response.
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