Dandelion Beer

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 140, 27 February 1942, Page 22

Dandelion Beer

Dear Aunt Daisy, Could you please, or some member of your Daisy Chain, give me the recipe of Dandelion Beer? It is a lovely drink for the summer months, My mother used to make it some years ago. We just gathered the roots of the ordinary dandelion. washed them thoroughly, and boiled them with hops or yeast, and maybe something else, in a kerosene tin full of water. Later this was bottled and corks made secure, Could you please reply in The Listener as I am not always able to hear your session, which I enjoy and find very helpful. Wishing you every success,

Interested

Here is a very old recipe tor Dandelion Beer: One pound of dandelion roots, lezves, and all, whole, not cut up, and, not bruised; 2 oz. of bruised toot ginger; 2 lemons; 2 oz. of cream of tartar; 2 lbs. of brown sugar; 1 oz, of yeast; a piece cf toast; and 2 gallons of water. Put the water into a big pan, then the freshly gathered dandelion roots, etc., and the bruised ginger. Boil for ten minutes. Pour the liquid over the sugar and cream of tartar, and the cut up lemons, in a big earthenware pot. When. nearly cold, put in the yeast on a piece of tcast. Leave for twelve hours. Then strain it carefully, and it may be bottled in three days. After a week, it is ready for use, And here is another old _ recipe, slightly different; for Dandelion Wine, Three quarts of dandelion flowers; 1 gallon of water; 3 Ibs. of sugar; the tind and juice of 2 lemons, and 1 orange; 1 oz. of yeast, and 1 Ib. of raisins. The flowers must be freshly gathered, picked off their stalks, and put into a large bowl. Bring the water (Continued on next page)

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to the boil, pour over the dandelions, | and leave for three days, stirring each day. Cover the bowl with butter-mus-lin. After the third day, add the sugar and the rinds only of the lemons, and the orange. Turn all into a big pan and boil for an hour, Put back into the bowl, and add the pulp or juice of the lemons and orange. Allow to stand till cool, then add the yeast, Leave it covered for three days, when it may be strained, and bottled. Have the bottles not quite filled, and divide the raisins equally amorg them, Do not cork tightly until all fermentation has ceased. It will take about six months to be ready for drinking.