• No roasting - This produced very little color or flavor
• Light-roasted - Very nice but a little more roasting would probably add flavor
• Dark-roasted - This was very good, and the most coffee-like

No Roasting

Without drying and roasting, the resulting hot drink was almost entirely colorless and flavorless, making the process not really worthwhile. Roasting seems like the way to go!

The tea came out way too light and watery but we enjoyed a nice dandelion meal. Yes, the two of us split a dandelion for lunch.

Light-Roasted

I found some decent dandelions and pulled them by their roots, cleaned them thoroughly with a plastic brush, dried them on a baking dish by leaving them on a table overnight, then roasted them in the oven.

I boiled some in water for 20 minutes:

The resulting tea was tasty, but roasting it a little more would likely give it a stronger flavor which would be better:

Dark-Roasted

On vacation in Vermont there were some nice big dandelions growing in the garden. I pulled some as best I could. There was one nice big root that pulled up, and several clean small roots, as well as some that had a lot of embedded dirt. I cleaned them, and discarded the ones that still had dirt on them after cleaning.

I sliced them into thinner pieces so they could dry quickly in the sun:

Next I chopped them into BB-sized pieces and roasted them in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes on a baking sheet. This roasted them very aggressively, so I would probably roast at a lower temperature next time. They came out quite dark:

The resulting hot drink had a tasty flavor resembling coffee with a pleasantly slight bitterness.

I really like this stuff. It would be nice to find dandelions in a large quantity. Meanwhile, the health food store (or Amazon) sells really good stuff.

Update: I tried making more by chopping the dandelion roots and putting it directly in a 250 degree oven on a skillet without drying it first. It roasted for almost an hour and still didn't get particularly dark. So I should try maybe 300 degrees next time.

7/7/23

Picked sumac with S, M, M, & M. We made a bunch of sumac soda. And added a little to a gallon jug with a bunch of table sugar and a bit of wine yeast. Enough sugar was added to give it a 5.2% alcohol potential.

10/6/23

Transferred from jug to mini-keg and added Hen of the Wood Mushroom. It will just sit in the keg with the mushroom at the bottom.

11/25/23

Bottled this from the mini keg. It has been chilling in the cold room and carbonating. Unfortunately the mushrooms in the bottom of the keg clogged the ‘out’ tube in the keg which made the cider barely come out and turned to fizz as it passed through the clogged tube. Under the circumstances it bottled pretty well, just a bit slow, and probably lost some carbonation.

It tastes pretty good at this stage. Mostly just has a bit of tartness from the sumac. I’m not sure I taste the mushroom much.

While mountain biking with V last week, we got pretty off-trail. At one point we'd been thrashing around in the woods for a bit and were standing on an old and wrecked path collecting ourselves for the next thrash when I looked down to see a plant that I thought... Could it be? I pulled out the "Seek" app on my phone which helps identify plants, and sure enough it was the sought after Sweetfern!

I filled up my pack, and let it dry on a cookie sheet on the dining room table. After a week of drying, I pulled the leaves off the stems and filled a big jar with the dried leaves. I also made a batch to drink. It has a very tea-like taste with a pleasant bitterness from the tannis.

Then today, while biking again I found several big plants right next to the parking lot at Gurney Lane. I grabbed some of that. This time I used the fresh leaves, and steeped those for five minutes, and filled a bunch of bottles.

I found a dense patch of them next to some tennis courts near my house and picked a bunch. I took them home and steeped them for 24 hours.

Adding the resulting infusion to seltzer gave it amazing color:

And of course I had to add it to homemade cider, which gave it a nice color and added an interesting twist to the flavor:

1/19/22 - The airlock almost completely stopped bubbling. There is a thick layer of sediment. I moved the carboy into the cold attic room to “cold crash”.

1/20/22 after a day of cold crashing, it looks very clear.

1/22/22 - I cleaned and sanitized transfer equipment and two mini kegs. I pushed a little CO₂ into each keg, then filled each one with the auto-siphon. When it started getting a little sedimenty, I put the rest into 2 little glass bottles, and a little into a pint glass. The mini-keg labeled with an apple is probably the one with slightly less sediment, but both should be good. The cider tastes good, but could use a little time to sit, there is a hint of off flavors, but barely, and I think it’s the type of flavors that go away given a little time. It’s always a little funky at this stage. Fingers crossed! 

I put the mini kegs in the cool room, then thought better of it and moved them to the upstairs closet to age a little.

1/24/22

I drank the more sedimenty bottle from the fridge, it was almost ⅓ sediment. It was fantastic! I’m psyched for what is to come!

1/28/22

The first mini is really really good. Light yellow color, clean refreshing taste, maybe the tiniest hint of something that gives it a little character.

1/29/22

The second mini keg tastes excellent, maybe even slightly cleaner than the first. I filled some bottles to give away and made some 4-pack beer bottle holders out of cardboard.

I rode my bike to Hannaford and picked a bunch of nice apples from the tree in front of the supermarket.

I squeezed 3 gallons of juice from apples into the 3-gallon carboy. Specific gravity = 1.055 -> alcohol potential of 6.9%!! I tossed in some Red Star Premiere Blanc yeast. The juice was light-colored, and dropped an insane amount of sediment quickly (see the second photo, which was taken just after juicing):

9/24/21

I siphoned the cider from the carboy into a 5-gallon keg, filling the keg halfway. The keg is now sitting in the basement.

10/4/21

I transferred 1.5 gallons from the 5-gallon keg to a mini keg. While I was at it I poured a glass of warm, still cider. It's not bad. Definitely drinkable. Boring color. Hint of funk. Slight cloudiness. I’m interested to taste it once it’s chilled and carbonated!

10/6/21

The cider has chilled in the fridge, and is carbonated. I still need to work out some kinks with carbonating and serving, but the cider came out very good. It’s got a slight hint of something besides clean cider, B described it as clove, honestly it’s just enough to keep it interesting. I think this is the first time I’ve made a larger batch (3 gallons) of cider I’m happy with, as in cider worth sharing.

I ground apples from N’s brother-in-law J/M's tree in Burnt Hills. Great apples - tons of wonderful juice! Made a bunch of unpasteurized cider that M and I drank. And a bunch of pasteurized cider that we gave to friends. I filled the 1-gallon jug to ferment along with the remains of an opened packet of Red Star Premiere Blanc yeast and an appropriate amount of yeast nutrient.

9/14/21

I star-san’d a funnel, and just poured the gallon cider into a growler jug and added an air lock. That’s the ‘clean’ c11. I also poured the sludge into another container, that’s super nasty, but whatever, waste not want not. I also poured a glass to taste, it’s clean and nice.

9/20/21

I poured some of the super-sedimenty batch into a glass and put the airlock back on. The room-temperature still cider is pretty fantastic. It has a rich apple color with a light apple flavor, with yes, such a distant tiny hint of funk that it’s a positive addition.

9/28/21

I poured the half-gallon growler into a mini keg using a funnel attached to a long plastic tube - this system didn’t work well at all, it kinda bubbled a lot and would have been just as well to just pour it straight into the keg. There was only a small amount of sediment. I poured a small glass. The cider tasted good, but definitely a hint of my usual apple funk.

9/29/21

I poured a small wine glass of the cider from the mini keg. I used the very short tube, and it was under a lot of pressure, and kind of blasted into the glass as foam. I dropped the pressure and poured it more lightly, and let the foam subside. The cider is rather delightful!

J offered me some grapes from his backyard, he had a huge bumper crop of concord grapes with plenty to spare. So I headed over and picked a "bunch" and brought them home.

First I separated the grapes from the stems, discarding any excessively green or dried out grapes. I put the nice grapes, a little at a time, into a spaghetti pot and smashed them with my hands. Then I squeezed it through a mesh strainer bag. The fresh-squeezed juice yielded 1.052 specific gravity, so ~6.7% alcohol potential. I put this first press into the 1-gallon jug with some Red Star Premiere Blanc yeast and an airlock. I didn’t really sanitize anything, because it is all somewhat freshly cleaned from previous uses.

10/1/21

The fermentation stopped after a little over one week. I poured the wine into a keg through a strainer/funnel combo, chilled, and carbonated it. It tastes kinda awesome. M says: “it tastes like sparkling grape juice”.

10/2/21

I poured a tall pint glass of the stuff and really enjoyed it. It's kind of like a wonderful light grape juice crossed with a tasty slightly sour beer. It's not particularly wine-like. More like a grape cider if that makes any sense. Or a grape beer. Mmmm!