Ok, folks. Today’s the day. Today I’ll be starting the process of making Dandelion Wine. I’ve got my container in hand and my wine bottles are on order and should be here tomorrow. All told, it’s a week long process of stirring, boiling, straining, and waiting. Wish me luck!

Here’s how I’m approaching this endeavor.

Dandelions: My wife has pointed me to a field near her school with her highest recommendation as her school district is pesticide free. That’s a good thing people.

Container: I chose the size container I did based purely on math. The recipe calls for 3-5 quarts of dandelions and 5 quarts of water. As I result of the water and displacement from the dandelions, I knew I needed something bigger than what I current had on hand. I won’t be repeating the same silly mistakes I made when I did maple syrup! So, I bought a 12 quart food grade container. It was promptly washed when it arrived last week.

Wine Bottles: Basically, I did the math on how much wine will be produced by reviewing the recipe which calls for 5 quarts (Q) of water. It wasn’t difficult math, mind you, as this English major was able to deduce the capacity needed. To be clear, though, I needed to do this math (and the conversion) because the wine bottle capacity is measured in milliliters (ml) while the recipe is denoted in quarts. For you other English majors out there, here’s the math:

• 5 Q water is equal to 4.73176 L

• 4.73176 L is equal to 4731.76 ml (just slide the decimal, baby)

• 4731.76 ml divided by the 750 ml wine bottle capacity is 6.31

• 6.31 is the number of wine bottles needed to bottle and age the dandelion wine

Simple.

Look for my post next weekend where I’ll detail out the process and include the video.