Calling Mashani - Dandelion Golden Syrup

[Brewbirds]

Hey Mashani.

I had a yard full of the buggers to tackle myself this weekend and decided to grab some flowers before doing battle. Did yours kind of shrivel up/close after you picked them?

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I managed to find your old MB post about making the syrup and had some questions. (Should I put it up here?)

First did you actually boil the flowers in the water or steep after boiling the water ala a hop stand or hop tea? Wondering if boiling the flowers would lose flavor from flash point issues?

Also could you describe a bit more about when you are raising the temps through higher stages when making the syrup, I didn't quite get that part?

The post I found was about making the syrup and if I remember you did a Saison and fed this after primary started to slow right?

Would you do it the same way with other beer styles? We don't have a recipe yet.

Would this plat well with rye?

and

[mashani]

The closing is normal. Just pluck off the stems and use them soon.

I brought the dandelions and water up to a simmer in a covered pot, and then let them simmer for an hour, then took them off the heat and let it sit for about 8 hours with the lid still on.

I then strained out the dandelions and used the liquid as the base for my candi syrup.

The liquid will have a slightly herbal and mild nutty flavor, it's not going to taste like you actually expect it to

As far as the temp stuff. If you want to do it the *easy* way, just add some lemon juice or vinegar to the sugar/water when you boil and it will invert the sugars for you.

The temperature rise/cool/rise/cool stuff by adding water is the no-acid way of getting sugar to invert. It's the authentic OLD SCHOOL Belgian candi maker method of getting invert sugar. It also gives you more control over the syrups carmilization process by slowing it down. But it makes the process take a long long time.

If you do it with an acid, you can just slowly let the temperature rise to the level you want to get the color you want.

If you google "invert syrup" or "invert sugar" you can find the right amount of acid for the amount of sugar/water.

Did that help?

EDIT: The flavor of this is mellow, it is detectible in a wheat/pilsner saison, but if you were to make something with strong malt driven flavors it might get buried. The rye might be too much for it, unless you were using a lot.

EDIT EDIT: You can do it with dandelion leaves too - it will produce a much stronger flavor, but it's a different flavor then the flowers. More intense herbal and some bitter - less nutty. That might stand out against the rye more.

[Brewbirds]

Thanks for the info Mashani.

We were playing with a grain bill yesterday and after your comment about the subtly of the flavor we may add it to a Kolsch we've got going now. The primary fermentation is just starting to settle. This is basically a SMaSH with German Pils, Sterling and WL Kolsch yeast.

Think that would be a good match?

Going to see if any more flowers opened for picking and do the syrup today.

BB2's been wanting to play with Dandelions for a while now so I finally caved. I can vacuum, fold clothes and pull weeds another day.

[swenocha]

I noticed a ton of dandelions in the back yard for the first time ever this morning. As disconcerting as this was (I need to weed and seed... sigh...), I'm in the game as of today as well... I'm pasting Mashani's post from the other side here for ease of reference:

So my yard was full of the beasties, and I don't use pesticides or nasty stuff on my lawn, so I know they are good. If you can't beat them, eat them is my motto.
So I made some Golden Candi Syrup out of them.

1 quart of Dandelion flowers.
Boiled in 1 quart of water for 20 minutes.
Strained, which left me with a bit less then 3 cups of dandelion flower tea.
Reduced this down to 2 cups, then strained again into a small tall pot. The resulting tea has nice nutty and vanilla flavors, plus some of the dandelion floral character.
Added 2/3# of sugar.
Attached candi thermometer. Boiled carefully in steps, adding a tablespoon of water as I hit each step to bring the temps back down, then raised back to my next step at 5 degree intervals. My steps ranged from 225 to a final step at 250, I was not trying to make dark candi syrup, just golden. This took like forever because this stuff is like DME, except it never has a "hot break", so it is always ready to boil over. No acids, it is unneeded if you use this type of process (the maliard reactions that darken the syrup also invert it, and the reason you do the steps is to keep this process going for a long time, to invert more. Same basic reason old canned extract that darkens tends to not ferment as completely as if it was fresh). If you were making dark candi syrup you would want to take it up to 280-285.
Added 1/4C of water to rapidly cool it a bit make sure it remains a syrup. (it's still well over 200 at this point)
Let it cool. Put it in a sterile jar. Stuck in fridge. Will likely turn slushy in fridge, but will return to syrup at room temp.
It tasted awesome, like the tea but with amped up vanilla and nutty and light caramel flavors.
I'm going to use it in a light colored Belgian that is TBD.

Note that if you read about making "dandelion syrup" (like pancake syrup) online you will often see folks say that you have to remove every bit of green and only use the yellow flower parts. This is crap that was passed down from generation to generation without any reason besides keeping their kids out of their hair by making them spend all day picking green bits off of the flowers or something. Just remove the stems, the greens do no harm and actually make a better tasting tea IMHO.

[mashani]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ RE above copied post: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Oh yeah so that was the first time I made this. I made it again later in the year and simmered for a full hour and let it steep for 8 like I said above. That gave the syrup a somewhat stronger flavor so it would stand out more. The way I did it as you copied from the old forum worked, and made good beer but the flavor was very subtle.

Either way it's still more subtle of a flavor then you would think. You need to get the greens into the mix to get a stronger flavor. But it won't be the same flavor either, less nutty, more herbal, more bitter.

[mashani]

Thanks for the info Mashani.

We were playing with a grain bill yesterday and after your comment about the subtly of the flavor we may add it to a Kolsch we've got going now. The primary fermentation is just starting to settle. This is basically a SMaSH with German Pils, Sterling and WL Kolsch yeast.

Think that would be a good match?

Going to see if any more flowers opened for picking and do the syrup today.

BB2's been wanting to play with Dandelions for a while now so I finally caved. I can vacuum, fold clothes and pull weeds another day.

I think it would be tasty and the flavors would work well. But you will only want to use maybe 8oz of syrup in a Kolsch since it's already a light bodied dry beer.

And beware of the Die Polizei von Köln.

EDIT: And dangit, now you make me want to do this. Soon I will have the beasties, and I have washed Kolsch yeast...

[swenocha]

2 cups of dandelions resulted in 8oz of brown, sweet, herbal syrup. I left greens (no stems) on, used the boil method, and followed a beekeeper recipe for invert sugar syrup (cream of tartar) to finish to a syrup. Very tasty. I have jarred it into a sanitized 250ml jar for a future use...

[mashani]

I've still got snow on the ground. No dandelions to play with yet this year...

[Brewbirds]

How to shell a Dandelion.

We wanted to leave the green "shell" off for this one so I spent the day picking Dandelion fluff; yes the day, the WHOLE LONG DAY.

But I can say with conviction that I am now an expert Dandelion sheller.

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A double sink helps alot.

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Get a little handful, and the trick is to pinch the base and give it a bit of a twist, then with your other hand grab the tip of the tuft and it will slide right out.

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Wha La!

[Brewbirds]

Well I got the syrup done, ended up with 4 1/2 cups or 3.08 lbs. The gravity was to high to get a reading BB2 thinks he's got it calculated to 1.320.

Mashani you said 8 ounces should be plenty so I don't dry the Kolsch out but how should I/did you add it?

I know I'll need to boil it in some water but should I target a gravity to dilute to?



Edit for all the stuff below ( RickBeer rolls his eyes ):

I forgot to say that in order to keep Monty in fine form I added some Honeysuckle flowers tea for a bit of color. Here's a teaser for you Monty my friend.

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Here is my finished product cooled and stored it is a nice red/gold honey color.

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I was very and about this project and got BB2 a bit stressed by firing a thousand questions a minute at him about "pitching" rates, storage units and stuff so he ended up a bit rattled at the end of the day so I made him a nice Martini and extend to him this public apology and thank him for his indulgence of my over-enthusiasm.
BB2

Oh and FYI when I couldn't get a read from the refractometer on the syrup I checked with some RO water and then a sample of the Kolsch and it turned out that the Kolsch is already done (will recheck in a couple of days) at 1.011 in just four days so we just put the syrup in the fridge for now.

Thanks to Swen and Mashani for helping us go Mad Scientist for a couple of days instead of doing chores.

But I do still need to figure out how to dose a beer re: syrup to boiling water ratio based on gravity. If either of you guys can help elaborate on that for BB2 it would be great.

[mashani]

The yeast is going to find that syrup no matter what and eat it, but basically bring it to a boil, or at least up to 160 and hold it there for some time, it in as little water as you can to get it fully integrated, then let it cool with a lid on and add it to the fermenter once cool. The yeast will soon have a party.

If you are brewing lower gravity beer you can just add it to the boil in the last few minutes instead of adding it during fermentation. Don't worry about the idea that the yeast will eat the sugar and then get lazy, that's crap - most beer yeast prefers maltose, then dextrose (which is a good bit of what you made if you inverted the sugar), over fructose/sucrose/etc. It has to use an enzyme called "invertase" to break down fructose/sucrose - which it will do - but it's not the yeasts preferred sugar.

I posted a chart somewhere on here that shows the amount of time needed and the quantity of CO2 produced (yeast respiration) while fermenting various types of sugar.

In a higher gravity beer feeding it is good because it keeps the yeast from getting stressed by rapid increase in alcohol and a high starting gravitys osmotic pressure messing with it. That's the real "issue" with adding sugar up front, not that the yeast eats it and gets too "lazy" to eat the maltose. Feeding it in this scenario "smooths the curve" as such. And in some kinds of yeast, IE say 3787 for example - it can kick it in the butt and get it to start to ferment larger sugar chains that it might have missed before - probably because it gets the yeast into a different kind of metabolism where it uses the invertase to break down sugar chains. So it might take out some more complex sugar from the extract or mash while it's at it and leave you with a lower FG then if you didn't feed it. But this is a yeast specific behavior, it's not necessarily going to happen with every strain.