Dandelion and Burdock convertions

[DjinnJah]

I am planning to use the following recipe:

3 large burdock roots
3 Dandelion roots
500g sugar
30ml black treacle
Juice of a lemon
Ale yeast
4.5 litres of water.

Given that i work constantly and when not working i am looking after the kids, i purchased 500g botanical grade dried dandelion and burdock i was thinking of using medium spraymalt in place of sugar and i am hoping to make about 20l.

I can increase the amounts of sugar, treacle, lemon and sugar but cannot get my head round how much dried root to use in place of fresh.

Any advice appreciated!!

[DjinnJah]

Any help with this please?

[boingy]

I think you mostly haven't got a reply because we mostly don't know the answer.

You could ask the place you bought it from or maybe something like a herbal medicine forum might have more idea.
Or you could just guess!

(And if you google it, like I just did, try to ignore the site where God told the fella that dried dandelion root will cure his cancer...)

[DjinnJah]

I'll be guessing then! I'll post the results just so you know.

[Pinto]

Sounds like an interesting experiment - I have no experience of making stuff like this tho - might be more in OldBlokes area of knowledge

I'd stick to sugar tho on the first trial run - spraymalt will add some unusual character that might not suit so i'd choose to make a neutral sugar addition instead. Careful with the treacle too as you're using herbal tones for flavouring and too much treacle will steamroller all over them if you use too much.

Keep us posted on progress !

[DjinnJah]

Made the following recipe:

250g dried Dandelion root
250g dried burdock root
100ml molasses
2kg medium spraymalt (couldn't get brewing sugar in time and I'm impatient!)
Juice of 2 lemons
Gervin ale yeast
4 gallons water

Boiled roots with lemon juice for 45 minutes in half the water, added fermentables. Strained into fermenting bin.

Recipe says to stir everyday, not sure why.

Started bubbling quickly and smells quite nice.

[DjinnJah]

Seems to have stopped fermenting already! Tested fg and it's gone from an sg of 1.060 to an fg of 1.008 in just 3 days.

Tasted the sample though and it tastes like bitter muddy roots. Hope it improves with age but i don't believe in tipping away booze so it will still get drunk, just glad i got another pressure barrel last month, looks like I'll be heading to Wilkos for some Wherry.

[DjinnJah]

Well this certainly didn't turn out as expected. Started off as a kinda rooty ale and has taken on a distinctly sour flavour to it. Not sure if it's infected or due to the temperature being too high during fermentation (or me not following the recipe).
It's not entirely undrinkable but not one I'll be showing off. Glad i have a Wherry almost ready

[danbrew]

I know herbal wines can take quite a while to come good, say a good year or so...

Have you chucked it? It might be worth bottling it off and leaving it a goodly while....

[DjinnJah]

Haven't chucked it, it's in my keg however i was under the impression it would only have a shelf life of a year or so. I may bottle half of it and leave that to see if it improves by next year.

[danbrew]

It might not last too long with it not having the acidity and alcohol content of a wine but you could do half like you say and try a bottle every couple of months.

Age does very remarkable things to country style recipes...