# Hard lemonade



## Kingy (24/8/20)

So I made a hard lemonade with a recipe I found only using some ginger and 
3kgs of lemons and
2.2kgs of dextrose as fermentable.
And 500gms of lactose.
Gravity was 1.048. It's been a week and hasn't moved from 1.030 for a few days.
Does lactose throw off the gravity readings.
Maybe the ph was to low for the yeast. I'm chilling down a bottle atm. To force carb to give a taste.


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## kadmium (24/8/20)

Lactose will increase the SG of the must, however 18 points sounds like a stuck ferment.

Did you add yeast nutrients? Did you do TOSNA 3.0 or preloading? Did you degas during fermentation and what strain of yeast did you use?

Lemon makes the liquid very unkind to yeast. Need a few more bits of info from you.


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## Kingy (24/8/20)

I used yeast nutrient, and I used s04 yeast. I went camping for a week afterwards so nothing else was done. Never heard of a degas. I might rouse it up a bit and bump the temp up. Probly should of used a cider yeast


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## kadmium (24/8/20)

Yeah fair enough. Generally with yeast nutrient the gold standard for non-beer / mead etc is Total Organic Staggered Nutrient Additions (TOSNA) which step feeds nutrients at specific times. It helps to avoid a stuck fermentation. 

If all else fails, I would pitch a packet of champagne yeast in there, and it should rip through.

Degassing is basically giving it a good stir up once or twice a day for the first week or so, to let CO2 out. I'm not convinced it's necessary but I brew a fair bit of mead / cyser and I think it helps.

Also, check out this link for some helpful tips and a recipe for Skeeter Pee


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## Kingy (24/8/20)

Ah nice,great reply. Thanks mate. Reccomend any champagne yeast? 
I've got some more reading to do by the looks. It's a great way to use up some lemons.


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## kadmium (24/8/20)

Hey mate, yeah EC-1118 by lalvin will unstuck any fermentation. Just go in dry. Sprinkle on and let er rip


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## Hwa (24/8/20)

Wonder if it could be too acidic for that yeast?


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## kadmium (24/8/20)

they suggest step feeding the lemon on skeeter pee for that exact reason!


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## Hangover68 (25/8/20)

I used the recipe in the hard lemonade post and had no issues with stalling, i used 2 packs of yeast nutrient and US05 yeast.


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## Kingy (25/8/20)

I used this recipe, I added the champagne yeast today. Hopefully it gets it moving. After the reading I've done. This yeast would eat anything.


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## butisitart (25/8/20)

we've got a lemon tree out the back yard that's sagging to the ground with lemons. well, it would't be sagging to the ground with much else. what's the batch size on the above recipe?? 23L??
i can feel a whole new world coming on.
and wtf is skeeter pee. sounds like something a mosquito does in a private cubicle. how do you collect it?? can you test it for malaria??


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## Kingy (25/8/20)

butisitart said:


> we've got a lemon tree out the back yard that's sagging to the ground with lemons. well, it would't be sagging to the ground with much else. what's the batch size on the above recipe?? 23L??
> i can feel a whole new world coming on.
> and wtf is skeeter pee. sounds like something a mosquito does in a private cubicle. how do you collect it?? can you test it for malaria??


25 litre batch size, that's the only reason i made this was to get rid of some lemons. Hopefully it turns out ok. I'll make it an annual thing to use up the lemons.


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## butisitart (25/9/20)

threw down my first lemonade this arvo. 
out of solidarity with all you house-arrest vics, i got them from the back yard, and i only drove 4.73km to get some EC118 champagne yeast, and pretty much made it up from the little bit of info here.
most lemonade recipes are on american websites, and they don't even use lemons - just some cordial gick.
so, for anybody interested, 23L batch -
23 lemons (about average on info)
2.5kg dextrose
a small shaved ginger root
the yeast, and
whitelabs yeast nutrients (the only choice at the lhbs).

og 1.041, but when i tasted it, already tasted of really nicely balanced fruit on flavour.
bought some lactose as per most recipes, although i saw one comment where a brewer said it doesn't need sweetening with lactose.
after my taste, i agree. not a fan of lactose as a rule, and i don't need sickly sweet, so now i'm not sure if i'll bother to add it to this. 
recipes suggest adding lactose to taste just before bottling. so that remains to be seen.

will add a 2nd yeast nutrients as soon as the fermenting starts to slow.

for lemon juice extraction, after i poured off, i hit the pulp with a potato masher, and got almost no extra juice. maybe 10-15 mls from 23 lemons. so loaded pulp into a strainer and slow poured about 1L 50 degree water to 'sparge' , then repeated that a few minutes later. 
total time from going down to garden to collect lemons, to putting airlock on fermenter (and cleaning up completed), just on 2 hours.
hope this helps. initial observations - pretty quick and painless to make, and tastes good even at pre-ferment.


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## kadmium (26/9/20)

Well all that sugar will go and you will only be left with lemon! But agreed lactose I find gives milky sweetness.

One thing that does help is to just add a teaspoon of sugar when you pour into a glass. That way you can drink it as sweet or dry as you like. 

The other option is to stabilise with kmeta and sorbate backsweeten with sugar, keg and fill bottles from keg (if you keg)

I'm doing a batch of skeeter pee at the moment, using that bottled lemon juice from Coles, sugar and US-05 yeast.


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## peterlonz (26/9/20)

butisitart said:


> threw down my first lemonade this arvo.
> out of solidarity with all you house-arrest vics, i got them from the back yard, and i only drove 4.73km to get some EC118 champagne yeast, and pretty much made it up from the little bit of info here.
> most lemonade recipes are on american websites, and they don't even use lemons - just some cordial gick.
> so, for anybody interested, 23L batch -
> ...


The problem is you do want to end up with some residual sweetness. If you bottle the secondary fermentation will use all all but lactose or artificial sweetener & I suspect like me you want neither.
In my case I keg, add a decent quality cordial to achieve the desired sweetness & promptly cold crash. Sweetness preserved, wife happy, but the overall result does not compare IMHO with say a ginger beer.


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## butisitart (26/9/20)

peterlonz said:


> The problem is you do want to end up with some residual sweetness. If you bottle the secondary fermentation will use all all but lactose or artificial sweetener & I suspect like me you want neither.
> In my case I keg, add a decent quality cordial to achieve the desired sweetness & promptly cold crash. Sweetness preserved, wife happy, but the overall result does not compare IMHO with say a ginger beer.


adding sugar or sugared water at point of drinking (as per kadmium) would be an good option especially on first batch, but i'm intending to dish out a few to each of my good neighbours at chrissie time, and i live in an apartment block, so maybe a carton. so it's not really a viable option in the circumstances.
i figured the 'add lactose to taste just before bottling' clause is precisely because the yeasties are going to soak up a lot of sweetness, so reserving my judgment on how much to use when i get to that point.
the cordial is a new one. what brand, how much do you use?? i suspect that it might not be an option anyway if i can't cold crash cos the yeasties will strip that of sugars in bottle ferment. and blow up my garage. 
i may need to just sparingly use the lactose


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## Hangover68 (26/9/20)

I used 1kg of lactose in mine and definitely did not taste any milkyness at all, if anyone it wasn't quite sweet enough.


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## butisitart (26/9/20)

Hangover68 said:


> I used 1kg of lactose in mine and definitely did not taste any milkyness at all, if anyone it wasn't quite sweet enough.


yeah, i own the 500gm bag of lactose LOL,
so it looks like i'll be using that after the taste test just before bottling.
i got turned off it trying to clone a guinness, i remember a glutinous glug that refused to behave itself (this was a long time ago)..
see how we go


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## peterlonz (27/9/20)

I use cordial to back sweeten both ginger beer & lemonade. Just add carefully "to taste"(& remember you can't get it out once you put it in). Any decent cordial does the job, Bunderim for GB (NOT the diet one!!). I have also used pear cordial to back sweeten Cider. Yes it helps to be set up to keg.


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## peterlonz (27/9/20)

butisitart said:


> threw down my first lemonade this arvo.
> out of solidarity with all you house-arrest vics, i got them from the back yard, and i only drove 4.73km to get some EC118 champagne yeast, and pretty much made it up from the little bit of info here.
> most lemonade recipes are on american websites, and they don't even use lemons - just some cordial gick.
> so, for anybody interested, 23L batch -
> ...


Hope it works out Lemonade is the hardest to make a decent brew. Little point reporting taste before fermentation is complete.


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## butisitart (27/9/20)

peterlonz said:


> Hope it works out Lemonade is the hardest to make a decent brew. Little point reporting taste before fermentation is complete.


damn, and i thought i was off to a flier LOL


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## RRising (27/9/20)

butisitart said:


> threw down my first lemonade this arvo.
> out of solidarity with all you house-arrest vics, i got them from the back yard, and i only drove 4.73km to get some EC118 champagne yeast, and pretty much made it up from the little bit of info here.
> most lemonade recipes are on american websites, and they don't even use lemons - just some cordial gick.
> so, for anybody interested, 23L batch -
> ...



Probably a dumb question but how did you prepare the lemons? did you just juice them or peel the rind and cut into pieces? 

I am more then keen to do a hard lemonade and am interested to see how yours turns out.


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## butisitart (27/9/20)

RRising said:


> Probably a dumb question but how did you prepare the lemons? did you just juice them or peel the rind and cut into pieces?
> 
> I am more then keen to do a hard lemonade and am interested to see how yours turns out.


sliced the ends off, then halved lengthways, then 3-4 slices, then halved again,
so a rough dicing. boiled peel and all, although since they came out of the garden, i know they haven't been sprayed or waxed. some of the recipes included peel, some only the rind, and some with neither rind nor peel. so my guess is that they all work, bearing pesticides in mind.
boil 25mins.
but pls note from my comments above that i am a first time novice at this, so there are almost certainly other ways of prepping.
i will probably go the lactose over cordial (and i've got a bickfords lemon cordial in the fridge). bit wary of bottling with that if i can't calculate its equivalent in priming sugar. don't want a garage full of L bombs. i'm guessing you only need low carbonation levels anyway. something to think about between here and there


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## Eddy Monsoon (28/9/20)

Many different types of Lemon. Very different sourness levels.

Throws the recipe way out depending which type you're using


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## kadmium (28/9/20)

Eddy Monsoon said:


> Many different types of Lemon. Very different sourness levels.
> 
> Throws the recipe way out depending which type you're using


I use the yellow ones.


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## butisitart (28/9/20)

Eddy Monsoon said:


> Many different types of Lemon. Very different sourness levels.
> 
> Throws the recipe way out depending which type you're using


don't know what variety, but thicker skin, not too heavy on the juice, and not too sour. i know the flavour profile will change, but at fermenting, lemon to sugar balance was absolutely drinkable. see how we go, part of the fun.


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## peterlonz (29/9/20)

Mayer lemons are the most commonly grown in home gardens. A less sour taste than other varieties & I believe a higher sugar content. Excellent with gin & Schepps tonic.
In my case lemons were halved & juice extracted by powered ribbed conical device ( all kitchens have one of these, generally manually operated, but you need power.
Pith & skins discarded. I believe that grating some of the yellow outer skin for zest may be worthwhile but it's time consuming & I now don't do this.
You can establish the amount of back- sweetening by testing but that's to no avail unless you can stop secondary fermentation in the bottles, hence my use of kegs


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## Hangover68 (29/9/20)

I just cut them into wedges, next time i make it i will cut the rind off first.


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## butisitart (29/9/20)

peterlonz said:


> In my case lemons were halved & juice extracted by powered ribbed conical device ( all kitchens have one of these, generally manually operated, but you need power.


i read 'boil' and didn't think of conical. juice, although the few recipes that had lemons in the lemonade included some level of peel. thinking about it, it's probably easier than juicing.


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## butisitart (11/10/20)

ok, lemonade bottling time.
lessons learnt - toss any lemons that have that slightly discoloured flesh that suggests drying up and going stale. i can taste it in the brew. i would have thought that since you can eat it, then it'll be ok, but no, not really. not a bad taste, but it is there. go the greener ones next time.
lesson 2: quantity varies, i guess, but 23 lemons for 23L was way more lemons than i probably needed, for the lemons in my garden. it's pretty heavy on body and flavour. maybe 13-14 next time.
lesson 3: 1 pack of ec1118 doesn't cut it. loaded in a batch of nottingham killer yeast to help it out. either at least 2 packs of ec1118 and maybe plus a starter boost. but yeah - takes a lot of yeast to overcome the lemons.
lesson 4: maybe drop the dextrose to 2kg from 2.5kg, unless of course i've got confidence in the yeast.

question time for the og/fg specialists,,,,, og was 1.041. my fg, same 3 days in a row at the end, was 0.96. so it was below the 1.0 mark. any suggestions?? haven't hit that one before.
added 250gm lactose and 150gm primer dextrose after fg reading and before bottling.
pre-lactose flavour was slightly tart, but quite drinkable, maybe too strong on the lemon for what i was trying to achieve, hence the reduction in lemons for the next batch. the alternative would maybe have been to just water it down and boost the dextrose with a secondary ferment, but it wasn't so out of control as to warrant that either.
but the fg is a curiosity number.
will do a 2nd brew in a few days.


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## kadmium (12/10/20)

An FG below 1.000 just means you have zero sugars left. 1.000 is the SG of water with no alcohol, but since alcohol is lighter than water and with no sugar to increase viscosity, it reads below 1.000. 

Quite normal for non beer. 

Also the yeast quantity wasn't the issue but a lack or proper nutrients. Try going for either a TOSNA 3.0 if you can get Fermaid-O or load it up with normal nutrients. 

Also, try step feeding the lemon. You can add half the lemon, and then after fermentation has begun add the rest. Lemon is a hard thing for yeast to perform in.


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## butisitart (12/10/20)

okie, that explains the sugars.
did load nutrients at ferment slowdown, don't have tosna in our neck of the woods. although i suspect that 1 pack of 1118 was light on.
will make a 2nd batch this week, the 2nd dose of lemon sounds like it can help too. cheers


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## kadmium (12/10/20)

TOSNA just means using only organic nutrients and staggering the additions. 

If you can get Fermaid-O you essentially divide the nutrients into 3 or 4 lots and add em staggered to help fermentation chug along.


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## Liambeer (9/10/21)

butisitart said:


> sliced the ends off, then halved lengthways, then 3-4 slices, then halved again,
> so a rough dicing. boiled peel and all, although since they came out of the garden, i know they haven't been sprayed or waxed. some of the recipes included peel, some only the rind, and some with neither rind nor peel. so my guess is that they all work, bearing pesticides in mind.
> boil 25mins.
> but pls note from my comments above that i am a first time novice at this, so there are almost certainly other ways of prepping.
> i will probably go the lactose over cordial (and i've got a bickfords lemon cordial in the fridge). bit wary of bottling with that if i can't calculate its equivalent in priming sugar. don't want a garage full of L bombs. i'm guessing you only need low carbonation levels anyway. something to think about between here and there


Lactose won’t give you bottle bombs, it’s non fermentable


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