Colony west hard lemonade, help please

[Leary360]

Hi all, new to the forum, just started a colony west lemonade.
I decided to put half into bottles as lemonade for the kids and ferment half into hard lemonade for the mrs.
When I purchased the kit the home brew shop sold me dextrose and told me this would be fine to use.

So here's what I done
I followed the directions for non alcoholic lemonade using dextrose instead of sugar, as stated in the instructions. I then bottled the kids lemonade.

I calculated the extra amount of dextrose I would need to add for the alcoholic lemonade as per instructions and added to fermenter. The only difference in the instructions between alcoholic and non alcoholic was that the alcoholic lemonade said to start the yeast using sugar and it specified caster sugar and the non alcoholic just said sugar and to start yeast in Luke warm water.

The instructions only state to ferment until a final gravity of 1006 or less and then bottle, it did not state a starting gravity.
I took a starting gravity anyway to calculate alcoholic volume, it was 1018.

Fermentation started very slowly and didn't start bubbling properly until the next day, it was bubbling a lot slower than the beer I had previously in the fermenter however I figured this May be due to it only being a half batch.

After a week in the fermenter, bubbling has stopped and I took another gravity reading, it came in at 1004.
Taste has changed a lot however it's still sweet. Now I'm not sure what to do, by my calculation it will be a very low alcoholic lemonade. Could this be the difference in caster sugar and dextrose?
Is it to late to change anything or save it?
Help appreciated
Cam

 

[Pokey]

Dextrose is basically the same as regular sugar, if you used the same weight as described in the instructions you should be fine.
If it's still sweet at 1.004 it probably is sweetened with some kind of artificial sweetner.

 

[Leary360]

Ok thanks for the reply,
All bottled now. I spoke to home brew shop again and he said the same, a beer/ wine hydrometer may not work with lemonade.
So how do I calculate the alcoholic volume?

 

[sponge]

Using brewing software, or an online calculator like this.

 

[HBHB]

I spoke to home brew shop again and he said the same, a beer/ wine hydrometer may not work with lemonade.

yes it will.

 

[Airgead]

Yeah. The hydrometer will work in that it will measure the specific gravity of the liquid.... what it may not do is translate into the same taste experience you are used to with beer. If there are artificial sweeteners present, they tend to be much stronger per unit volume that sugar so they will report a much lower specific gravity for a given amount of sweetness than sugar would.

So a liquid could have a SG of 1.001 say and be almost totally dry if we are talking about a sugar solution, or be sickeningly sweet if we are talking artificial sweeteners.

 

[kaiserben]

Back in the day I used to make these a fair bit (and add flavouring to make them more interesting).

But I never realised the ABV was so low (about 2% if you follow the instructions of 1kg sugar in 23L).

I've recently bought a kit to make another batch. If I bump up the sugar content to 2kg I should double the ABV, and I suppose I'd need to add roughy 250g more lactose to keep it tasting the same. Does this sound right?

Will doubling the sugar and adding 250g extra lactose make it taste a lot different than the regular kit with 1kg sugar?

 

[kwjoe658]

Hi guys I’ve just done a batch of non alcoholic for the kids and I put it in kegs instead of bottles and gassed it up.
Do I still have wait for 4 weeks until the can drink it??

 

[Liambeer]

Hi guys I’ve just done a batch of non alcoholic for the kids and I put it in kegs instead of bottles and gassed it up.
Do I still have wait for 4 weeks until the can drink it??

No, get into it once carbed!