Hard Lemonade

[steve.m]

[size=-1]lemonade li



Hi
I am thinking about doing an alcoholic lemonade to blend with a dark ale. I want it about as sweet as softdrink lemonade but hopefully not tasting yeasty. I found this recipe that llokis ok on the liquourcraft site. (the link is above).

Has anyone tried this recipe or simialr and how did it turn out?

[/size] You will need

A 25 or 30 litre fermenter *

Enough bottles for 20 litres of lemonade

A priming scoop for measuring sugar into the bottles *

Homebrew sterilizing compound *

Beer or screw top softdrink bottles

* Available from Liquorcraft

Ingredients:

2kg glucose/dextrose *

500g lactose *

12-24 lemons, sliced or chopped fine including peel

up to 50g crushed or grated fresh ginger (optional)

5g yeast nutrient *

1 sachet SAFaIe yeast *

Water to make up 22 litres of wort *

Method

Heat 5 litres of water then add glucose, lemons & ginger & simmer for 20 minutes.

Sterilize your fermenter according to directions on the sterilizing compound.

Add about 12 litres of cold water into your fermenter. Pour the hot mixture through a straining bag (available at homebrew suppliers) into the fermenter.

Top up with cold water to the 22 litre mark add the yeast nutrient & stir well.

Make sure the temperature is 30C or less & add the yeast, fit a fermentation lock in the lid of the fermenter & half fill it with water.

The fermentation should start within 24 hours although it usually ony takes a couple of hours to start. When it starts, bubbles should be rising through the lemonade & stream through the water in the airlock.

Allow the lemonade to ferment until it stops then allow it to settle & clear for 48 hours.

Use a priming scoop (available from Liquorcraft) to add a measure of sugar to each bottle.

Fill the bottle to about 50mm from the top then seal it firmly with a crown seal or screw cap.

Store these bottles in a warm place for a week or 2 to allow them to condition (become fizzy). They will now be ready to drink.

Notes

You can vary the quantities of lemons & ginger to suit your own taste.

You cannot use sugar or glucose to sweeten a bottle fermented drink like this because it will cause the bottles to explode. This lemonade is sweetened with lactose which is a non-fermentable sweetener. You can add more or less lactose to suit your own taste. As a rough guide, lactose is about half as sweet as sugar.


[size="-1"][/size]

 

[tyoung]

Steve,

I'd be careful of using the lemon peel / zest because it can make the brew quite bitter. I'd up the lactose a bit to make it sweeter, or you can use artificial sweeteners such as Equal.

Tim

[size=-1]lemonade li



Hi
I am thinking about doing an alcoholic lemonade to blend with a dark ale. I want it about as sweet as softdrink lemonade but hopefully not tasting yeasty. I found this recipe that llokis ok on the liquourcraft site. (the link is above).

Has anyone tried this recipe or simialr and how did it turn out?

[/size] You will need

A 25 or 30 litre fermenter *

Enough bottles for 20 litres of lemonade

A priming scoop for measuring sugar into the bottles *

Homebrew sterilizing compound *

Beer or screw top softdrink bottles

* Available from Liquorcraft

Ingredients:

2kg glucose/dextrose *

500g lactose *

12-24 lemons, sliced or chopped fine including peel

up to 50g crushed or grated fresh ginger (optional)

5g yeast nutrient *

1 sachet SAFaIe yeast *

Water to make up 22 litres of wort *

Method

Heat 5 litres of water then add glucose, lemons & ginger & simmer for 20 minutes.

Sterilize your fermenter according to directions on the sterilizing compound.

Add about 12 litres of cold water into your fermenter. Pour the hot mixture through a straining bag (available at homebrew suppliers) into the fermenter.

Top up with cold water to the 22 litre mark add the yeast nutrient & stir well.

Make sure the temperature is 30C or less & add the yeast, fit a fermentation lock in the lid of the fermenter & half fill it with water.

The fermentation should start within 24 hours although it usually ony takes a couple of hours to start. When it starts, bubbles should be rising through the lemonade & stream through the water in the airlock.

Allow the lemonade to ferment until it stops then allow it to settle & clear for 48 hours.

Use a priming scoop (available from Liquorcraft) to add a measure of sugar to each bottle.

Fill the bottle to about 50mm from the top then seal it firmly with a crown seal or screw cap.

Store these bottles in a warm place for a week or 2 to allow them to condition (become fizzy). They will now be ready to drink.

Notes

You can vary the quantities of lemons & ginger to suit your own taste.

You cannot use sugar or glucose to sweeten a bottle fermented drink like this because it will cause the bottles to explode. This lemonade is sweetened with lactose which is a non-fermentable sweetener. You can add more or less lactose to suit your own taste. As a rough guide, lactose is about half as sweet as sugar.


[size="-1"][/size]

 

[beerguide]

I made up a similar recipe to the Liqourcraft recipe recently and used Champagne yeast instead of SafAle. I also used 2.5kg of white sugar instead of the lactose/glucose and I didnt count the lemons, but there were 2.5 kilos of them - I'd say around a dozen or so.

I used 50g of ginger also as the above recipe suggests.

I fermented it out at 7 degrees for 5 weeks.

The flavour is a little too gingery, so I'd personally drop the ginger down to around 25gs and I'd probably bump the sugar up to 3 kilos to increase the alcohol content - again just a personal choice.

Flavourwise it is nice, and as I didn't use any of the white pith its not overly bitter/sour. It certainly isn't a sweet drink, like Two Dogs etc.. but its a nice almost traditional flavoured lemonade.
Once my bottles are empty and my Pilser I'm putting down clears up the fermenter I'm making another batch of this.

 

[pint of lager]

Quite a few members of AHB have made lemonade before and a search on the site will produce alot of good information.

Avoid the white rind or pith part from the lemons. Zest them to remove and use the thin yellow rind in your recipe, leave the white bit, then juice them and use the juice in your recipe.

If you run a keg setup, you can back sweeten the lemonade with sugar syrup into the keg and then carbonate it up. Keep the keg chilled and the yeast won't go to work on the sugar. This avoids the problem of how to sweeten the lemonade in the bottle, yet avoid bottle bombs.

 

[steve.m]

thanks blokes. I look forward to getting my hands on some free lenoms. Certainly not paying $7.00 kg them as they are in the supermarket at the moment.

 

[Uncle Fester]

Quite a few members of AHB have made lemonade before and a search on the site will produce alot of good information.

Avoid the white rind or pith part from the lemons. Zest them to remove and use the thin yellow rind in your recipe, leave the white bit, then juice them and use the juice in your recipe.

If you run a keg setup, you can back sweeten the lemonade with sugar syrup into the keg and then carbonate it up. Keep the keg chilled and the yeast won't go to work on the sugar. This avoids the problem of how to sweeten the lemonade in the bottle, yet avoid bottle bombs.

POL,
You have mentioned the sugar syrup before (yesterday to be precise)...

As a guesstimate (or from experience) how much sugar would you add to sweeten a keg full of cider or lemonade? 1/2Kg? 1Kg?

Hate to go to all the trouble of getting a keg of product only to render it undrinkable.


Cheers,

Fess.

 

[pint of lager]

I have brewed hard lemonade but only bottled it.

Other members on the board have successfully back sweetened a keg, but I cannot recall how much sugar they used. Ginger beer, apple cider and lemonade are all candidates for back sweetening.

After your brew has fermented out, pour a glass of known volume, 250ml would work well and add a teaspoon of sugar. Stir well and taste. Add more sugar if necessary. Then scale to your keg. Make sure you dissolve your sugar in some hot water prior to adding to the keg, otherwise it is going to froth everywhere.