HARD! Lemonade

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homebrewnewb

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Howdy there,
Do you have lemons on a tree like mine, occasionally molested by damn marsupials?
Do you have kids piffing lemons at unsuspecting neighbors?
Have you often though, damn i should getting more bang for buck out of my lemons to life ratio?

I pilfered this from BrewCraft so all credit.
Would you make any amendments?
I am almost tempted to try a bittering hop light like a fuggle just for experimental purposes.
Aroma Dr. Rudi maybe with a dry hop?




Hard Lemonade (Alcoholic)
semi-sweet alcoholic lemonade of about 4.5% strength. You can vary the sweetness by varying the amount of lactose in the recipe or make it dry by leaving the lactose out altogether (see notes)

Ingredients:
• 2kg 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 SAFale yeast
• Water to make up 22 litres of wort

Method:
• Heat 5 litres of water then add dextrose, lactose, 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. Strain the hot mixture 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.

• Prime bottles. Or keg.

• 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.

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. I will prime them with sucrose so :p
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.
 
damn thats a good idea

I just moved out of a house with 2 lemon tree's and I was throwing the damn things away every time I mowed
 
summer time comin up and i usually do a ginger beer or cider. considering the price of ginger @ 20$ per kg and I have lemons, time to put them to use!
 
i brewed this last year for the xmas to new years break and with temps in the high 30s, it went down really well between beers.
 
Personally, I'd use zest and flesh, leaving behind pips and pith, but that comes from cooking, not making hard lemonade.
 
i'm going to give this a crack, does using the whole lemon impart any bitterness and what is the post brew taste like. Would it be similar to an American style lemonade ?
 
not sure, you will be forging the way. i will be trying this in a couple of weeks.
i dont think it would be like US style at all, since it has the alcohol content and a bit of lactose to back sweeten. i am not sure if there are are any commercially similar products to test.
keep us posted on your progress @Hangover68
 
i boiled up the whole lemons, and added sliced lemons to the fermenter.

Adding the lemons to the fermenter gave it a really tart bitterness. which was quite nice combined with the dryness of it, although did also have the slightest offish lemon flavour which i assume occured during the ferment.

I backsweetened with a sweetener from woolies, as I ran out of lactose.

The keg of it got demolished in 2 days by both beer drinkers and non beer drinkers.
 
i boiled up the whole lemons, and added sliced lemons to the fermenter.

Adding the lemons to the fermenter gave it a really tart bitterness. which was quite nice combined with the dryness of it, although did also have the slightest offish lemon flavour which i assume occured during the ferment.

I backsweetened with a sweetener from woolies, as I ran out of lactose.

The keg of it got demolished in 2 days by both beer drinkers and non beer drinkers.

thanks, how much sweetener, i might get some extra lactose maybe 1kg instead 500g.
 
thanks, how much sweetener, i might get some extra lactose maybe 1kg instead 500g.
I can't remember exactly how much, but i just trialled small samples in a glass until it tasted right and then scaled up to the whole keg amount.

I would definitely go with lactose over the sweetener, as the artificial sweetener adds that sugar free soft drink, 'alzheimers' etc flavour.
 
I've tried this and would recommend not using lactose =/
The drink tasted like milk and I found it disgusting. Poured the lot out...

If I did it again, I wouldn't sweeten at all - instead I would pour in some lemon cordial into your glass/bottle when drinking.
 
don't discount user error - it was only the 5th or 6th brew I'd done...
but the aftertaste was just so milky, i can only figure it to be because of the lactose

would be very interested to see what others come up with with the same recipe
 
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