Lemonade

[sluggerdog]

Does anyone make a Hard Lemonade concentrate like the cider and ginger beer ones you can get..

Quick and Simple..

CHEERS

 

[lou]

Well i hate to admit it but i've been making lemonade since I was 5 yrs old, non-alcholic of cource but its the same thing minus yeast and extra sugar. Here is how it goes

juice lemons and shred the peel - do not put any white pith in if all possible (you will always get tiny bits but never use chunks).

The lemon juice actaully adds very little to the final flavour - what you want is the flavour out of the zest - tricky thing is the bitterness comes out of the zest so it is a balancing act - getting flavour out of the zest with out overdoing it and it becoming bitter.

Without any non-fermentables in it all the sugar will get eaten by the yeast - so you actually want to drink it before all the sugar is eaten to leave some residual sweetness, unless you want it totally dry <_<

The zest and sugar should be put in a saucepan brought to the boil but not left to boil very long - the juiuce should be added right at the last minute- once lemon juice is cooked it looses all its flavour and basically adds nothing to the final product - the nice thing about the lemon juice is the 'fresh' charactor its adds to the beverage - so as little cooking the juice as possible. Let the zest and sugar sit for a while - usually till it cools down is enough - maybe overnight - but not too long - the zest will keep on adding bitterness to the wort until removed. once cooled/ready dump into fermenter after straining through muslin- pitch wine/champaigne yeast. Drink quickly and cold. the yeast will get through the sugar very quickly . once mostly fermented you want to put it in the fridge to slow/stop fermentation to leave resideual sweetness.

My favourite addition is ginger , chop up the ginger and add with the zest at the begining - you can tell when the whole thing is ready becasue if you chew on a bit of the ginger all the flavour will have been extracted into the wort and it is totally tasteless.

Mmm refeshing ginger lemonade - a perfect summetime refresher

lou

 

[DrewCarey82]

Am going to put down a very simple batch of alcoholic lemonade.

Probably,
18 lemons.
3kg sugar.
Yeast Nutrient.
And some Brewers yeast from big W.

Big questions are.....

What temp should I aim for and how long does it take to ferment, and can from a supermarket or big w/kmart ect can I get Yeast nutrient and what does it do?

 

[Uncle Fester]

Am going to put down a very simple batch of alcoholic lemonade.

Probably,
18 lemons.
3kg sugar.
Yeast Nutrient.
And some Brewers yeast from big W.

Big questions are.....

What temp should I aim for and how long does it take to ferment, and can from a supermarket or big w/kmart ect can I get Yeast nutrient and what does it do?

[post="102083"][/post]​

I'm no expert, but I believe that you may wish to either use a specialist yeast (one that leaves sweetness in the lemonade), or add some lactose (non fermentable sugar). I would think this may come ut very dry and sour.

GMK has on occasions recomended some tiddly yeasts that are better for sweet drinks (ginger beer, cider etc...)

Over to you Ken... :chug:


M

[Edit: usual Typos]

 

[DrewCarey82]

I brought something called turbo yeast off the net its a wine/champaign yeast thats apparently better then the normal ones as it gets rid of harsh flavours would this do the trick?

 

[pint of lager]

Do a search on lemonade on the board. There has been discussion about this before and may give you some more ideas for your brew.

I did a batch similar to yours a few years back and didn't use any back sweetening. Yes, it was dry, but very nice and refreshing. It took ages to ferment out, plus continued slowly fermenting in the bottle to become overcarbonated after about six months, so either bottle in pet or watch your glass bottles and be ready to release head pressure.

Unfortunately, there is no specialist yeast that will leave part of the sucrose component unfermented. Any yeast will slowly work through all the sucrose, unless it dies from excess alcohol.

 

[DrewCarey82]

I did, couldnt find an answer to yeast nutrient is it a necessity?

Also when I throw the lemons in the blender should I boil it after woulds and should I strain the juice or throw it in bits and all.

 

[barfridge]

I brought something called turbo yeast off the net its a wine/champaign yeast thats apparently better then the normal ones as it gets rid of harsh flavours would this do the trick?

[post="102088"][/post]​

Turbo yeast is used to make the base for spirits. It will strip almost all the sugars out from the lemonade, leaving a very very dry horrid brew. I definitely do not recommend you use this yeast for normal brewing.

 

[DrewCarey82]

Good thing I asked.

Can anyone answer my yeast nutrient question?

 

[Guest Lurker]

You can buy yeast nutrient from a homebrew store. It would be a good idea to add nutrient to a lemonade as there arent the natural nutrients present in malt. The tightarse option would be boil a couple of sachets of old brewing/bread yeast and scape a tiny bit off a zinc vitamin tablet, to give the nutrients. But the commercial version has the right amounts of each mineral and tells you how much to add.

 

[pint of lager]

Rather than chucking the whole lemon in the blender, take only the outer zest off, then squeeze them. The white bit is called the pith and is bitter, you want to avoid this bit going in your lemonade.

To sanitise the zest and juice there are two options, you can use camden tablets or you can pastuerise it, which is heat treating it.

Make the juice and peel up to 5 litres , crush and dissolve one camden tablet in 1/2 cup water, stir into the juice/zest, wait 24 hours then continue with your recipe. Or to pastuerise, add some water to make to 5 litres, heat to 80 deg C, hold at this temp for about 10 minutes, let it cool and continue with your recipe.

Use GL's suggestion for nutrients. Don't use turbo yeast.

 

[recharge]

OK another note on turbo yeast it is basically a high dose of wine yeast Lavlin EC-1118 i believe with all the nutrients and buffer comounds required to ferment out an all sugar wash for spirit making. So if you do use it you shouldnt need any other nutrient if you are doing about 20 -25 l batch.
Personally i prefer to make my own and use ENOVIT as a nutrient.

 

[tangent]

interesting thread
something i need to add:

saying "add lemons" is like saying "add malt", which lemons and which malt?
You'll find lisbon lemons (my favourite) are really acidic and make your mouth pucker. These are great for chicken and fish but you wouldn't want to make a whole brew out of them.
Lemonade lemons are probably what you're after for the mellow backbone and low acidity (and more sugar), then balance this with gutsy lisbons or even meyer which have a lower acidity but not as low as lemonade.
Zesting is a top idea, definitely add that. (use a zester maybe instead of a grater?)
avoid the white pith, which will add undesirable bitterness and i'd definitely recommend a champagne yeast

 

[Morrie0069]

Hi All,

I've just joined the forum and came across this topic while searching for a lemonade recipe. I recall a friend of mine used to make alcoholic lemonade and he used to place a jelly bean in the bottle, then add the brew for bottling. The sugar from the jelly bean would carbonate and flavour the lemonade depending on which jelly bean he used. I guess that was in place of putting sugar in the bottle.

Cheers.

 

[DrewCarey82]

Guys with my lemonade it isnt bubbling( I suspect that airlock isnt in properly or seal slightly dodgy) but there is plenty of foggy scum on the upper lid and the usual ring around the top of the liquid so I am safe to say that its fermenting.

I went 16 large lemons from the local fruit and veg store.

Peeled off yellow bit retained, peeled off most of white and threw away and threw in the lemon itself with 3kg of Dextrose and 22 litres of water and just a brewiser yeast from big W. OG was 1.055, be interested to see what alcohol strength I get.

 

[pamer]

I made the recipe on the liquorcraft website sans ginger. It tasted nice but I didn't remove the pith (I didn't know I was supposed to - it wasn't mentioned in the recipe) thus it had a bitter aftertaste. However bitter aftertaste aside it was quite nice. I ended up using about 22 smallish lemons.

 

[kungy]

I don't know if you guys know about limoncello, the Italian Lemon Liquer, but if you have an excess of lemons and want to make an awesome liquer that tastes fresh and like real lemons (FYI that retails for sometimes $45 for 500mls in bottle shops) give it a go.

Its really easy and cost effective, the only outlay is for the cheapest vodka you can find. Give us a shout if you want the recipe posted, i need to do some searching for it. Well worth the effort.

Will

 

[recharge]

I don't know if you guys know about limoncello, the Italian Lemon Liquer, but if you have an excess of lemons and want to make an awesome liquer that tastes fresh and like real lemons (FYI that retails for sometimes $45 for 500mls in bottle shops) give it a go.

Its really easy and cost effective, the only outlay is for the cheapest vodka you can find. Give us a shout if you want the recipe posted, i need to do some searching for it. Well worth the effort.

Will

[post="102874"][/post]​

Kungy
id be interested in seeing that recipe

Cheers
:beer:

Richard

 

[Vlad the Pale Aler]

have a look here Richard

limoncello

 

[big d]

this qld distillery here makes limoncello.
http://www.tamborinemountaindistillery.com/
just seen on tv tonight theyve won a heap of o/s awards for there various flavoured vodke brews.

cheers
big d