Lemonade

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Doc

Doctor's Orders Brewing
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Thinking about having a go at an alcoholic lemonade.
Does anyone have a recipe or some hints and tips on doing one of these?

Cheers,
Doc
 
My first batch of Alcoholic Ginger Beer is sitting in the fermentor - almost done. I think an Alcoholic Lemonade would be another nice change and would be interesting.

Hope some of the guys have a good recipe for this.

A quick look on Google provides a number of results, some based on our own Two Dogs recipes.
 
Found this Link mentioned on HBD today.
Has a couple of interesting recipes for Alcoholic Lemonade. I wonder if cans of lemon concentrate are available in Australia.
Anyone?

Cheers,
Doc
 
Well my lemons are getting close to being ready.
I've found numerous links to recipes, but the recipes don't have any tasting notes, or the tasting notes say the lemonade is shit.
The best link I've been able to find is here.
So unless anyone else has a tried and proven recipe, it looks like I'll be the guinea pig.

Cheers,
Doc
 
Just be wary where the recipe says to add the energizer 5 minutes prior to the end of the boil. Yeast Energizer is an amino acid (Vitamin B), and I'm pretty certain the heat would destroy it, rendering it totally useless. I'd add it when you add the yeast.

Cheers,
Pete

:chug:
 
That is the bit of the recipe I was actually planning on deviating from. I'm planning on using the Sweet Mead/Cider yeast from White Labs WLP720.

Cheers,
Doc
 
Well I'm two steps closer to the alcoholic lemonade being a reality.
I made a starter for the WLP720 yeast last night.
Today I've juiced the lemons and the oranges.
I have the corn syrup ready as well.
One night next week I'll do the boil up of it all and the experiment will begin.
For those of you that haven't been following this thread, here is the recipe I'll be basing my experiment on.

Beers,
Doc
 
Doc

You do know that the corn sugar they are refering to is actually Dextrose in australia.
 
Lemonade Recipee

Doc, your Lemonade Recipee is alot different from mine.

Here is mine:

Ingredients -
2.5kg - 4.5kg of Cane sugar - depends upon alcohol strength wanted.
18 - 24 lemons - depending on size - sliced up or better still through a food processor....including peel.
2 oz fresh grated Ginger
1 teaspoon of yeast nutrient and gypsum
1 ale yeast or better with Mead/Pinot Noir Yeast - especially for the higher alcohol version.
Water to make 5 gallons.
Optional:
spices - cinamon, nutmeg and cloves to taste.
100 gms of Belgian Candi Sugar

Boil all ingredients except yeast in a sacepan with 5 litres of water for 20 mins.
Let stand for 10 mins and then strain into fermenter. Top up to 20 litres with cold water - pitch yeast when cool enough.
Rack after 2 weeks and lager for a further 2 weeks in the secondary.

Keg lemonade and force carbonate at 300 kpa - rocking keg for 5 mins and then leaving it on the presure for 48 hours.
Cut to normal pouring presure, and serve.
Add a slice of lime for an extra tang.

Doc,
what do you think....
 
The ginger addition sounds good.
How does yours turn out? Sweet ? How alcoholic?
Does adding the peel make it a little tart?

Cheers,
Doc
 
Doc,

In all honesty, i have not made this yet...
My mate accross the road has the lemon tree...I am still waiting to get some lemons from him...

This is the recipee that i am going to use...

But i will add the belgian Candi Sugar and spices...

Sorry that I can't help you more...

The peel should add a crisp slightly tartiness to it.
I will be making this up and pitching onto my sweet mead trub...

Hopefully, in the next month.
 
I am currently making a lemonade, it is almost up to the bottling stage, but I just thought that maybe a comment on the skin/rhind of the lemon wouldnt go astray:

The white part of the lemon (inside of the yellow skin) is what makes the lemons sour. If you juice the lemons, or scrape out all the insides of them, then grate the outside yellow part of the rhind off, you can avoid putting in too much of the white part of the lemons. This will make it sweeter and also probably more lemony as the grated rhind gives more surface area for the rhind than when it is not grated up. When i was grating it I was almost overcome by the lemony smell that grating caused. So the extra work is probably very beneficial in terms of taste.

My lemonade is TOTALLY experimental and I am doing it using very little information. I didnt even use yeast energiser because I thought that if the yeast went too crazy and converted all of my sugars into alcohol then it wouldn't be sweet. So i am relying on the acid in the orange and lemon juice to kill the yeast after a few days of fermenting. With a specific gravity of 1055 (should probably have made it a bit higher!) I am hoping to get it down to about 1025 leaving some sugar still left behind for sweetness.
 
Well my lemonade is down and fermenting.
Funny smelling lemons ferment (rather than beer).

It is fermenting away very quickly.

After a side comment from my wife after seeing the webcam, she said their is no sound.
So this morning I hooked up sound to the webcam and configured it for streaming too :p I can now see and hear my brews fermenting from work. I know you guys will find that funny.


The recipe:

Dextrose 2.5kg
Maltodextrin 500g
Lactose 100g

Fresh squeezed lemon juice 2.8 litres
Fresh squeezed orange juice 1.3 litres

17 litres of purified water

Method:
Water added to the boiler and brought to the boil.
Sugars added.
20 minute boil

Juices added for last 5 mins.

Cooled with immersion chiller and transferred to fermenter.

Yeast:
White Labs Sweet Mead Cider WLP720.
One litre starter used.
SG 1056


Beers,
Doc
 
Bottled it today.
Came it at 7.4%
Lemon bitter aftertaste so primed the bottles with CSR Brown Sugar (couldn't find muscovado sugar at the supermakert this morning).

Let you guy know what it tastes like in a month or so.

Beers,
Doc
 
Doc,

How did this turn out in the end?
 
I first tasted it after about a month in the bottle.
Tasted like lemonade but quite bitter on the aftertaste. Great if you are a margharita drinker, otherwise a bit much. And as such my immediate thought was "It would be great with some tequila".

I actually thought about it at the weekend again, so will dig out another bottle and put it in the fridge.
Will let you know how it is tasting after the next try of it.

Beers,
Doc
 
Tried another bottle tonight.
Still very very bitter.
So I added some tequila.

Didn't make it any better, but I've got a buzz on :D

Hopefully it'll improve over the coming months.

Doc
 
I'll have to throw another in the fridge to give it a try.
If it is still bitter then I'll mix Midori or Contreau with it.

I think it may be extra bitter because I used lemons that were too young. The mate I got the lemons from is going to try the recipe using lemons that are older and not as sour.
If he gets around to it I'll let you know his results also.

Beers,
Doc
 
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