I want to add Lemon for Summer Shandy

Waboom!! · 01-17-2008, 03:48 AM

I have been home brewing for a while and use extracts/ steep-extract recipes. I would like to add lemon as a flavor to a brew, to resemble my favorite beer of all time... Leinenkugels Summer Shandy. Can anyone help me. I realize there may not be a clone, but I at least want to try adding lemon or lemon-ade flavor to an Ale or even a lager . TIA

brett · 01-17-2008, 04:43 AM

I would recommend simply adding a slice of lemon to the beer after you have poured the glass.

**FSR402** · 01-17-2008, 01:35 PM

Checkout my recipes. It's the only one I posted so far.

**Chriso** · 01-17-2008, 01:58 PM

A "true" clone would be difficult, because if I recall right, the beer is actually force-carbed and blended with real lemonade - to replicate this, you would have to use Campden to kill the yeast, sweeten, keg, and carb, so you couldn't do it with bottles.

You could always fill bottles with a BMBF after forcing it though. FWIW.

Waboom!! · 10-16-2008, 02:45 AM

Heres what I tried. I made a 5 gallon hefeweisen recipe but used Nottingham dry yeast instead for (cleanness) and added lemon zest to secondary (from 10 small organic lemons) and then bottled with 4 packets of lemonade Kool-Aid (just the dry mix, not mixed up with water) + 2/3 cup corn sugar. Its not exactly like the "Shandinator" but it was close and was really good!!

**Chriso** · 10-16-2008, 01:49 PM

Hey, Kool-Aid is a great idea, sorry I didn't think of that!!! Cheers mate!

comj49 · 10-16-2008, 03:01 PM

Having tried that beer after attempting to make it myself (didn't even come close), it defenitley has a slight bananna flavor to it like a bavarian heffe, yet the strong lemon flavor masks most of the yeast flavor. I'm not sure about the kool-aid, but adding lemons to the secondary gives it more of a tart/bitter flavor vs. actual lemon flavoring. Maybe try to use lemon extract when you bottle? I even recall the label describing it as a Weiss beer, which usually has that bananna/clove flavor to it.

flyangler18 · 10-16-2008, 03:13 PM

A shandy is a lovely drink on a hot summer day, but I find they're best when mixed fresh rather than Leinie's interpretation.

**Chriso** · 10-16-2008, 03:18 PM

LK's Honey Weiss has no esters to it, it's a pretty plain-jane honey wheat beer... Pretty clean. I've never noted the banana taste to the Summer Shandy though. I don't think LK uses any "real" hefe yeasts...

262andbrew · 07-01-2010, 05:29 AM

Bringing back a very old thread but in case anyone is interested: I did a side by side of an "organic" lemon option and a Kool-Aid option.

I brewed one Hef batch and ran it through primary fermentation, and then racked off half to the bottling bucket with 2 packets of the concentrated (unsweetened) lemonade Kool-Aid. At the same time I added juice from 6 lemons and about 4 oz of dehydrated lemon rinds to the remaining half and left it for a week before bottling.

I had a few people try them side by side a few weeks later. The general consensus was that the kool-aid version had a more distinct and sharper lemonade flavor, the 'real' version was more subtle and generally still enjoyable, but perhaps a little "vegital". Everyone liked both, but it was about a 80/20 split on the preference for the Kool-aid version. Seemed like a win for me, it was way easier, faster, and about 10% of the cost.

So I brewed up another batch, but this time for kegging. Brewed, fermented for 2 in primary, racked to keg with 4 pkts of Kool-aid. Conditioned in the basement for a week. Hooked up in the keezer. --
Guess what? ....
I dumped the first half pint of phlem.
Next pint was sour. Really strong.
Next pint the next night, still sour, starting to wonder if I actually made a sour beer, not happy.
Next pint a few nights later, it was great, actually what I was looking for.
Shared with a few friends for awhile and was met with smiles.
Then the lemon started to fade.
Now it is just another wheat beer. Nothing special at all, and my 4th of July jewel is just going to be wheat beer.

So what did I learn?
1) If you are bottling Kool-aid is perfect - 4pkts in a 5 gallon batch seems great, just add it along with priming sugar. - enjoy.
2) If you are kegging - Kool-aid is not a good option. It settles out in the bottom of the keg and you get a few pints of Lemony toxic nasty, and then after that you get very little lemon action at all.

I am actually going to add one more pkt of Kool-aid on the 4th assuming that it will not all settle out immediately and will give a bit of shandy for a day. I just hope we finish the keg that day. I will add it in some hot water and hope that it mixes in as it settles.

That's it for tonight. Enjoy the holiday.