Hard lemonade question?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
H

HoboBrewing

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 3, 2012
Messages
121
Reaction score
1
Location
Anhywere
I am attempting this recipe: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f79/hard-lemonade-68144/ and am trying figure out what the best way for me to back-sweeten it would be. I can't add artificial sweeteners because they give me headaches. The other method is to stabilize and back sweeten with sugar (I assume table sugar). How do I go about stabilizing and back sweetening my batch? Thanks.
 
The campden tablets will stabilize it. Back sweeten with a mixture of the frozen lemonade concentrate and sugar added post fermentation and after the campden tablets are added (or at the same time)
 
Along with the Camden tablets there should be potassium sorbate added at 1/2 tsp per gallon. Camden dies help but after several days you may get fermentation to start up again if the original ferment was really strong.
 
Arpolis said:
Along with the Camden tablets there should be potassium sorbate added at 1/2 tsp per gallon. Camden dies help but after several days you may get fermentation to start up again if the original ferment was really strong.
Click to expand...

OKay thanks. I was looking for potassium sorbate at lhbs and they didn't have any. They said campden tablets would suffice. Should I order potassium sorbate online since they didn't have any?
 
Potassium sorbate inhibits yeast reproduction. Sulfites "Camden tablets" can stun and slow down some yeasts but when it is common practice to add Camden tablets to a wine must before pitching yeast. I would think there are still chances of a restarted fermentation. I would personally order the sorbate.
 
My understanding is you could also use that "wine conditioner" stuff. It is concentrated sugar and sorbate mixed together. Your LHBS probably has that.
 
Thanks for the help guys. I am purchasing the potassium sorbate and will mix in with the suggested ratio once fermentation finishes. Also when backsweetening you recommended mixing sugar in with a concentrate can. For a 3 gallon batch of fairly sweet lemonade how much sugar and how much of one can of concentrate do you think is needed?

Thanks.

Edit: Also, why does the recipe have you put the 3 crushed campdens in the must before you even add the yeast starter? I thought you added campden tablets once fermentation was finished? Thanks.
 
Youre going to have to taste it to know. Take a known sample size... say a cup.

With that cup, start adding the sweetener by the teaspoon and tasting it till you get something you like. Once you get something you like, figure out how many teaspoons went into the cup. Theres 16 us cups in 1 us gallon which means you have 48 cups in total.

Say 1 cup took 3 tsp.

You would then need 144 tsp... theres 48tsp in 1 cup so you would need roughly 3 cups of the sweetener/concentrate to make the entire batch taste the same.

I would take a SG reading of the single cup and after I added two cups I would start to slow down and keep testing the SG till it hits the same.

These numbers are just to show you how, not actually HOW to do it.
 
jlh42581 said:
Youre going to have to taste it to know. Take a known sample size... say a cup.

With that cup, start adding the sweetener by the teaspoon and tasting it till you get something you like. Once you get something you like, figure out how many teaspoons went into the cup. Theres 16 us cups in 1 us gallon which means you have 48 cups in total.

Say 1 cup took 3 tsp.

You would then need 144 tsp... theres 48tsp in 1 cup so you would need roughly 3 cups of the sweetener/concentrate to make the entire batch taste the same.

I would take a SG reading of the single cup and after I added two cups I would start to slow down and keep testing the SG till it hits the same.

These numbers are just to show you how, not actually HOW to do it.
Click to expand...
Thanks :). Should I add another can of lemonade concentrate as well? Or should I just add the sugar one tsp at a time and find a ratio from there (and ignore adding more concentrate)

Also, why does the recipe have you put the 3 crushed campdens in the must before you even add the yeast starter? I thought you added campden tablets once fermentation was finished. It doesn't tell you to add them at the end for sweetening, but should I add them in the ratio suggested (along with the potassium sorbate?
 
HoboBrewing said:
Thanks for the help guys. I am purchasing the potassium sorbate and will mix in with the suggested ratio once fermentation finishes. Also when backsweetening you recommended mixing sugar in with a concentrate can. For a 3 gallon batch of fairly sweet lemonade how much sugar and how much of one can of concentrate do you think is needed?

Thanks.

Edit: Also, why does the recipe have you put the 3 crushed campdens in the must before you even add the yeast starter? I thought you added campden tablets once fermentation was finished? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Hobo, the Campden tablets at the beginning are to kill any wild beasties that might have been introduced. You sterilize all your utensils...think of it as sterilizing your must. I don't always use them but if I am iffy about the possibility of wild yeast or cow pee or something else having had contact with my fruit (see my thread on my Texas persimmon wine or a prime example) I will use them. They only last for 24 hours. That's why you can add your yeast24 hours after putting in the crushed tablets. Hope that helps.
 
springmom said:
Hobo, the Campden tablets at the beginning are to kill any wild beasties that might have been introduced. You sterilize all your utensils...think of it as sterilizing your must. I don't always use them but if I am iffy about the possibility of wild yeast or cow pee or something else having had contact with my fruit (see my thread on my Texas persimmon wine or a prime example) I will use them. They only last for 24 hours. That's why you can add your yeast24 hours after putting in the crushed tablets. Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

Thanks so much! As far as sweetening goes do you think I need to add ONLY sugar (in the ratio that tastes best) or sugar (in the ratio that tastes best) AND one more can of concentrate?

I think I am going to let it sit in secondary for about a week and then bottle it. I am concerned that the abv will be a little high for my tastes (it started at 1.100 O.G.), but hopefully it will taste okay after sweetening :).

Thanks.
 
HoboBrewing said:
Thanks so much! As far as sweetening goes do you think I need to add ONLY sugar (in the ratio that tastes best) or sugar (in the ratio that tastes best) AND one more can of concentrate?

I think I am going to let it sit in secondary for about a week and then bottle it. I am concerned that the abv will be a little high for my tastes (it started at 1.100 O.G.), but hopefully it will taste okay after sweetening :).

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I think the answer to that lies in what it tastes like. It's your wine. You can do either. The concentrate will help intensify the fruit flavors. Your call on this one.
 
springmom said:
I think the answer to that lies in what it tastes like. It's your wine. You can do either. The concentrate will help intensify the fruit flavors. Your call on this one.
Click to expand...

thanks!

One last question. It's SG is about 1.020 already so I figured I'd siphon a little out. I can definitely still taste the yeast in it... Should I let it sit in secondary for a little longer or will that not change the yeast taste? Thanks.
 
The longer you can let it alone, the better it will taste up until a certain point however its going to keep dropping SG unless you used something like an ale yeast which I dont know if it could handle the acid.
 
jlh42581 said:
The longer you can let it alone, the better it will taste up until a certain point however its going to keep dropping SG unless you used something like an ale yeast which I dont know if it could handle the acid.
Click to expand...

I think I used EC118 on this batch. It's okay if the SG drops because it is supposed to finish dry right? Do you think I should leave it for about 2 weeks and if the taste doesn't change just bottle it? What is a reasonable amount of time to leave a batch like this in secondary? Thanks.
 
Dont even bother with a secondary. Lemonade is cloudy.

Treat it just like a beer, bottle it when its done
 
Like I said, treat it like a beer. The point of a secondary is to clear it out more. Obviously there is a lot of yeast in suspension (which leads me to believe it didnt even finish fermenting before you tranferred it). When it's all settled out, it wont taste like yeast and you can bottle it.

These questions you are asking stem from not enough of a basic know how in brewing, it seems. Go here: www.howtobrew.com
 
bknifefight said:
Like I said, treat it like a beer. The point of a secondary is to clear it out more. Obviously there is a lot of yeast in suspension (which leads me to believe it didnt even finish fermenting before you tranferred it). When it's all settled out, it wont taste like yeast and you can bottle it.

These questions you are asking stem from not enough of a basic know how in brewing, it seems. Go here: www.howtobrew.com
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. The reason I put it in secondary, was simply because I was following the recipe (that's why I was hesitant to let it run dry in primary). Next time I will just leave it in primary and then bottle.
 

Similar threads

S
Adding fruit to my cider?
Replies
5
Views
523
Chalkyt
Chalkyt
C
Cider fermented what do I do
Replies
2
Views
769
CKuhns
CKuhns
D
Cider nutrient conundrum. Asking others about their experience(s) with nutrients in the cider process.
Replies
8
Views
851
Crapple
Crapple
W
Cider from pulp?
Replies
2
Views
791
madscientist451
madscientist451
Mattyg91
How much sugar to yeast to aclohol!
Replies
4
Views
2K
mac_1103
mac_1103
InkBird 300

Latest posts

Back
Top