Fermented Lemon Barleywater

Hey everyone, I apologize if someone's already asked this but I searched the forums and couldnt find anything.

Anyway, I'm thinking of making a fermented beverage using lemon barley water (liquid that comes when you boil barley with lemon juice added), and wanted to know if anyone had any experience with this/had any input to add.

here goes.

2.5 gallons barley water (boil 3.5 lbs pearled barley for 2 hrs, then strain the solids out leaving the milky barley water)
3 gallons safeway brand spring water
10 lemons
3 lbs white sugar
2 lbs cane sugar
2 or so tablespoons molasses
3 teaspoons pectic enzyme
3 teaspoons amylase

then I'm going to add 5 campden tablets, wait 24hrs, then add a yeast starter containing lalvin champagne yeast along with 4 teaspoons of yeast energizer. After my hydrometer says fermentation is completed I'm going to rack to secondary, wait about 3 weeks, then bottle.

I'm thinking it might taste like a mix between skeeterpee and an all grain beer.

any thoughts?

thanks

todd
:fro:

I guess the question is, what are you trying to accomplish that mashing malted barley and adding some lemon juice wouldn't? Boiling the barley will gelatinize the starches, adding the amylase will convert those starches to sugars. With the amount of sugar you are adding alone you are looking at around 1.090 of easily fermentable sugars.

basically I wanted to do it this way instead of making a general lemon all barley beer because i wanted to take a well known classic (barley water) and put a twist on it. unless i interpreted you wrong, you seem opposed to my boiling the barley then adding amylase to convert to starches. why?

I believe this is called "shandy". I had it once and it tasted like lemonade with a bit of beer aftertaste. I'd go easy on the lemons if you still want a barley flavor to it.

todd1234 said:

basically I wanted to do it this way instead of making a general lemon all barley beer because i wanted to take a well known classic (barley water) and put a twist on it. unless i interpreted you wrong, you seem opposed to my boiling the barley then adding amylase to convert to starches. why?

Click to expand...

There is nothing wrong with it, just seems like a much more complex way to accomplish the same thing that mashing malted barley would. The beer will end up very dry because of all the sugar, you'll need some yeast nutrient to keep the yeast healthy.

Why add the pectic enzyme? I don't think lemon has much in the way of pectin.