Extra Hard Lemonade

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Am I mistaken or was the Montrachet/Nottingham/US-05 used so that it leaves some residual sugars in the final product so we don't have to backsweeten? I assumed that the lower ABV-producing yeast strains were chosen so we didn't end up with rocket fuel.

Perhaps I am mistaken, however.

I'm curious to see how the lumpher's recipe from the first page turns out, so I think that is the one I am going to try. For those of you who don't want to backtrack, here it is:

4 cans frozen lemonade
4 cans frozen pink lemonade
3 cans frozen limeade
4# sugar
1 pack montrachet
water for 6 gallons

let primary 1 month, then keg, and let it chill/carb 2 weeks on 11# co2

Does this seem like it won't work as-is? I mean, there is no nutrient, but lumpher said that it is a hit...
 
I can't speak to the yeast choice; all I had was Red Star Pasteur Champagne yeast, so that is what I used.

Getting the fermentation going was challenging. I had to repitch, but the second time I rehydrated the yeast in a cup of water with a tablespoon of nutrient. After a couple of minutes, I added a cup of the lemonade mixture. After an hour or so, I added it to a gallon glass jug, topped with the lemonade mixture, and put a lock on it overnight. It was chugging away in the morning, so I dumped it back in the brew bucket. Now it is doing fine!
 
Hey guys. This thread has gotten my interest as my wife loves the hard lemonade drinks. I'm still fairly new to brewing, only about 10 batches under my belt and only beer. Its seems the high acidity seems to causing folks some some problems with fermentation. So I thought, why not mix a batch of sugar water, say 4 gals with 10lbs of sugar? Add wine or champagne yeast and some nutrient and ferment it down till its good and dry. Then melt several cans of instant lemonade on the stove and just add it to the "white lightnin" to get the desired taste/sweetness. Carbonating may be an issue unless you keg. Any of you more experienced guys know a reason that this wouldnt work? If not I may just give it a try.
 
I just bottled my cran/lemonade version of this. Turned out GREAT. It was sweet so I fortified it with some rocket fuel skeeter pee and put it in beer bottles.
 
So I thought, why not mix a batch of sugar water, say 4 gals with 10lbs of sugar? Add wine or champagne yeast and some nutrient and ferment it down till its good and dry. Then melt several cans of instant lemonade on the stove and just add it to the "white lightnin" to get the desired taste/sweetness. Carbonating may be an issue unless you keg. Any of you more experienced guys know a reason that this wouldnt work? If not I may just give it a try.

I've never thought of just fermenting the sugar first and then adding the concentrate later. I've heard horror stories about fermenting straight sugar and getting all kinds of crazy off flavors and nasty.

anyone else want to chime in with a more helpful answer?
 
I just bottled my cran/lemonade version of this. Turned out GREAT. It was sweet so I fortified it with some rocket fuel skeeter pee and put it in beer bottles.

Do you have a gravity reading for that? I checked mine today (started 6/16/12 at 1.111, so this is day 17) and it is at 1.028 for 10.87% ABV. It is HARSH, with a strong alcohol smell and taste. I would not describe it as sweet at all, though it could go lower, as I still get pretty regular bubbles in the air lock.

I probably need to rack to secondary ASAP, then figure out what to do with it. Will secondary slow down the fermentation? I hope so.

FYI - I did use champagne yeast, so maybe this isn't the way to go.
 
I used Montrachet. I'll take a gravity reading when I open another bottle. I'm taking a bunch to a 4th of july thing today. You may want to rack, stabilize and backsweeten at this point.
 
Am I mistaken or was the Montrachet/Nottingham/US-05 used so that it leaves some residual sugars in the final product so we don't have to backsweeten? I assumed that the lower ABV-producing yeast strains were chosen so we didn't end up with rocket fuel.

Perhaps I am mistaken, however.

I'm curious to see how the lumpher's recipe from the first page turns out, so I think that is the one I am going to try. For those of you who don't want to backtrack, here it is:



Does this seem like it won't work as-is? I mean, there is no nutrient, but lumpher said that it is a hit...
it usually takes a couple days to take off, but when it does, it goes steadily for a couple weeks.
 
I had used champagne yeast and it fermented very dry, with harsh alcohol bite. After a few weeks, this has evened out nicely. I haven't bottled it, but I siphoned off a gallon and mixed it about half and half with minute maid lemonade, which is pretty sweet and not too tart. That scales the alcohol back to 5.5% so you can actually have a couple. It is fantastic! Very refreshing.
 
I just made a 4 gallon batch of this. I used the following recipe:

6 cans of Walmart frozen concentrate lemonade

2 cans of Walmart frozen concentrate limeade

6 pounds sugar

1 pack champagne yeast ec118

Rehydrated and pitched the yeast.

S.G. 1.170 @ 80*

my S.G. Seems kind of high!? is this going to be rocket fuel or will it turn out ok?
 
Hi everyone,

I made a version of this recipe the other day...except with cranberry as my main flavour

For a 5 Gallon
- 4 cans of minutemaid lemonade
- 5 cans of minutemaid cranberry
- 2 cans df ocean spray cranberry (more tart)
- empty can full of real lime juice
- 4.5 lbs of sugar
- 1116 yeast...made a makeshift starter first
OG ~ 1.07 temp~ 72

Bubbling by day 2

I'm thinking about sweetening it when it dries out with something unfermentable and carbing...has anyone tried carbing their hard lemonade??
 
So i am very new to all this. I stumble onto this stuff from a youtube video and brewed a fairly sucessful batch of hard fruit juice. I am trying to slowly step things up but want to get fairly good result before i do. Long story short i just picked up a 1 gallon carboy, air lock, etc. Can anyone give me a 1 gallon receipe for a newbie to try? As well even after all my research i am still a little confused about primary and secondary ferm and what it is for. Could someone step by step me just for one batch so i can wrap my head around the process? If its easier you could email me @ [email protected]
 
I read through that thread and got the answers i needed. One remaining question though. The first homebrew I did was very similar to that receipe and I found that it seemed to be really light in color and lost a bit of its fruity flavor from the concentrate. Would it work to make it without the concentrate and add it after? Has this been done and if so are the results favourable?
 
well it shouldn't make much of a difference. Were you using 2 concentrates to each one gallon? You can always make it the way you want it, then stabilize it to prevent fermentation from starting up again, then you can add a bit of concentrate back at the end to add sweetness and flavor.
 
Just realized i only used one of concentrate when i should have used two. That explians it. Darn us newbies. Oh well. Time to brew a better batch. Thanks for all the tips!
 
I started a cranberry hard lemonade about a month ago and it is still bubbling away!! The longest ferment ever! My gravity started at 1.07 and is only at 1.025....anyone else experience long fermentation time???
 
I am also, but it's with my grape-concentrate wine. Creeping down from 1.09 to 1.035 since the end of July. Crazy slow bubbling.
 
Just made this I wanted to keep it around 9-10%abv though. I did

5-6lbs sugar
6 can lemon concentrate
2 cans limeade concentrate (less tart my taste)

I used the same yeast and I rehydrated it so hopefully I won't have fermentation issues. Same amounts for energizer and nutrient. I got 1.080 which should come out where I'd like it. Not sure if I'll back sweeten or not I think I'll just have to see how it comes out. I still have a can of lemon and lime concentrate so I think I'll just use those if I do.
 
I just made my third batch of this and have the highest O.G. yet, it came out at 1.152 and I followed the same original recipe that is listed. Not that I'm worried but what would cause such a high O.G.? The second highest that I had was still high at 1.12 but this is much higher. My family can't get enough of this stuff, I don't drink it but everyone else does and now I had to order another carboy to accommodate it.
 
Did you use the same amounts of water, concentrate, sugar, were the temperatures pretty close when you took readings?

What were some of your OG and FGs? Just wondering I was worried what the OP recipe would come out like. I'm guessing mine would come out dry but I think I'll just backsweeten if it does.

Also I'm having problems getting my fermentation to start I even put 2 more packets in last night after rehydrating them and still no fermentation this morning. I have two more I think I'll try to make a big starter if its still not going tomorrow morning.
 
I opened the lid on my bucket last night and it was definitely fermenting there was a layer of bubbles and lots of fizzing. I took a cup out for a starter but I'm thinking I might let it go and just start a new batch with my starter. I still don't see the airlock bubbling though. I gave it a good stir and added my energizer and nutrient. I think I'll take a reading and do it again this weekend.
 
I started a batch of this 3 or 4 days ago and its only bubbling like 1 time every 30 seconds through the airlock, I added extra lemon juice for flavor and I think I may have just thrown the PH way off. I guess it will just be really slow going..
 
One bubble every thirty seconds is really not all that slow for this stuff and if you have any activity the yeast is doing its job so just let it be. I never get the activity that I would get with beer but I have made about ten batches and all have turned out great.
 
I added a little extra lemon juice like I said before and now its not bubbling at all, maybe 1 time everyone 5-10 minutes...bleh....Ima leave it but it sure looks knarly right now
 
My batch has been fermenting for about 3 months almost. The other day I tested the gravity and it was at 1.000.,,almost there!! I tasted it and it was great but I noticed that it had kind of carbonated itself. Since it's still in the carboy I decided it needed a stir to get the extra CO2 out. HOLY COW is all I have to say!! There was an explosion of liquid that came out the top. I probably lost at least 2 litres...all over the floor. The funny thing is that because of all the lost liquid there was a ton of headspace again. So i've added another can of cranberry/water and topped it off. One day my hard cranberry lemonade will stop fermenting:)
 
Has anyone ever used a brew belt to increase the temp? I've made several batches of skeeter pee and without the brew belt it takes forever to ferment. With the belt, it takes around 4 weeks from start to finish including the back sweetening to end up with a very smooth 10% ABV.
 
In the proccess? Just pitched it this morning. Sounds good. Old ladies excited. If you meant where u at geographically. BC canada
 
Update: was feeling impatient as usual. There was 0 sign of fermentation after about 30 hours. First pitch was hydrated ec1118. This time I made a starter with 1/4 cup dextrose, pinch of nutrient and some apple juice. About 1 hour and she was havin a party. Every 30 mins after that I added 100ml of the juice from the primary till 400ml. Left for another hour. Tossed into primary. 3 hours later it sounds like a bottle of pop. Fizz crackle pop. No lid bulge or airlock activity but I think she's cruising.
 
I was wondering if I could throw this on top of a beer yeast slurry. most likely American ale yeast and the beer would be a cream ale.
 
Went from 1.112 to 1.090 in 2 days. Now she's creeeeeepin along with almost no change per day. Gunna leave it be for a couple weeks and see where it's at.
 
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