Hard Lemonade

Is there a recipe out there for hard lemonade. I mean, I know I can just pour Citron in Country Time but I was just wonderin if any body has brewed anything like this?

Don't do it.


Want more info? Try the search function. This topic only comes up about twice a week in the summertime...

It seems no one can make a decent hard lemonade. I would however recommend trying Edwort's Apfelwein (Apple Cider/Apple Wine)....great panty remover

Give it up, our result was basically alcohol and lemon juice... Only thing it was good for was marinading meat, and drain cleaner...

Actually, I've made a very good hard lemonade. It takes some real "babying" to get the yeast going. I'll see if I can dig up that thread. It's from about a year ago.

Edit- lots come up in a search.

Here's the basic recipe:

This recipe yields 3 gallons of Hard Lemonade

7 cans of lemonade concentrate
Sugar to an SG of 1.100 (1.5 pounds per gallon, more or less- see below)
water to 3 gallons
3 tsp yeast nutrient
3 tsp yeast energizer
3 crushed Campden tablets or 1/2 tsp K-meta

Yeast: either cotes de blanc or Lalvin 72B-1122

Make a yeast starter with a little warm water and the yeast and a pinch of energizer and nutrient. Mix up the must without all of the lemonade (use half at first)- and then add a little of the must at a time to the yeast starter. When it is going well, then add the rest of the thawed lemonade to the must and gradually add it to the yeast starter. Stir often, aerating well. Keep in primary loosely covered until it reaches about 1.040 or less.
Then rack to secondary and airlock. When finished, rack and bottle. If sweetening, rack, stabilize, wait one week to ensure fermentation has finished, and then sweeten.

Sugar for the must ended up being about 1.5# per gallon.

Yooper Chick said:

Actually, I've made a very good hard lemonade. It takes some real "babying" to get the yeast going. I'll see if I can dig up that thread. It's from about a year ago.

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Hey Lor
I saw your thread but had one question. In your recipe you used 1.5 lbs of sugar per gallon. Thats 7.5 lbs per 5. And you said it was bitter. Was I reading it correctly?

George

Bitter? I don't remember that. Tart, definitely! It finished around .990 and I didn't sweeten it. I really liked it, though!

i add about 1 cup of lactose to mine at bottling to reduce the tartness.

I've seen recipes for Hard Lemonade that had Extra light DME replacing part of the sugar/all of the sugar.

NurseNan said:

I've seen recipes for Hard Lemonade that had Extra light DME replacing part of the sugar/all of the sugar.

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I see you have a Hard Lemonade in the primary. What recipe did you use?

I have some in my better bottle (5 gallon water bottle) it still fermenting it`s been almost 3 months now. First 24 hours Had trouble starting fermentation with first yeast pack (lalvin ec-1118). Started fermenting slowly on 2 day. 3 day yeast was working good by the third week it stop I tasted a sample IT SUCK to sweet was not good at all horse piss is a better term (don`t know if horse piss is sweet but u get the ideal). Put in a secondary to clear and take all the crap from lemon concentrate out and added a 1l mix of yeast water and dextrose that I had fermenthing for other reason and yeast are going wild like a fat kid on a candy.

10 can minute made lemonade concentrate
1pack lalvin ec-1118
2.2 kg dextrose ( not sure in lbs but I live in Canada we are a bunch of metric freaks heh. I would cut this in half to have better results. why I put this much dextrose? to bust the abv.)

Not sure what its going to turn out maybe a high abv horse piss!

For better cheaper hard lemonade get some lemonade and add vodka. That`s all I have to say.

later

I tried brewing it. I didn't add any malt, I used fresh lemons, a few limes, corn sugar, lactose and malto-dextrin. It took awhile in secondary and I had to add concentrate to the secondary to get a more lemon taste. I added Splenda at bottling b/c I knew the target audience would want it sweet. I only added a little, wasn't very sweet (I had to add Splenda b/c lactose wasn't sweet enough!) . The finished product came out way tart/sour. I hated it. I was trying to think of how I was going to unload it...But I had some this past weekend and it mellowed a lot, its not bad. Its definitly no Mike's Hard Lemonade, but its drinkable! maybe 3 more months and it'll be even better...

For advice, use the concentrate as the fresh barely gave it flavor. Add the lactose and splenda to sweeten to the level you want. As for going the liquor and lemonade route versus brewing it...I say brew it. It'll give you something different to try. Its not like the ingredients are that expensive to make it! If anything, if it comes out a success, you can bag that you got it to work! It is possible.

I made a lemon sorbet. the zest of 4 lemons, boiled, with 4 cups of sugar and 3 cups of water, the juice from the 4 lemons, and 2 egg whites.

Whip until the egg whites are completely integrated, then boil After the sugar is dissolved and the zest is extracted, add 2 cups of ice to cool the mixture and place in freezer. I actually used an ice cream maker at that point, but you don't have to. It will actually be scoopable just from the egg whites.

You can also add some vodka to it to make some lemon booze.

Thaks for all the advise! I'm brewin this sunday and mabey have to pick up another carboy to try the lemonade! I'll let you all know!!!



As I said before, Man I love those bannans!!!!
Itspeanutbutterjellytime!!!!

smoke76 said:

I see you have a Hard Lemonade in the primary. What recipe did you use?

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Sorry for the delay answering, I was on vacation! I used the Dme recipe:

8 Large cans frozen lemonade
3lbs Xtra light DME
ale yeast x 2

Boil 2 gallons of water with the DME for 5 minutes (you don't need to, but it smells good). Add to primary bucket, add frozen lemonade, then water to 5 gallons. Aerate like crazy. Pitch yeast. Wait.....

I'm racking to secondary on friday, and let it sit for 2-4 weeks till I bottle. I may add some lactose if its too tart.

NurseNan said:

Sorry for the delay answering, I was on vacation! I used the Dme recipe:

8 Large cans frozen lemonade
3lbs Xtra light DME
ale yeast x 2

Boil 2 gallons of water with the DME for 5 minutes (you don't need to, but it smells good). Add to primary bucket, add frozen lemonade, then water to 5 gallons. Aerate like crazy. Pitch yeast. Wait.....

I'm racking to secondary on friday, and let it sit for 2-4 weeks till I bottle. I may add some lactose if its too tart.

Click to expand...

Id really like to know how it turns out. SWMBO wants me to try somthing like this and I think the DME will give it more of the flavor we are looking for.

I think Pumbaa made it with DME but I don't think he ever gave us a report on the results. You could try searching for it and see if he ever did say how it turned out. I don't know anyone else who did it, unless Rod did.