my first hard lemonade

hey this is my first attempt at trying to make a hard lemonade and the fermentation process seems to be taking a lot longer than I had expected . it's been 3 days since I pitched my east and I'm just now starting to get a couple little bubbles in there . I only used 1 pack of Red Star Pasteur yeast. not sure if that was enough . I'm also fermenting at temperature of 78 degrees . not sure if this is going correct any help would be appreciated thanks

You should lower the temperature and give it more time. But 78 is too high.

Go to this website... Skeeter Pee

And watch this video...

Did you make a yeast starter or just pitch the dry yeast in the lemonade? That much acid probably shocked the yeast. It may take off or it might not.

Give it a week and if no activity then make a yeast starter from 50/50 lemonade and water. Add some nutrient too. Pitch the yeast into that and let it ferment until its rolling along. You'll need about 1/2 cup or so of starter per gallon so size to match your batch size.

Unless your using the lemon juice in the video (has preservatives in it) a hard lemonade wont be as hard to start but the process will work.

no i just hydrated the yeast and then pitched. I'll make a starter and see how that goes. thanks

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I re-pitched three times over an 8-day period before my last 5-gallon batch finally took off. My final (successful) pitch consisted of just sprinkling a packet of Lalvin 1118 on the top and putting the sanitized cloth back over the primary bucket.

MrBoogaloo said:

I re-pitched three times over an 8-day period before my last 5-gallon batch finally took off. My final (successful) pitch consisted of just sprinkling a packet of Lalvin 1118 on the top and putting the sanitized cloth back over the primary bucket.

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Lemonade can be a hard ferment to get started, due to the acidity. I have a hard lemonade recipe posted (under my avatar, or in the recipe database in the "wine" section) that has some directions on how to get wine yeast going in such an acidic environment. Once it gets going well, then you're set.

I'm happy to say that i kegged my hard blueberry lemonaid yesterday. The final taste was pretty good. Very sour of course but had some great flavor. Almost wine like comming in at 5% ABV. I poored it over ice and which helped balanced the acidity and it tasted great but dry. So I decided to put a splash of blueberry juice in it to sweeten it up and I'm very happy with the outcome. I can def see myself drinking this over ice on a hot day or at the beach. Looking forward to tasting it carbonated.

I have only done lemonaid from cans, but three days is not enough in my experience to expect airlock activity. Wait at least a week before expecting any.

I've used the same yeast for this too. try to lower the temp as soon as you can. expect some sulfur odor as high temps seem to piss off this strain. mine had to hang out in primary for several weeks to clear out the odor. tastes great though.

I have some going (from frozen concentrate) and it seemed to take too long too. I added about a 3lb bag of sugar, poured it into a spare bucket, mixed it and re-carboy'ed it. Took right off, hopefully it does okay.

Was going to make SKeeter pee but couldn't find an economical way to get that much lemon juice.

Buy bottles of lemon juice. A 32 oz. Bottle is less than $4.00. 3 of them are needed for Skeeter Pee. That is pretty economical.

I successfully started 2.5 gallons from frozen concentrate and some white sugar using Lalvin 1116 (didn't even add the whole pack in case I needed to make a starter). Started fermenting a day later at 68F. I was looking at using the bottled stuff but 3 different kinds all had preservatives. I know it's possible to overcome the preservatives but since this was my first batch, I was hoping for easiness which is what I got. Mixed and matched some regular frozen lemonade and some raspberry lemonade. Can't wait! Although I know I'm gonna have to.

I couldn't find 32 ounce bottles. Only the smaller ones, which added up in cost pretty quickly. Where are you guys finding that much lemon juice?

Also, I tried some of my lemon-brew last night, and it was incredibly sweet (meaning there was plenty of sugar left in it) but still only slowly bubbling away. Maybe fifteen bubbles through the air lock a minute. It's been steady for the past week, but I'd have figured, acid or no acid, the yeast would have gone nuts. Is it possible for the yeast to die off because of the combination acid/alcohol and still leave sugars? Should I campden the brew before I bottle just in case it takes off in the bottles?

Check out different grocery stores in your area. Or, you might try frozen lemonade concentrate, but I'm not sure how much concentrate = ounces of lemon juice.
If your lemon-brew is still bubbling that steadily, it's probably still fermenting. I've read this many times here, but I'll say it now: bubbles in the airlock are not necessarily an indicator of fermentation. The only real way to keep track of whether your fermentation has stopped is by taking gravity readings. If you get the same reading for 3 days, then it is finished.