My shot at a Hard Lemonade

Well SWMBO wanted some mikes the other night, so i started looking around the net and found a few differenct recipes for this one. However, me being me i just had to mix it up a bit, so i came up with the following recipe by taking ideas from a few others.

8 cans frozen Lemonade concentrate
1lb Light DME
3lb Corn Sugar
2 cups Table Sugar (to bump the SG a bit)
4 Gallons water
.5 tsp yeast nutrient
1 pkg Nottingham dry yeast

SG 1.068

boiled 1.5 gallons of water to disolve the DME and Sugars for 15 min, added to the primary along with 3 gallons of water. added in the 8 cans of thawed concentrate, and toped off to the 5 gallon mark with the rest of the water. Rehydrated the yeast in 4 oz warm water per the package, then over the next few hours slowly added some of the wort mixture to the starter. pitched the yeast at 74F. No action after 3 hours, but i will watch this one for a bit. I have read that sometimes fermentations on these can take a week to start, or can start in a matter of hours. I have a 2nd package of yeast and will make a 2nd starter if things don't take off in 4-5 days.

I hope to hit and FG of 1.015 or so, and then will sweeten to taste with splenda or lactose, and use corn sugard to prime for bottling.

Anyone see any issues with my recipe or process on this one? it is really just a fun summer time experiement. I tasted the sample i pulled for a SG reading and it was pretty sweet, with a nice bit of malt flavor.

Keep your fingers crossed for me, i will keep you all posted on this one.

I'm interested as my SO is not a beer drinker. Was your OG really 1.015? Or was it 1.115...One is really low, and one is really high....Im excited to hear what others have to say recipe wise

be careful! the nottingham will drop very low on a brew like this. I just used it in a sg 1.072 cider and it fermented all the way down to 1.000! Had another one take from 1.090 down to 1.000 so you may have to back sweeten

Interesting recipe, not my style though. Might be good. +1 on the og though, seems low. Sure it wasnt 1.110? If ot was and it actually attennuated to 1.oo1 u will have realbrain grenade brew. Nottywill get i there though.

Monghetti said:

I'm interested as my SO is not a beer drinker. Was your OG really 1.015? Or was it 1.115...One is really low, and one is really high....Im excited to hear what others have to say recipe wise

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OG was 1.068, i hope to hit an FG of 1.015. My wife really wanted me to try this, and if it works out i am sure i will be brewing variations all the time.

scinerd3000 said:

be careful! the nottingham will drop very low on a brew like this. I just used it in a sg 1.072 cider and it fermented all the way down to 1.000! Had another one take from 1.090 down to 1.000 so you may have to back sweeten

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I didn't think it would go that low, good thing i have plenty of goodies to back sweeten with.

HillbillyDeluxe said:

Interesting recipe, not my style though. Might be good. +1 on the og though, seems low. Sure it wasnt 1.110? If ot was and it actually attennuated to 1.oo1 u will have realbrain grenade brew. Nottywill get i there though.

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OG was 1.068 i am hoping for an FG of 1.015. I guess we will just wait and see how this comes out. Maybe i am brewing "Panty Removal Fluid"

if this still makes it down to the 1.000 range will i still be able to add corn sugar and bottel this to get some carb?

SNB said:

if this still makes it down to the 1.000 range will i still be able to add corn sugar and bottel this to get some carb?

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Yep, no worries. my apfelwein sat at 1.005 for over a 3 weeks, then bottled and it carbed up just fine. May take a little longer to carb, but it will carb. I'm curious to hear how this turns out, SWMBO loves mikes hard lemonade, so I could see myself brewing this if it goes well.

Runyank said:

Yep, no worries. my apfelwein sat at 1.005 for over a 3 weeks, then bottled and it carbed up just fine. May take a little longer to carb, but it will carb. I'm curious to hear how this turns out, SWMBO loves mikes hard lemonade, so I could see myself brewing this if it goes well.

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I hope it turns out well, i made this recipe from a mixture of Yoopers recipe and one i found on northernbrewer.com. I will keep you posted on how this comes out.

Have you ever tried a Lemoncillo?

We make one yearly for XMas gifts (and drinking.. haha)
It's vodka, but its so lemon induced and sweetened, that it really dulls the vodka taste and makes a great drink.

I lack experience on hard lemonade, my friend has made 2 batches, both fermented very low and ended up being hard lemon juice. Made great margaritas though. If you back sweeten enough to make it taste good, you may have bottle bombs on your hands.

he would just add sugar when he poured a glass.

I've got a batch going now that is purely experimental
10 cans lemonade concentrate
4 lbs sugar
6 gallons water
yeast energizer and yeast nutrient
WLP570 Belgian golden strong ale yeast
O.G. was 1.086

still fermenting since 5/12. the wlp570 should take it pretty dry also, I'm going to rack it to a secondary tomorrow, give it another week, then kill the yeast back sweeten and keg.

got high hopes for this, pretty well wingin it on this batch.

I had to pitch twice. The second one, I started with a 500ml DME starter and added 1/2 c lemonade + 1 tbsp sugar about every 12 hours until I got to 2L. Then that took off ! About 5 days and still chugging away.

I did a 4 gal batch that leaves me 1 gal to back sweeten with.

capcrnch said:

Have you ever tried a Lemoncillo?

We make one yearly for XMas gifts (and drinking.. haha)
It's vodka, but its so lemon induced and sweetened, that it really dulls the vodka taste and makes a great drink.

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Never tried it, but is does sound interesting

DanVader said:

I lack experience on hard lemonade, my friend has made 2 batches, both fermented very low and ended up being hard lemon juice. Made great margaritas though. If you back sweeten enough to make it taste good, you may have bottle bombs on your hands.

he would just add sugar when he poured a glass.

I've got a batch going now that is purely experimental
10 cans lemonade concentrate
4 lbs sugar
6 gallons water
yeast energizer and yeast nutrient
WLP570 Belgian golden strong ale yeast
O.G. was 1.086

still fermenting since 5/12. the wlp570 should take it pretty dry also, I'm going to rack it to a secondary tomorrow, give it another week, then kill the yeast back sweeten and keg.

got high hopes for this, pretty well wingin it on this batch.

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Let me know how your batch comes out. I am not planning to kill the yeast, and i will back sweeten with splenda or lactose and then add corn sugar to bottle carb, do you think that will cause any issues? i was under the impression that the splenda or lactose was non fermentable so bottle bombs would not be an issue?

LooyvilleLarry said:

I had to pitch twice. The second one, I started with a 500ml DME starter and added 1/2 c lemonade + 1 tbsp sugar about every 12 hours until I got to 2L. Then that took off ! About 5 days and still chugging away.

I did a 4 gal batch that leaves me 1 gal to back sweeten with.

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I used Nottingham dry yeast, can i do a starter using dry yeast? if not i will pick up some liquid yeast when i make the trip to anchorage next week. Any ideas what a good liquid yeast would be for this?

Do you have to worry about preservatives when using juice concentrates?

"splenda or lactose was non fermentable so bottle bombs would not be an issue"

that should work fine.

Curious to see how your fermentation goes, my friend mark had problems getting his to ferment, but he didn't use any yeast nutrient.

I really went to town on mine, 1 liter of slurry, yeast energizer and nutrient, and a heavy shot of pure O2. Really took off like a rocket! had about an inch of krausen at day one (didn't expect that) dropped out after one day, but really churned for 10 days.
it finally started to slow down this morning. Took it off the blowoff tube and put on an airlock, and it's still popping about 10 times a minute. I'll post updates as it goes, I'm going to transfer tomorrow and check gravity. I pulled a little sample the other day, and it was still sweet, with a pretty strong booze flavor.

pdizz said:

Do you have to worry about preservatives when using juice concentrates?

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from what i have read you want to try and find concentrate that has no preservatives, but i used what was available to me. i didnt' see any preservatives listed on the ingredients, so we will see how it turns out.

DanVader said:

"splenda or lactose was non fermentable so bottle bombs would not be an issue"

that should work fine.

Curious to see how your fermentation goes, my friend mark had problems getting his to ferment, but he didn't use any yeast nutrient.

I really went to town on mine, 1 liter of slurry, yeast energizer and nutrient, and a heavy shot of pure O2. Really took off like a rocket! had about an inch of krausen at day one (didn't expect that) dropped out after one day, but really churned for 10 days.
it finally started to slow down this morning. Took it off the blowoff tube and put on an airlock, and it's still popping about 10 times a minute. I'll post updates as it goes, I'm going to transfer tomorrow and check gravity. I pulled a little sample the other day, and it was still sweet, with a pretty strong booze flavor.

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I will be checking the fermentation and if it doesn't take off in a few days i will get a big starter going with my other pack of nottingham, or order some liquid yeast. Please keep me posted on how yours is turning out.

Finally got around to checking the gravity today went from 1.086 to 1.019 about 8.78 ABV tastes pretty decent, still sweet. I thought the yeast were pretty pooped out, very little airlock activity, surface pretty still, but after just dipping my racking cane in there a couple times to pull a sample, it looks like the damn thing is taking off again.

gonna give the carboy a good swirl and rouse the yeast a little and see what happens
I expected this to go much lower and it still might.

DanVader said:

Finally got around to checking the gravity today went from 1.086 to 1.019 about 8.78 ABV tastes pretty decent, still sweet. I thought the yeast were pretty pooped out, very little airlock activity, surface pretty still, but after just dipping my racking cane in there a couple times to pull a sample, it looks like the damn thing is taking off again.

gonna give the carboy a good swirl and rouse the yeast a little and see what happens
I expected this to go much lower and it still might.

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I still have not ben able to get mine to take off, looks like i need to get some liquid yeast and get a big starter going and try to get the yeast accustomed to the acid of the lemons.

Please keep me posted on how yours turns out.

SNB said:

Never tried it, but is does sound interesting
I used Nottingham dry yeast, can i do a starter using dry yeast? if not i will pick up some liquid yeast when i make the trip to anchorage next week. Any
ideas what a good liquid yeast would be for this?

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I am not sure what the alcohol tolerance of Notty is which is why a lot of people use the Lavlin yeast (EC-1118 or the 71B-1122 I think) .

I did a starter over about 4 days. Started with a 100ml dme starter (add 100g of DME to make 100ml), and added the yeast. Once that started up, I started adding 1/2c lemonade (mixed regular) and a teaspoon of sugar water about every 8-12 hours. Ended up with a 1L starter that was perking away. Pitched that and had bubbles in the airlock in 12 hours.

LooyvilleLarry said:

I am not sure what the alcohol tolerance of Notty is which is why a lot of people use the Lavlin yeast (EC-1118 or the 71B-1122 I think) .

I did a starter over about 4 days. Started with a 100ml dme starter (add 100g of DME to make 100ml), and added the yeast. Once that started up, I started adding 1/2c lemonade (mixed regular) and a teaspoon of sugar water about every 8-12 hours. Ended up with a 1L starter that was perking away. Pitched that and had bubbles in the airlock in 12 hours.

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I am thinking that i will have to do a starter similar to what you did to get mine going. 1 week, and two pack of notty and no activity and no change in SG.

SNB said:

I am thinking that i will have to do a starter similar to what you did to get mine going. 1 week, and two pack of notty and no activity and no change in SG.

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i checked it when i got home form work tonight and i do have some bubbles, 1 every 3-5 seconds. So it looks like it may just be a slow ferment. i will take a SG in a few days to see how it is doing.

just racked a gallon off of mine tonight, wanted something different to drink.
sitting at 1.016, still got a little activity going on. Still has sugar sweetness, but starting to lean more toward the bitter side. Kinda tastes like a weak margarita right now.

I just pulled a hydro sample of mine, started at 1.080, now it is down to 1.060 and still bubbling away. The maltiness has faded some, and the lemon is coming through. SWMBO was very happy with how this one is coming along.