Hard Lemonade question

I found a recipe for hard lemonade somewhere. It's pretty straight forward, basically it calls for 8 cans pure frozen lemonade concentrate, 3#'s extra light DME, and WLP720. Do a complete fermentation with it, then sweeten with wine conditioner to taste at bottling.

I'm just looking for suggestions from those that have brewed a hard lemonade before. Does this recipe sound OK?

Sounds ok. I haven't done one with DME but I know that Mike's Hard Lemonade is a malt product.

I have a super long thread around here on the problems encountered when fermenting lemonade. If you do a search for "hard lemonade", you'll find it. Anyway, the jist of it is that lemonade can be a real bugger to get started. It's best to make a starter, with some super diluted must (just dilute your made up must with water) and some sugar until that gets going and then keep adding a little more must to it until it really takes off. Only then should you pitch it into the lemonade must. It was definitely the toughest ferment I ever had, and I really babied it to get it going and keep it going. I'll also suggest some yeast nutrient in it.

Edit- here's one thread to start with. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=12104&highlight=lemonade

I would just be careful with that 3# DME depending on how strong you want it to be. My hard limeade came out to 1.080. It's a doozy.

Oh, one more thing- read the ingredients on the lemonade can before you buy 7 of them. If it says "sorbate" anywhere, it will NOT ferment at all.

Lorena - Will do with the starter. I've also got some yeast nutrient, I'll make sure to use it (can you over-use it?). I made sure the lemonade concentrate was 100% pure no preservatives when I went to buy it.

PseudoChef - What did you put in for fermentables to get you up to 1.080? Should I cut back?

For all of us that make hard lemonade. You can buy the mix in bulk @ Sams Club.
http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate.do?dest=5&item=147858&pCatg=6948

wk1h said:

Lorena - Will do with the starter. I've also got some yeast nutrient, I'll make sure to use it (can you over-use it?). I made sure the lemonade concentrate was 100% pure no preservatives when I went to buy it.

PseudoChef - What did you put in for fermentables to get you up to 1.080? Should I cut back?

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Hey I just posted a long post about what I did to make my hard limeade here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f25/my-hard-limeade-recipe-delicious-potent-172058/

I followed a lot of Yooper's and others tips when making it the BIG keys:
large starter and no fermentables
also if you use champagne yeast you'll ferment to below 1.000 so consider how strong you want it to be when mixing, I added sugar until I got to the sg I wanted.