Simple hard lemonade/cider questions

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Steve-n-Son

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So I usually brew only beer but I saw some online videos that gave me some ideas for new projects. I want to make hard lemonade and some hard cider in what is probably the easiest way possible: buying preservative free lemonade/cider and adding sugar and bakers yeast (with a yeast nutrient of course).

I have heard of this being done with store bought fruit drinks (cranberry, grape juice) and thought that it would probably work with these beverages as well.

So first question is will it? My fear is that lemonade might be too acidic to allow yeast to grow healthily in it.

My second question is about carbonation. I thought it would be fun to carbonate them in flip top bottles or maybe a flip top half-growler by adding some more sugar after fermentation is complete. So, assuming that batch I make is 1 gallon, how much sugar should I add?

Thanks in advance for any assistance!
-Steve
 
This looks really cool and I will be trying it in the future. However right now I am living in a college dorm (a AM of legal drinking age) and don't have the space necessary for such a procedure. I was hoping that with this much less sophisticated recipe that I could ferment the lemonade/cider in its original container (to reduce the need to sanitize many vessels). Any thoughts?
 
Nice video! Don't know if I'd call 1.00 dry, but to each their own. I'll have to give this one a go.
 
I think you're out of luck on the lemonade (I've read that page and it seems pretty involved to get it to work out), but you can definitely do a quick and dirty cider that way. Buy a gallon container of store brand apple juice (makes sure it doesn't have preservatives like Potassium Sorbate or Sodium Benzoate), pour yourself a glass to make some room, add some sugar if you want to kick up the alcohol content and drop in your yeast and shake the hell out of it (obviously you are better off pre-dissolving your sugar and yeast in warm water before adding to the apple juice container).
If you don't have an airlock you can even take it ghetto and just stretch a balloon over the opening of the container with a few pinholes in it to relieve CO2 pressure while letting a minimum of air back in.
The key to it being drinkable (as I've found the hard way) is to let it sit for 2 weeks after primary fermentation is done. Otherwise it is way too yeasty.
 
Cyser would a good choice too. Just pour honey and apple juice into your fermenting vessel, sprinkle yeast on top, and let it do its thing.
 
popeboy said:
I think you're out of luck on the lemonade (I've read that page and it seems pretty involved to get it to work out), but you can definitely do a quick and dirty cider that way. Buy a gallon container of store brand apple juice (makes sure it doesn't have preservatives like Potassium Sorbate or Sodium Benzoate), pour yourself a glass to make some room, add some sugar if you want to kick up the alcohol content and drop in your yeast and shake the hell out of it (obviously you are better off pre-dissolving your sugar and yeast in warm water before adding to the apple juice container).
If you don't have an airlock you can even take it ghetto and just stretch a balloon over the opening of the container with a few pinholes in it to relieve CO2 pressure while letting a minimum of air back in.
The key to it being drinkable (as I've found the hard way) is to let it sit for 2 weeks after primary fermentation is done. Otherwise it is way too yeasty.
Click to expand...

Ok, thanks for the advice (though I may try it anyway since I already have the lemonade).

I'm definitely doing a cider then, although I'm not sure what I could use for a secondary. If I were to carbonate it in bottles instead of doing a secondary would that be enough for the yeast to fall out of suspension?
 
Another question, how long should I expect it to take for my cider to ferment dry? I was hoping to make something about 10%ABV so I want an O.G. of at least 1.080. All I have available to me is bakers yeast so I'm making a yeast starter a day in advance with cane sugar, 2 cups of water, and 1 sachet of yeast. How long should this take to get to ~1.000?
 
The cider is currently fermenting and seems to be doing so quite aggressively. I made a 2 cup starter with fleischman's baker's yeast and corn sugar. I also boiled half a sachet of the same yeast to provide nutrients and let that starter sit 2 days. Then I boiled a few (2-3) cups of sugar into water and added that to the gallon of apple juice I have and then the starter. The gravity was 1.080. I also pasteurized some raisins in water and added them as well (they're just floating in the must). It's been two days and it's fermenting like crazy.

I think the starter I made was bigger than was necessary which probably shows why the ferment is so healthy. Any idea how long this could take?

-Steve
 

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