Apollofrost
Active Member
Recipe:
10 cans Minute Maid Lemonade
6 Lbs dark brown sugar
1 Cup chopped raisins
yeast nutrient and energizer
Enough water to bring it to 5.5 Gallons and a SG of 1.100
Ok, after my first batch of yeast suffered death by acid I repitched with Safale 04 straight from the packet. Within the next 24 hours fermentation had started up and two days later the gravity has dropped down to 1.090.
This is my first serious fermentation and I'm looking to create a sweet cherry lemonade with a nice smooth taste. Because of the high sugar content I'm thinking about killing it with k-meta and sorbate around 1.030-1.020 so I don't end up with rocket fuel(cold crashing isn't an option). After that the plan is to rack it onto 5Lbs of cherries and let it sit for a month or so to absorb their flavor and then sweeten, if needed, with cherry juice.
On the cider section of the forums there's a lot of talk about natural sugars and not letting the ferment go on too long because it will eat all of them up and you will lose some of the fruit's taste. I figured killing the yeast prior to racking would allow me to get the most taste out of my cherries. Would this be the best course of action or am I just over thinking things?
What should I do? Rack the active must over cherries and then backsweeten? Or do I kill it and rack to preserve the natural sugars?
PS: The gravity sample was darn tasty.
10 cans Minute Maid Lemonade
6 Lbs dark brown sugar
1 Cup chopped raisins
yeast nutrient and energizer
Enough water to bring it to 5.5 Gallons and a SG of 1.100
Ok, after my first batch of yeast suffered death by acid I repitched with Safale 04 straight from the packet. Within the next 24 hours fermentation had started up and two days later the gravity has dropped down to 1.090.
This is my first serious fermentation and I'm looking to create a sweet cherry lemonade with a nice smooth taste. Because of the high sugar content I'm thinking about killing it with k-meta and sorbate around 1.030-1.020 so I don't end up with rocket fuel(cold crashing isn't an option). After that the plan is to rack it onto 5Lbs of cherries and let it sit for a month or so to absorb their flavor and then sweeten, if needed, with cherry juice.
On the cider section of the forums there's a lot of talk about natural sugars and not letting the ferment go on too long because it will eat all of them up and you will lose some of the fruit's taste. I figured killing the yeast prior to racking would allow me to get the most taste out of my cherries. Would this be the best course of action or am I just over thinking things?
What should I do? Rack the active must over cherries and then backsweeten? Or do I kill it and rack to preserve the natural sugars?
PS: The gravity sample was darn tasty.
