New and need some help please

[Piccioni77]

Good afternoon, my name is Frank and I am new to this forum and newish to brewing.

About 10 years ago I brewed about 4-5 beers that turned out pretty well.

I don’t remember much and I own a food truck and hoping to open a restaurant soon.

I wanted to start brewing hard lemonade and possibly ciders, and kombuchas. I wanted to start with the hard lemonade and wanted to know if you had insights on what equipment or kit would be good for me to do this?

2 5 gallon fermentation drums
Air lock
Yeast
Star san
Hydrometer
Bottles

Does this sound right? And is there a kit that would be easiest or should I buy separate?

Also does someone have a good hard lemonade recipe as of recent? I saw the one for skeeter pee.

Thanks
Frank

 

[lumpher]

You'll need Yeast Nutrient. Hard Lemonade is very acidic (obviously), and this means the yeast has a hard time starting. The nutrient will help it vastly. As for a recipe, it's not new; it's an old tried-and-true recipe, with tips and hints following the recipe. You can 1/2 the quantities of the ingredients if you want to make 2.5 gallons at a time. This 1 is for 5 gallons.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/bknifefights-hard-lemonade.407020/

 

[Piccioni77]

That’s so much!!!

 

[bwible]

There’s a whole thread for this one.

https://skeeterpee.com/recipe

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Welcome to the forum, I can’t answer your questions, as I only dabble in kombucha and I’ve never made the hard lemonade, but many contributors can and will share info. Cheers!

 

[Piccioni77]

Welcome to the forum, I can’t answer your questions, as I only dabble in kombucha and I’ve never made the hard lemonade, but many contributors can and will share info. Cheers!

There’s a whole thread for this one.

https://skeeterpee.com/recipe

Thanks! I am looking to do Kombucha too. I'll try and hit you up after I'm done with this lemonade!

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

I just bottled my cider. This is the second time I’ve made cider and for simplicity the first time I just fermented it out, bottled and primed. It turned out so well and was so easy, I decided to do it again after a couple years hiatus. It’s bone dry, which I haven’t found readily available commercially. The batch I just made is priming right now and though it has a fermented flavor and tastes appely, I can’t find any alcohol hotness at all. I think it will be very delicious when fizzy. Some other equipment you may want is the wing capper, bottle caps, a siphon pump, racking tubing (with tube clip to stop the flow), sanitation concentrate like Starsan, unscented oxyclean for cleaning, and a hydrometer so you know how strong your beverage turns out. I made a “hard selzter” once and it turned out nice, but was kind of technical to put together because it had ingredients to break down the pectin in the fruit I added and I had never used yeast nutrient and didn’t follow directions well. The seltzer came out weaker than I expected because of this, if I remember correctly. Anyway, welcome to the forum.

 

[Piccioni77]

I just bottled my cider. This is the second time I’ve made cider and for simplicity the first time I just fermented it out, bottled and primed. It turned out so well and was so easy, I decided to do it again after a couple years hiatus. It’s bone dry, which I haven’t found readily available commercially. The batch I just made is priming right now and though it has a fermented flavor and tastes appely, I can’t find any alcohol hotness at all. I think it will be very delicious when fizzy. Some other equipment you may want is the wing capper, bottle caps, a siphon pump, racking tubing (with tube clip to stop the flow), sanitation concentrate like Starsan, unscented oxyclean for cleaning, and a hydrometer so you know how strong your beverage turns out. I made a “hard selzter” once and it turned out nice, but was kind of technical to put together because it had ingredients to break down the pectin in the fruit I added and I had never used yeast nutrient and didn’t follow directions well. The seltzer came out weaker than I expected because of this, if I remember correctly. Anyway, welcome to the forum.

Thanks so much for the info! Good luck with the cider! Let me know how it turns out.

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

Thanks so much for the info! Good luck with the cider! Let me know how it turns out.

I will. I’m not sure if it’s ugly baby syndrome. But for me, the stuff I make is way more delicious then 90% of what I get commercially. The juice was from Mott’s 100% apple juice, nothing added, not even vitamin C, which many store bought juice’s use as a preservative, but reportedly doesn’t harm yeast. I used a whole pack of Safale S-04 in a two gallon batch and the yeast started working almost immediately. Fermented out to 1.000 (started at 1.050) in about 2 1/2 weeks. Will clock in right at about 7% after priming, which adds about .5% ABV. The beauty of fermenting your own beverages is you are in charge of what you do. You do what you want.

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

I put a bottle of cider in the fridge last night. It cleared up quite a bit, but is still quite hazy from the original apple juice which was opaque. The cider is translucent and I can see some outlines of the TV through the haze, but still not at all clear. No chunks though and I was able to pour the whole bottle out without any sediment following, so very pleased with the appearance. Good strong apple flavor and the carbonation is perfect. The only criticism I have about the cider is that it is a little hot (alcohol) when it warms up a little, but all in all a great success. I definitely prefer the S-04 over the Nottingham I used last time I made cider, for the nice apple flavor, though that could be the apple juice I started with.