Extra Hard Lemonade

[Rockindaddy]

I used the original recipe with the exception of substituting 1 lb of sugar for 1 lb of light DME. (Still a total of 10 lbs). It is still very sweet. Not sure if I should try adding more yeast or just go ahead and bottle. If anyone could share their final gravity reading it would be much appreciated.

 

[The1Greenguru]

I used the original recipe with the exception of substituting 1 lb of sugar for 1 lb of light DME. (Still a total of 10 lbs). It is still very sweet. Not sure if I should try adding more yeast or just go ahead and bottle. If anyone could share their final gravity reading it would be much appreciated.

Hey I looked for notes on my batches and I lost a iphone and the notes on it, if you taste mine it is not sweet. If the DME is the cause of it tasting sweet maybe when i start my third batch i will go get some DME,first batch I did was 1 and you was dancing naked in the streets. My second batch it is still bubbling pink mine rests in a warm room I have noticed its not bubbling as fast as it has earlier in process I did find I start the pink lemonade in May it is a slow Process you should message the the (brazedowl) he has been the wizard on this for me
"no limits when you do the brew" Dan

Ps I was watching my pink lemonade and it bubbles real slow and I did taste it is sweet right now. My point being I would not even see any activity If I didn't have the air lock filled half way with sanitizer over night the gas makes bubbles in the air lock, you now the kind of bubbles like we blew when we was kneehigh to a pias ant.

I was holding out as long as possible because of earlier in this post some other home Brewers had bottle bombs, I would say dew to bottling to early.

"no limits when you do the brew" Dan

 

[Rockindaddy]

Wow.....that looks exactly like mine!

 

[The1Greenguru]

Wow.....that looks exactly like mine!

Hey I went ahead and bottled it was still little sweet butt all the talk I had few of my first batch left and was good and gone. Forcing me to bottle.
May make more in day or two. The og was best I could remember. the bubbles where slowing may have missed get carbonation in my bottles


* * Og 1.122* 5/17/2013
1.094 * 6/2/2013 *
1.068 6/20/2013 1.030
8/4/2013 *fg 1.018 bottled * 13.6%

 

[The1Greenguru]

hey i went ahead and bottled it was still little sweet butt all the talk i had few of my first batch left and was good and gone. Forcing me to bottle.
May make more in day or two. The og was best i could remember. The bubbles where slowing may have missed get carbonation in my bottles

* * og 1.122* 5/17/2013
1.094 * 6/2/2013 *
1.068 6/20/2013 1.030
8/4/2013 *fg 1.018 bottled * 13.6%

54 little Baby's


View attachment 139706

 

[Matteo57]

Looks yummy, will have to make one of these days!

 

[Matteo57]

Anyone ever try lemon peel in it for a day or so before bottling/kegging? Would it add more lemon depth to it or does it not need it?

 

[The1Greenguru]

Anyone ever try lemon peel in it for a day or so before bottling/kegging? Would it add more lemon depth to it or does it not need it?

Let me know how it turns out. I started new batch other day and it has a while as It ferments, its regular lemonade color I like. Will post picture on desktop when I do it from phone I have to pull them and rotate so I just hold off on picture. Maybe someone else has tried it with lemon peels.

I must say if I wanted it to taste more like lemonade I would back sweeten it with same stuff I made it with and stick to OG specs, I always go to long to catch it before the yeast plays out and I did learn on my first batch I was going to have a little carbonation and I added these new gelcap type of carbonation tabs that results in no sugar visible in bottom of bottles, with these add to the 12 oz bottles and it was a great bit sweeter. With no carbonation I missed the yeast and don't want a bottle bomb. Thanks Dan GG

 

[Matteo57]

I don't want it a more sweet flavor, just more fresh lemon depth from the peel is all

 

[The1Greenguru]

I don't want it a more sweet flavor, just more fresh lemon depth from the peel is all

You made it out of fresh lemons or you use concentrate this is a guess but I would use fresh squeezed juice to get the real lemon taste you should question the person thats recipe you have followed. That gives me a thought when the fermenter slows I may add fresh squeezed lemon juice to see if I can get the taste you are after.

No limits when you do the brew

 

[Rockindaddy]

I would stay away from lemon peels and go with pure juice if you want more lemon zest. I used orange peels in a beer I made once and it came out tasting like a wet dog. Had to dump it.

 

[The1Greenguru]

I would stay away from lemon peels and go with pure juice if you want more lemon zest. I used orange peels in a beer I made once and it came out tasting like a wet dog. Had to dump it.

Thanks Rockindaddy for the great information.

 

[Matteo57]

I just recently polished off a keg of a grapefruit ipa I did with grapefruit zest in boil and peel in the keg for a day... Probably most solid beer so far. I gave it to a guy a manager at a morebeer store room and he said he would have rated it 38-39, higher if the grapefruit wasnt as prominent as it was.
It is hard to get the strong citrus flavor I want sometimes without the peel is all I am saying.
I wonder why it came out tasting that wet dog way...

 

[The1Greenguru]

I just recently polished off a keg of a grapefruit ipa I did with grapefruit zest in boil and peel in the keg for a day... Probably most solid beer so far. I gave it to a guy a manager at a morebeer store room and he said he would have rated it 38-39, higher if the grapefruit wasnt as prominent as it was.
It is hard to get the strong citrus flavor I want sometimes without the peel is all I am saying.
I wonder why it came out tasting that wet dog way...

Guessing the peels of the two in question hold different amounts of zestyness

My new batch seem to slow and I just gave it a quick spin back to bubbling again the EH lemonade It is a hard batch but well worth it has become a favorite long side my dos esquis

 

[justineaton]

I like to put jalapenos in my lemonade and let it sit for a day or two before I drink it, I searched online to see if anyone else does this since it was just something that sounded good to me and found a few alcoholic jalapeno lemonade recipes that appear to be more popular down south. They are all made with vodka but I am considering brewing this up and dry hopping with fresh jalapeno for two days. I will scrape the seeds out first. Any thoughts?

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[justineaton]

Would it be a bad idea to use the safeale-05 slurry from the bottom of my cream ale recipe for this?

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[ChrisVZ]

I would stay away from lemon peels and go with pure juice if you want more lemon zest. I used orange peels in a beer I made once and it came out tasting like a wet dog. Had to dump it.

I have made 4 batches of beer using lemon and orange peel and have not run into this.

Saw this recipie today and ran out to buy the stuff for it. Fingers crossed and hoping to see the first bubbles in the next few days.


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[mutate]

For the cranberry-lemonade I used a Wyeast 1056 american ale and it also called for 2lbs dme and 2lbs of corn sugar, since this has so much more lemon/lime mixer is that why there is so much sugar?

could i add 2lbs dme and cut down the sugar a little bit?

That yeast gave me a much better beer feel and taste, any reason not to try it with this? i'm not partial to using champagne yeast as it drys everything out so much.

 

[lextasy23]

Just made my batch yesterday:

6 gallons
8 Minute Maid Frozen Limeade
2 Minute Maid Frozen Lemonade
8 lbs. White cane sugar (stupid 4 lb. bags now, not 5 lbs.)
1 lb. Corn sugar (had it kicking around)
2 Tbsp. yeast Nutrient
1 pack Montrachet (no starter, last minute)

1.100 OG

I should have done a starter... Been almost 24 hours and no airlock activity. Just gonna relax and let it do it's thing.

 

[madwilliamflint]

I should have done a starter... Been almost 24 hours and no airlock activity. Just gonna relax and let it do it's thing.

I was a little worried at the delayed start time too. It was a little over two days before it got cruising. It'll go.

 

[lextasy23]

I was a little worried at the delayed start time too. It was a little over two days before it got cruising. It'll go.

Ya it just started bubbling. I haven't not done a starter in years, this was a total after though batch and I just dumped the packet in.

So I sat back, relaxed, and had a home brew. lol

 

[madwilliamflint]

I would stay away from lemon peels and go with pure juice if you want more lemon zest. I used orange peels in a beer I made once and it came out tasting like a wet dog. Had to dump it.

The trick to this is that you'd want the zest (the very outside, that's still got some color) but NOT the pith (the white bit) which will make it bitter as hell.

I make limoncello, which is really just an infusion of lemon zest in alcohol, then mixed with simple syrup.

I suppose if you really wanted to maximize the amount of flavor yield from a piece of citrus, you could do both. Zest the lemon, then peel the pith off and use the fruit or juice.

 

[aschupner]

With the high acid content of this recipe a starter usually helps. Use a little of the mixture at a time. Start it with like 50-50 water and your mix. Gradually add more of the lemonade mixture. This will help the yeast acclimate to the acid content.

 

[lextasy23]

Mine's been in primary since last Friday (on day 5), and the airlock is bubbling 1-2 times per second. It did nothing for about a day.

The yeast probably feels like it just got it's ass kicked Mortal Kombat style. My original thought after almost 2 days with no bubbles was that that amount of acid can't be too good for it. I was thinking about making a starter and re-pitching, but it's going and I'm ok with it.

If it all gets messed up I can adjust technique on the next one - I'm not into this for more than an hour of time and $25 at this point.

 

[madwilliamflint]

Did you crash or clarify this?

I've got a hard lemonade bottled that I'm not especially happy with. I'm a complete noob, but I think super-kleer removed not only the yeast, but most of it's character. Thought I'd try another recipe.

 

[madwilliamflint]

Mine's been in primary since last Friday (on day 5), and the airlock is bubbling 1-2 times per second. It did nothing for about a day.

The yeast probably feels like it just got it's ass kicked Mortal Kombat style. My original thought after almost 2 days with no bubbles was that that amount of acid can't be too good for it. I was thinking about making a starter and re-pitching, but it's going and I'm ok with it.

If it all gets messed up I can adjust technique on the next one - I'm not into this for more than an hour of time and $25 at this point.

When I made my first batch, the yeast took the better part of 72 hours to get going. I imagine by now yours is going strong.

 

[lextasy23]

When I made my first batch, the yeast took the better part of 72 hours to get going. I imagine by now yours is going strong.

Sure enough. Nothing for 2 days, slow day 3, sorta heavy until 2 days ago (one bubble a second), now slowed back to a bubble every 4 or 5 seconds. I'm sort of disappointed to be honest, it's the first batch of anything in a long time that i didn't do a starter.

What a huge difference a starter makes.

I'm even tempted to go get some more yeast and make a starter to get it kickstarted, but at this point that's pointless because I'm sure there's plenty of healthy yeast. I'm just shocked why it's going so slowly, with that much sugar. Do yeast process HFCS slowly or something? Even still, there's 8lb of pure cane sugar...

Several of my beers NEEDED blow-off hoses because of the force. One Imperial I made was literally like you had someone shooting compressed air through the other end of the hose into my growler airlock. This one started at a 1.100 and never really got violent.

 

[madwilliamflint]

Sure enough. Nothing for 2 days, slow day 3, sorta heavy until 2 days ago (one bubble a second), now slowed back to a bubble every 4 or 5 seconds. I'm sort of disappointed to be honest, it's the first batch of anything in a long time that i didn't do a starter.

What a huge difference a starter makes.

I'm even tempted to go get some more yeast and make a starter to get it kickstarted, but at this point that's pointless because I'm sure there's plenty of healthy yeast. I'm just shocked why it's going so slowly, with that much sugar. Do yeast process HFCS slowly or something? Even still, there's 8lb of pure cane sugar...

No idea. This is definitely beyond my ken. Mine did exactly that though, started slow, peaked wildly, then drifted off fast and slowly churned through the rest of it. I've got to imagine it's acidity, but that's pure guessing.

Several of my beers NEEDED blow-off hoses because of the force. One Imperial I made was literally like you had someone shooting compressed air through the other end of the hose into my growler airlock. This one started at a 1.100 and never really got violent.

That sounds CRAZY. I've only ever done meads and a fruit wine before this. Apart from a strawberry wine explosion, I've never experienced anything similar to what you're talking about. Sounds like fun.

Now if only I liked beer at all.

 

[lextasy23]

No idea. This is definitely beyond my ken. Mine did exactly that though, started slow, peaked wildly, then drifted off fast and slowly churned through the rest of it. I've got to imagine it's acidity, but that's pure guessing.


That sounds CRAZY. I've only ever done meads and a fruit wine before this. Apart from a strawberry wine explosion, I've never experienced anything similar to what you're talking about. Sounds like fun.

Now if only I liked beer at all.

I have seen wild... a bubble a second is very tame to me.

I have a video of the fermentation going nuts, I'll try to find it.

 

[lextasy23]

Still bubbling at 4 second intervals. You could quite literally set your watch by the regularity of this airlock.

In other news, my sweet new refractometer arrived last night!

 

[lextasy23]

Racked over to secondary after a week and a half, zero trub (was expecting a lot).

Great flavor and color.

 

[DGibb]

i do a similar recipe that people love:

4 cans frozen lemonade
4 cans frozen pink lemonade
3 cans frozen limeade
4# sugar
1 pack montrachet
water for 6 gallons

let primary 1 month, then keg, and let it chill/carb 2 weeks on 11# co2

and i agree: that mass-produced garbage is eating our dust

I was looking at this for a basic recipe. I have a batch of Irish Red ale in my 5 gallon carboy right now (Nottingham Ale yeast cake). I've scaled the recipe back for 5 gallons to this:

3 lbs Sugar
3 cans frozen lemonade concentrate
4 cans frozen pink lemonade concentrate
3 cans frozen limeade concentrate
water up to 5 gallons volume

1. Does this look about right for the conversion?
2. Do I pitch this directly in to the carboy after I have transferred the Irish Red to the bottling bucket? Is there anything I need to do in particular? I could instead do a Nottingham pitch (since that's what I have on hand currently)

 

[Vallan]

Inspired by this forum I started my first ever brew batch of cider 2 weeks ago. Stumbling into the wine forum by accident I see this thread on hard lemonade which I love. So before bottling my first batch I'm venturing off into a hard lemonade trial The ladies of our group like sweet wines (muscatos) so I thought this was perfect.

I had some concerns about acidity levels and yeast viability so I began with

6 Frozen Lemonade concentrates (GV brand Walmart)
4 Frozen White Grape Raspberry concentrate (Welches)
10 lbs of table sugar
6 gals of water (SG was higher than I wanted at 5 gals, i'd cut sugar for 5 gals)
1 pkg Red Star Champagne yeast (rehydrated per pkg)
5 teas Yeast Nutrient

65 degrees F and 24 hrs later not much activity so bought another pkg of champagne yeast and pitched it along with some yeast energizer (whatever rate was recommended) and put a small heater in my brew closet to get temp up to 70F. 24 hrs later and its bubbling like crazy. I'll update again later when I'm further along.

 

[brazedowl]

Keep us posted sounds good

 

[Vallan]

6 Frozen Lemonade concentrates (GV brand Walmart)
4 Frozen White Grape Raspberry concentrate (Welches)
10 lbs of table sugar
6 gals of water (SG was higher than I wanted at 5 gals, i'd cut sugar for 5 gals)
1 pkg Red Star Champagne yeast (rehydrated per pkg)
5 teas Yeast Nutrient

Update
When done fermenting at 1.0 it tasted "off". It was like the lemonade and white grape/rasp both hadn't meshed well. I let it sit another 10 days and although I didnt see any airlock activity it finished at .992. The off tastes are gone, no raspberry flavor, tart and strong alcohol taste (15-16% ABV). Next time I will stop the ferment earlier BUT...I mixed 40% extra hard with 60% Simply Raspberry Lemonade hitting a 6% ABV and its good!
My 6 gals can effectively make 15 gals of hard lemonade now (40/60 mix).
Thoughts
I'm going to filter the pulp out of the lemonade to make more like store bought
Using this as a base you could mix it with the mango lemonade, a minute made cherry limeade, etc and end up with a great mixture of flavors. I may try and carb up some diff flavors in 2L bottles using my carbonator

 

[Vallan]

I'm using a 40% base 60% back sweetening to hit 6% abv, so adjust your own % accordingly.

My other thought: assuming I wanted 2.5 vols of CO2
Carb just the base 15% ABV hard lemonade to 6.25, add in the 60% volume for back sweetening (uncarbed lemonade or ?) would give you a 6%ABV 2.5 vols of CO2.

If that works well I could make a number of different "wine cooler" type drinks with 1 carbed keg and a variety of flavors to back sweeten with.

Force Carb Calculator
Example above would be almost 50 psi at 38 degrees F

 

[hubs731]

~~Ingredients~~

10# Regular Cane Sugar

7 Containers off brand lemonade concentrate

3 Containers limeade OR pink lemonade concentrate

1pkt Redstar Montrachet Yeast (have used yeast cake left from the cherry pie wine as well)

1 tbls Energizer

1 tbls Nutrient

Water to 5-6 Gallons



~~Prep~~

1) Dissolved sugar in 3-4 Gallons of H2O.

2) Placed concentrate in primary while sugar dissolves over med-low heat.

3) Added sugar water to primary

4) Started yeast in mason jar of combined solution at ~85F.

5) Pitched yeast into brewbucket and added water to bring to 6 gal



~~Primary~~

Sat in an Ale Pail on my kitchen counter for two weeks. Regular room temp 70F-75F



~Secondary~~

Used blue plastic 5gal water jug (the type found at lowes etc).



Continued fermenting at 70F-75F until bubbling has almost completely ceased



~~Bottling~~

Bottled into 12oz beer bottles with crown caps



~~Notes & Comments~~

- Limeade version tastes so much like mikes hard lemonade it's crazy

- Pink lemonade version is still bubbling... I'll report back later



~~Moral of the story~~

Cheap. Yummy. Enjoyed by all.

Did you have airlocks on primary and secondary? Also...in the mason jar with the yeast, did you just combine the nutrient and energizer with it in water?

 

[brazedowl]

Wow this was like years ago... always airlock. Always. And a pinch of nutrient in the jar.

 

[CyderSilverblade]

I want to get a batch started so its ready for summer.
For clarification please:

*Instead of using 10 lbs of regular sugar wouldnt it be better to use Dextrose?
It should dissolve way better than cane sugar

*10 lbs of sugar/dextrose sounds like a lot.
Are we sure we need this much?

*Yeast
Is Montrachet the best choice, it seems some have a slow ferment on this?
Is there a better choice?

*Is everyone adding the limeade or have you done just straight lemonade?

 

[CyderSilverblade]

Also will this carb in the bottle?
Assuming there will be enough sugar left over it will.