no airlock what can i do?

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I would let it go at least 3 weeks before checking... I bottled a 9.7%ABV barleywine on 2/6 and it was carbonated fairly well on 2/26... Probably be even better by now. I do go on the low end of the scale, so that might not be a good gauge...

I would say prime and bottle when they're at the FG (take readings 4-7 days apart, just to be sure) then prime to the CO2 volume you want, bottle and let sit. I'm probably going to use a few different shape, and size, bottles for mine. From 500ml Grolsch to 750ml Belgian and maybe some smaller bottles with Grolsch caps. I might even use some of the 187ml bottles that accept champagne corks and use the plastic ones (and cages)... :D

I would just make SURE the bottles can handle the carbonation pressure...
 
more than likely i will just be using 12oz beer bottles for the haaard lemonaid for now, ill get some 750ml bottles eventually when i start making meads. Hopefully the beer bottles will work ok for lemonaids and ciders
 
They should...

My other meads are not going to be carbonated, so I'll have more bottle options there. I'm letting them bulk age so that they have more time to get really good.

With my first, or second, paycheck (which hopefully will happen soon) I plan to get some kegs to put the mead into. That way, it will be easier to transport, and let bulk age for a few more months. I figure if I can let it bulk (or is it batch?) age until September/October then I can bottle it up, and it will be really good. I might need to bottle the 1 gallon batch before then. Still, I'd like to get them to age for at least a few more months (giving them at least 6 months in single batch form).

Thinking that the 12.34% ABV my batch should be will be strong enough for a first batch. I can always make something stronger later... It really depends on how it tastes when it's done fermenting, and what the FG is... I hope it's closer to 1.004 for the FG, so it's a bit more medium than dry, but not sweet... If it finishes there, it will be about/almost 12% ABV...

I'll need to come up with a good name for this batch... Even if I don't put any of the dried cherries in it... "Sooo HAAAD Lemonade"
 
Nice... I have the in person Friday morning (10am)... They're skipping right over the phone interview. Got the email about the job earlier today, applied online then called the HR person... She got in touch with the hiring manager/director and they want to skip the phone part. I think that's a decent sign. They like that I have my VCP4 cert... Hope to have at least a phone interview tomorrow, or Friday afternoon for another job...

Since my other job just ended a couple of weeks ago, and the unemployment junk is still going through, I really hope to be working again even before I start getting checks. :D

There's a job in MI that a recruiter contacted me about... I replied to that person, but they haven't replied back... Bastards...
 
I applied for the job im interviewing for monday they called today around 11 wanted to do an interview at noon but its 30min away from home and i was 30min in the wrong direction wearing torn up jeans and a dirty sweatshirt didnt think that was good clothing to be wearing at an interview
 
Yeah, generally not a good idea to interview like that... Unless it's for a construction, or landscaping job... :D

I'll be wearing my monkey suit for Friday... F'ing ties..:drunk:
 
yeah, ill be in a suit and tie tomorrow even though ill be over dressed its still fun to dress up once and a while
 
You sir, are one twisted mother F*****... :D

I wear my suit for job interviews 99.95% of the time.. Otherwise, there better be some TnA coming my way (not talking about the tv network either) before the evening is done, or I'm not putting that thing on... :rockin:
 
The difference between the jobs we are applying for yours is probably a professional job where you need to dress up everyday mine is just for a delivery postition for a local restaraunt supplier...but yes i am one twisted mother f-er
 
True there... Been in the IT field for over 11 years now... Hope the next job I get is with a company that I can stay with for a long haul (again)... But, you never know these days...
 
gonna make a batch of this haaaaard lemonade tonight...how long after you bottle does it usually last? or do you have a problem getting it to last..haha
 
Kind of doubt you'll have an issue getting rid of it fast enough... You might need to stock a few bottles away to try with your next batch, or in a year or three, to see how they age. :D

Considering how potent mine is going to be, I suspect it will have a shelf life in years. :D More like mead than beer... :drunk: BTW, this is my first batch you know... Just looking forward to it, and many more...

How did the interview go?
 
Wow. I too am laid off (since Christmas) and I said hmmm what to do with my time...I know! I'll brew beer. Now all this hard lemonade I'm defiantly gonna try that. I've always been curious to a watermelon wine also.
 
first interview was ahhh so so at best...but while i was in the interview my phone rang from another company that wanted an interview so i called them back said i could be there in 45min showed up talked with 2people for 30min and was told to come back tomorrow to talk to the actuall manager of the company for another interview
 
Go for it... If you have a good source for fresh fruit, use it. Figure out how much you want to use, what ABV you want to hit, then add honey (or other sugars) to the must to get to your OG... I would advise having more fruit on hand for post fermentation, for more flavor additions though.

Maybe I'll prime my hard lemonade with another can of concentrate... :eek:

Gordzilla: Nice... Good luck landing the job... I have my interview in the morning and have been talking with more recruiters since getting that one lined up... Hopefully both of us will be working before the end of March...
 
i would love to be working by end of next week...i thought you already made this hard lemonaid receipe. I was thinking that the honey is going to dry it out to much. I was thinking maybe cutting the honey down to 1.5# and adding some DME make it kind of a malt beverage like mikes hard lemonade is
 
I wouldn't use DME at all, since then it wouldn't really be hard lemonade... Probably why Mike's product sucks, if they use base malt in it...

Look at it this way, 4# of honey, in a 3 gallon batch, with 6 12oz cans of lemonade concentrate, will get you to about 12% ABV... If you want something with less kick, then lower the honey amount. I wouldn't lower the concentrate amount, since that will reduce the flavor level.

I started my batch last week. It still has a couple of weeks to go before it's done fermenting. I'm not going to taste it until then.

I'm thinking I'll add some of the dried cherries in another week or two. It's lost most of the pink color already. I might rack to a larger carboy and also add another can of pink lemonade concentrate... If I can get the 4 gallon PET bottle by then, I'll just use that. :D

As for working, even if I get offered the job I'm interviewing tomorrow, I'm probably looking at 2 weeks before I'd be able to start. Just the processes they need to go through before I can start... Pretty normal to have a 1-2 week delay in my field.
 
I've been in the IT field for about 9 years myself, got laid off back in late 2009 and still can't find crap for a replacement. Interviewed more times than I care to count, and have applied for thousands of jobs at this point.

It's a brutal job market right now, got me considering opening up a LHBS instead of going back to IT.
 
@krazydave, that does suck... I've usually been able to land a new job within 1-5 months of ending the previous one, since getting into IT... I wish I had taken the job I was offered about a year ago in Iowa. I also wish I had gone with the job about 1-1/2 to 2 hours drive from where I live (commute would be brutal, but the money was sweet)... Instead I took a 'perm' job that lasted all of three weeks. So, if I had taken the long drive contract job, ~1 month ago (set to run at least 6 months) I'd be working and making sick money. Basically, almost what I made at my previous job, for a year, in 6 months. Hind site is always 20/20...

Not sure if I'll get the job I'm interviewing for tomorrow, but we'll see. I'm trying to stay away from end point support, so I have to weed out those recruiters... Plus the ones that you can barely understand on the phone (would you like a slushy with that burrito?).

Facebook was all hot 'n heavy for me last year too... Just didn't work out for me to get out there for an interview. They have stupid restrictions on the expenses for someone to get out there (they pay, but they cap how much it will be. Basically making it so that I'd have $0 for any food or transport to the office from the hotel.)...
 
Yeah, I haven't had such a hard time in the past finding work either. The problem where I live is that I'm about 30 miles from Los Angeles, but for a commute it's 2+ hours in traffic, and that's where 80% of the jobs pop up for the recruiters. I did my 6 years of commuting 2+ hours, I'm DONE with that!

To complicate things even further, my wife just gave birth to our first daughter on January 7th. So since then, I've been playing Mr. Mom. "220, 221, whatever it takes!" ;)

Good luck with your interview though!
Oh, and by the way... I have the camera in your avatar. That's my biggest hobby, probably above brewing. ;)
 
what about just adding a jar of Maraschino cherries that would give it a nice red color and alot of flavor
 
Gordzilla said:
what about just adding a jar of Maraschino cherries that would give it a nice red color and alot of flavor
Click to expand...

Dude, you just made me throw up in my mouth...

I have GOOD dried cherries on hand for use... Not cheap either (about $5.50 for a 6oz package)... Mariani brand... Yeah, I know, I paid more in the store than I could have gotten them for online... But I probably made out better since there was no shipping cost involved. :D
 
haha, now that i think of the taste those cherries are nasty i like your option better, come this summer im gonna have to venture up north to the cherry farms and getsome fresh picked cherries to use
 
If you can get enough of them (at a good rate) then you could make a fresh cherry mead, or wine... Another no heat process... :rockin:

If you can't get enough for a batch of wine, or mead, then you could save them and use them in a beer at some point. Could come out tasty if you get some good ones.

Man, I really hope I get a new place soon, so that I can expand my fermentations. Thinking of all that I could do come later in summer, or early fall...

I do plan on picking up one package of the dried cherries every time I go to the grocery store. That way I'll have enough if I want to do something really big with them. :D Of course, when the fresh ones are available, I'll probably use those in another melomel. :D Will need to start it as soon as good ones are in the grocery stores, or farmer's markets. Might even freeze some if it looks like I won't be able to get them long enough. Probably make sure they're good and ripe (i.e. really GOOD) before using/freezing them...
 
if i get this job tomorrow ill be moving out soon gonna get an apartment or small house with two bedrooms one to sleep in one to keep my fermentations in....and yes we have u-pick cherry farms you pick all the cherries you want and pay by the pound
 
Planning pretty much the same thing here... Hope to have access to a basement in the next place, for aging... Will be looking for a 2-3 bedroom place.. One for me, one for my technology (and bottle conditioning/carbonating) and one for fermenting... :D OR, I'll look for a large enough kitchen with either a pantry, or decent sized closet that I can use for my primaries/fermenters. :D

Once I get into the next place, I'll hunt around for farms and such. I know there has to be some that are close enough. Or there has to be farmers markets that will have them at good rates.
 
krazydave said:
I've been in the IT field for about 9 years myself, got laid off back in late 2009 and still can't find crap for a replacement. Interviewed more times than I care to count, and have applied for thousands of jobs at this point.

It's a brutal job market right now, got me considering opening up a LHBS instead of going back to IT.
Click to expand...

ever though of moving out to EU or Asia perhaps?
 
Excellent to hear... I'm still on the job hunt... Might be working a contract soon, that's a decent drive away, but the money could be there. Had my interview from today shifted (waiting for the new day/time) but not too concerned there. Have at least three or four other hot prospects...

BTW, how much lemonade (what kind) and honey did you use?
 
6 cans of minute maid pink lemonade concentrate it was onsale at the grocery store for .79cents, and the honey was some 100% pure honey cant remember the brand but they were 3.50/2lbs so i used 2 of them. I got my Ph levels to 3.3 and used levin EC-1118 yeast with 1.5tsp of DAP, the temp of the mixture when i pitched the yeast was 71 i also preped the yeast before hand warming it up....and i can already hear the batch in the spare bedroom bubbling gotta go check on it

-edit wasnt the lemonade it was my bigfoot clone still blowing bubbles after 9days
 
NICE... I'm going to adjust my OG then... :D I used the same number of cans (same brand and type too) and 4# of store brand hone in my batch. I messed up the start since I didn't get the honey into solution, so I couldn't get an OG... It's since all mixed in, and the stuff has calmed down a lot.

I went with the other yeast, but EC-1118 is a solid choice (I was use that as my typical mead yeast)... You WILL have yeast left over for carbonation.

If both of our batches go dry, we'll be at 13.3% ABV... :D Most excellent...

You put a blow-off tube in the carboy, right? Or are you using a bucket? If you have a tube installed, give it a shake tomorrow afternoon... :eek: Try every 12-24 hours (if you can do 12 hours, great, but at least every 24 roughly)...
 
im using a 6gal bucket with an airlock on it right now. I filled the bucket to aroudn 2.5 gallons then took some hot water put them into the honey jars shook the hell out of them then added to the bucket then topped it off, that way i got all the honey out of the jars. It tasted really good when i did my gravity readings if this turns out good im gonna go to sams club and buy a really big jar of honey i can see honey becoming the expensive party of this creation. I had planned on adding another can of lemonade in a week or 2. Do you think instead of using priming sugar before bottling i could just add 1 more can of lemonade as a primer? So in total 8 total cans of lemonade
 
With the yeast you selected, you could... It will ferment to a higher ABV, of course...

Not sure if I would want to use an entire can to prime with... Depending on what you use for bottles at least... If you go with some that can handle high pressure levels, then go for it. Belgians come to mind. :D Champagne bottles too. I'd just be sure to put the cork cages on both types, so that you don't have projectiles flying around. I would also probably put the boxes of bottles inside plastic bins, just in case things got messy... :eek:

In the bucket you won't be able to see it foam up... Unless you go mead style, pull the lid off, whisk it up and then cover again... Probably don't need to do that... Will be interesting to see how your batch progresses...

There's now, officially, three of us (at least) making hard lemonade right now. :rockin:
 
i was gonna use the carboy but i need to get something to clean it out better, its pretty clean right now but i wanna make sure i get everything out of it before using it again....better idea to prime for bottling, we have a big jar of pink lemonade powder in the pantry maybe ill just take like 3oz of that and treat it like priming sugar...hell maybe ill throw 1/2cup into the fermenter now:ban::drunk:
 
GO NUTS!! Although without knowing how much sugar is in that mix, it will be hard to prime with it (just figuring out how much)...

Look at the can from the lemonade, it has how much sugar per serving there... I believe it's 26g, and 8 servings per container. So, that's 208g of sugar. That comes out to 7.33oz of sugar in the can (over half of the can is basically sugar)... So, I would probably mix one can up really well, then pour about half of it into the mix. Let it ferment out, and then prime with the balance. If you want to use a bit more than half to prime with, so it's closer to 4oz of sugar (equal), I don't see an issue... I probably wouldn't use the entire can at one shot though...
 

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