Seltzer. Help!

[Brooothru]

So my daughter and son-in-law are moving into their new 'dream house', with a pool and an outdoor kitchen with a custom built kegerator. Neither one particularly likes beer, but they do like to entertain with guests who do (Me, in particular). Daughter is a wine drinker like her Mom. SIL, though an occasional beer fan, prefers hard seltzer. I've got a couple of Torpedo kegs with Sanke D ports, so I decided to make a couple of gallons of grapefruit seltzer High Noon knock-off to celebrate the grand opening. The only trouble is, I've never actually made a flavored seltzer.

After doing my due diligence (which is to say, did a ten second internet search) I found a few recipes that all make it sound pretty simple: dextrose, turbo yeast, nutrients, and flavoring. Mix, boil, ferment, chill, flavor to taste, force carbonate. That's it! But is it really all there is? I've got a reputation to defend here, so any hot tips either in recipe or process? I'll be brewing up about 3 gallons, so how much flavoring should I think about using? Does it really only take 3~4 days to ferment out the 100% dextrose (that part seems logical, actually).

And bottom line: does it actually taste like High Noon? TIA.

 

[BrewerofBeers]

Shoot, once I was almost through the first paragraph I was thinking, time to show these folks some good beer!

Don't short change yourself here. You said it, you know you need to produce a good product. I would suggest brewing a practice run of the high noon if you have time. Back to my original thought...beer.

Ok, back to your target audience. Another idea is blowing their socks off with store-bought unfiltered apple juice, and ferment as usual with a high-attenuating yeast. It must be unfiltered and only apple juice (added Vitamin C is ok). Where I live you can buy the stuff. I simply added WLP001 -- not ideal -- straight into the jug, and fermented as usual. I blew the socks off someone who knows what they like!

I also plan to learn how to make hard seltzers for kegs. People who don't like much else can agree with 'em.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

Bumping this thread.. my wife wants me to make hard seltzer, I've read a little, seems easy, but I'm also wondering about the flavoring portion, using actual fruit vs using powders or flavor extracts. Any first hand experience? For example she is interested in cucumber lime.. there are flavors all over the interwebs but wanted some input from the folks I trust.. the hbt community.

 

[VTX1300]

I have.only used natural extract, blackberry most recently. Never tried real fruit or powders.