Should I cherry up my lemonade?

[kdn]

Got a batch of hard lemonade in the fermenter, it looks like it's now stopped,gravity is still a bit high, it's 1.011, OG was 1.038. (it has 500gram lactose in it so was expecting 1.006ish)

Anyway I used 1118 yeast and to be honest it doesn't taste that great can taste the lemon but it's dry as anything, no sweetness at all from the lactose. Just thinking, should I dump 2 litres of cherry juice in it to try give it some flavour and let fermentation kick off again? I'm aware cherries sugar content is quite high so I'm wondering if that will dry it out even further?

 

[WayFrae]

Any sweetness from the cherry will ferment out. You could stabilize it with a preservative and back sweeten it. Or just back sweeten it and keep it cold so it doesn’t ferment any more (only if you are kegging it).

 

[kdn]

Thanks its not so much the dryness its the overall taste, it tastes and smells a bit like lemon dishwashing detergent. My concern is, will adding extra fermentables now make it taste even dryer? Or will it retain the same dryness with an added touch of cherry flavour and smell?

 

[CKuhns]

I would be tempted to kick the leminade flavor up and your alcohol level. Sounds to me like you stressed the yeast. Add some frozen lemonade concentrate and let the ferment blow a lot of that dishwashing detergent flavor and smell out the airlock with a good healthy ferment.

Consider trying the following:
- Add enough Frozen Lemonade Concentrate to get to about 1.035 again.
- Check the pH and adjust to between 3.7 and 4.5. Use potassium carbonate (K2CO3) to raise the pH. Lemons and lemon aid are pretty acidic and will stress, kill and or slow your ferment. I suspect the acidity got the yeast and inhibited them.
- Create a yeast starter eirher with the original yeast you used or a wine yeast.
- Add nutrients. I use Fermaid-O to increase the total nitrogen. There are others out there.
- Gently stir it 2xs a day for a few days.

You may not get all the nasty flavor out and it may or may not age out. I had one of my 1sr session meads 8% that tasted a bit like you described. Did the above brought it to 12% and aged it for 3 years before it was drinkable. Now 5 years later is pretty good. Not great but glad I didnt dump it.