The US is weirdly averse to sparkling lemonade, usually offering it flat in deceptive conventional soda cans. Visit civilization, like Australia, Europe, or even India and you can get the real bubbly thing (Fanta or upscale brands). I think the problem is that US lemons are so harsh that adding carbonic acid compounds the marketing problem. Note how bland US "lemon-lime" soda drinks are... just tasteless gutless nothing.
Anyway I sampled some Chanh, Vietnamese style Lime soda, which I guess can also be made with lemons https://www.popsugar.com/food/Happy-Hour-Soda-Chanh-Simple-Sparkling-Lemonade-282776 and it was good, although actually tasted best at room temperature because mine had little mellowing sugar content.
So I took a hard look at "Simply Lemonade" bottle which is a pulpy, fast expiring 15% fresh juice in the fridge case. It's good although expensive and gutless. Not just sweetened to death but apparently with special bland lemons, and I don't mean the heavenly complex sweet ones grown in the Sorrento region. So how do I turn lemonade back into lemons? I threw some bread yeast in.
I didn't expect good results because yeast can make a foul combo with pulp, like orange or applesauce. After letting the lemonade rise to room temp, I just put in a bit of yeast in the evening because I didn't trust their odd plastic bottle or cap to stand up to pressure. Checked it about an hour later and it was in runaway pressure mode alteady! Unsealed the cap the smallest possible amount and put it in the fridge overnight. Maybe I should have tried the Cuban approach of putting a condom where the cap goes and pricking the smallest possible hole. Then it can sit unattended and indicate when pressure and yeast activity is at the stage you want.
The next day it had a pleasing trace of bubbles, but no difference from the regular taste . Later it went flat, but with no off-taste which is rare from a failed experiment. I am out of the product, but wanted to note it looks like a rich area for experimentation and the counterintuitive way it ferments should leave room for delicious results eventually. There is also a "simply orange" again in 59 ounce expensive bottles, but I object to them offering "low acid" variants. Anything to dumb down good natural tangy food by treating consumers like picky children. Weren't tart natural yogurt cultivations dumbed way down to the current bland pudding?
Anyway I sampled some Chanh, Vietnamese style Lime soda, which I guess can also be made with lemons https://www.popsugar.com/food/Happy-Hour-Soda-Chanh-Simple-Sparkling-Lemonade-282776 and it was good, although actually tasted best at room temperature because mine had little mellowing sugar content.
So I took a hard look at "Simply Lemonade" bottle which is a pulpy, fast expiring 15% fresh juice in the fridge case. It's good although expensive and gutless. Not just sweetened to death but apparently with special bland lemons, and I don't mean the heavenly complex sweet ones grown in the Sorrento region. So how do I turn lemonade back into lemons? I threw some bread yeast in.
I didn't expect good results because yeast can make a foul combo with pulp, like orange or applesauce. After letting the lemonade rise to room temp, I just put in a bit of yeast in the evening because I didn't trust their odd plastic bottle or cap to stand up to pressure. Checked it about an hour later and it was in runaway pressure mode alteady! Unsealed the cap the smallest possible amount and put it in the fridge overnight. Maybe I should have tried the Cuban approach of putting a condom where the cap goes and pricking the smallest possible hole. Then it can sit unattended and indicate when pressure and yeast activity is at the stage you want.
The next day it had a pleasing trace of bubbles, but no difference from the regular taste . Later it went flat, but with no off-taste which is rare from a failed experiment. I am out of the product, but wanted to note it looks like a rich area for experimentation and the counterintuitive way it ferments should leave room for delicious results eventually. There is also a "simply orange" again in 59 ounce expensive bottles, but I object to them offering "low acid" variants. Anything to dumb down good natural tangy food by treating consumers like picky children. Weren't tart natural yogurt cultivations dumbed way down to the current bland pudding?
