Alcoholic lemonade

[Longwood-65]

I trying to brew a batch of Alcoholic Lemonade.

However there does not appear to be any fermentation happening.

I was wondering if the acid from the lemons has killed the yeast ( coopers ale packet dry yeast) I pitched 2 packets just because they were there.

I was also wondering if re-hydrating some packet yeast would increase the chance of fermentation starting

Recipe.
Rind of 15 lemons ( Washed and scrubbed)
Juice of 15 lemons ( all pith removed)
2 Kilos sugar
4 litres water.

Boiled Water sugar till disolved,
Brought temp down to gentle simmer and added lemon rind and juice and simmered for a further 20 minutes.
Cooled mix down to 30c and added to fermenter, filled fermenter to 20 litres and piched 2 packets of Cooper packet yeast at 22c.

[Longwood-65]

I re-hydrated a packet of coopers ale yeast making sure it was active then stirred it into the Lemonade mix a few days ago.
Fermentation is is going along nicely now.

Cheers
Ron

[Tipsy]

Please let me know what it tastes like when done.
Cheers

[jello]

Looks like a recipe worth trying.

has it started fermenting yet?

[wrighty]

Longwood im also keen to hear how this went as i have quite a few spare lemons,oranges and manderines.
You may find the yeast will need some nutrient to help it along.With the rind i think 15 lemons worth may be excessive.
Did you let it dry out or just bung it in.A lot of oil in the rind may also kill off fermentation.

[Longwood-65]

Longwood im also keen to hear how this went as i have quite a few spare lemons,oranges and manderines.
You may find the yeast will need some nutrient to help it along.With the rind i think 15 lemons worth may be excessive.
Did you let it dry out or just bung it in.A lot of oil in the rind may also kill off fermentation.

I just dumped the non dried rind into the boil then siezed/strained it out when transferred into the fermentor
Fermentation with the re-hydrated yeast looked like it went okay for 4 or 5 days with the krausen growing and spreading across the top then it appeared to have stalled/stopped.
I'm have been undersided if I will pitch another lot of re-hydrated yeast or Stir it up some more or leave it go for another week. I decided I'll leave it till next weekend and take a hydro reading and decide then. ( just in case the yeast is still alive but working really slow.)

I should have taken an initial reading to find out where it was at and what it hade dropped down to but I didn't so will just have to wing it.

I must admit the original recipe I read mentioned Nutrient for the yeast and between 250-500gms Lactose for for sweetening depending on preference.

Cheers
Ron

[Longwood-65]

I couldn't help myself,
I took a Hydro reading, 1.08. sort tells me fermentation had finished. ( can't really tell because I don't know what the starting level was.)

Had a small taste of the test sample for the hydrometer and it tastes good although I think it will taste a lot better chilled and not at the 22c the sample was, the lemon flavour was a lot milder than I thought it would be. (the taste is like a very mild lemon and tonic water, not alcoholic at all but I reckon it will pack a punch)

the sample was not very clear so will rack and crash chill it till the weekend and then Keg it.

cheers
Ron
p.s I like dry not sweet so it suits me to a tee, if you want some sweetness I would suggest trying only 250gm's lactose for the first one then adjust sweetness from there. personally I don't think it needs it.

[wrighty]

Sounds ok.I did the similar to some processed ginger removed quite a bit of scum off the boil.
Got a sheload of oranges and manderines to use up for somthing.
Was thinking of an orange cyser.Read that some tannins may help to help with acid content and step feed with nutrient.
Ive got 6lt of pure manderine juice in the fridge ran through sampson juicer that removes all seeds and most of the membrane.
Might start off with 6lt apple juice cider ferment that and rack it into the juice when half done.
Anyone done similar recipies.

[Longwood-65]

Well have started drinking it.
It lacks body, if it was a beer you would want to add some ldme next time you made it, not sure if you could add ldme into a lemonade.
The lemon taste is quite mild.
doesn't hold the bubbles as well as I thought it would.
Needs more work and experimentation.
I might add 20g ginger and 500g honey next time

apart from that it tastes ok, quite refreshing on this 39c day.

I'll report back in a couple of hours after I have had a few

Cheers
Ron

[Longwood-65]

The more I drink it the better i like it
Cheers
Ron

[jello]

The more I drink it the better i like it
Cheers
Ron

But isn't that the case for anything alcoholic?

[Longwood-65]

The more I drink it the better i like it
Cheers
Ron

But isn't that the case for anything alcoholic?

True, but I did mean that I may have been over critical with my 1st assessment.

If you have an access of Lemons, it's a cheap brew although more work than doing a K&K.
I will do another but with some adjustments of the ingredients.

changes I would make from the original recipe
15 lemons increased to 20. ( Depending size and juice content)
20g fresh ginger finely sliced (not a big fan of ginger)
2k's sugar
500g Honey
100g lactose
re-hydrated packet yeast
might also see if I can locate some yeast nutrients.

Boiled Water sugar till disolved,
Brought temp down to gentle simmer disolve Honey then add lemon juice and Ginger and simmered for a further 20 minutes.
Cooled mix down to 30c and strain into the fermenter, filled fermenter to 20 litres and pitch re-hydrated yeast and nutrients.

in another pot simmer 1 litre water and add lemon rind simmer for 10-20mins.
strain into a clean container for later use.

After Fermentation has completed.
Add the strained Lemon rind mix into a 2nd Fermenter/Cube/racking container, Strain contents of fermenter onto rind mix and cc' for another week then fill Keg ( or bottle, I would use the same amount of sugar used for beer to carbonate.)


I think doing it this way will give the lemonade a flavour boost as well as taking the oil from the lemon rind out of the fermentation container which may have been the cause ( or part of) of the fermentation issues I originally had.
The straining and racking although adding air into the fermented product is required to give a clean professional looking finished product.

Cheers
Ron

[adz2332]

so that recipe only made 4 ltrs???
edit just re read of course it didnt sorry...
have u given the second recipe a crack yet?

also what yeast would u recomend from a packet? US05??

[Longwood-65]

have u given the second recipe a crack yet?

no not yet

also what yeast would u recomend from a packet? US05??

The yeast I used was the standard Coopers ale yeast ( i had it left over from using different yeasts from the ales)
I did have peoblems getting the yeast started in the Lemonade.

[Fifey]

I have access to lots of lemons, I have a tree and there are lemons all around town that were deposited there when the TORNADO! hit the other weekend.

I'd be interested in doing this, what yeast would be the best to use, and would Champers yeast suffice? I've got a heap of that from the winery.

[bullfrog]

I've made a couple of lemonades and used US-05 in each of them. If an ale yeast can do the job, then there's no doubt at all that a champers yeast can handle the task. My understanding of champers yeast is that it will chew through more than most beer yeasts, and US-05 tends to finish very dry on a lemonade, so you may perhaps want to think about back-sweetening with lactose or stevia, maybe, when it's finished fermenting.