Hard Lemonade

[timothio]

Just got my first lot of hard lemonade on the go...

Heated 2 litres of water, dissolved 500 gms sugar in it.

Added juice of 9 lemons (approx 300 ml) and finely grated zest of said lemons.

Removed approx 500 - 600 ml of water from a 5 litre bottle, and added the water/sugar/juice/zest mixture.

Now waiting for ther temp to reduce before I add a good teaspoon of bread yeast, probably in the morning.

Sound OK so far?

I took a hydrometer reading (at 25 oC, a bit high, I know) and was a little disappointed, only 1035 ish... Should I add a shed load more sugar and give it a good shake before I add the yeast to hopefully make a blow your socks off lemonade? I want rocket fuel!!

Thanks...

Tim.

[mattfuzzy]

looking at lemonade recipes online they usually call for 140g caster sugar and 3 or 4 lemons (unwaxed whatever that means) plus 1L water.

to make an alcoholic version you'd use anything from 2 to 4 lemons per 1L (so 10 - 15 lemons in a 5L batch which sounds alot to me, id go with 8 or 9, hell think i used 4 back in the day) adding sugar till you get the gravity you want (10.080 sounds good at around 7 - 8%) the downside with making this (tried years ago along with turbo cider, when TC was fairly new out) is that you really do need a load of sugar (around 1kg) to make it sweet enough to drink, after all, even the fairly decent shop brought "real lemonade" has about 1kg in per 1 - 2L.

best way i found was to buy some decent lemonade (L*dl sell good stuff in 1-1.5L bottles) and mix with vodka.

if you do end up brewing some turbo lemon thats drinkable post up the recipe (now who was it that did a shed load of TC and TL... and about 15 other turbos, about 18 months ago on here?)

E2A: by the way since you're trying to make a smirnoff ice copy, next time you try smirnoff ice, notice how thick with sugar it is, almost a syrup, and think they use vodka also. (usually about 2 shots per 660ml, id go with 2 per 480ml though, tastes better)

[Tequilla6]

Unwaxed lemons mean just that, some of the producers of lemons use wax on the external skin as a preserving agent to stop them drying out and because it makes them look better some would argue. Although it is now easy to get the unwaxed variety from a supermarket. The wax is OK if your not using the skin or peel of the fruit witch I presume you will be.

And yes the sugar is needed as the lemon is being used as an adjunct for flavouring and not as a major source of fermentable sugar.

[timothio]

Well, its all done now, whacked more sugar in it, stuck in the yeast this morning, so far hasnt done a thing, I'll have to give it a while to get going methinks.

I took the OG but cant remember what it was, around 1045 I think...

No idea if my lemons were unwaxed, they were from the Asda Extra Special range so maybe they were (no, I didnt pay full price, that would be silly, they were reduced to 20p for 5).

Must say it tasted damn lovely! Hope it still does after the yeast has done its thang. I got some lactose (milk sugar) to sweeten it up a bit when it comes to bottling, I've read that it can turn out real dry and lactone is, I think, non fermentable...

We'll see, its all good fun!

[lollypopp]

Well, Tim, what's it doing now, fancy having ago at that? why do you call it hard lemonade? good luck with it though!

[timothio]

Hmmm... Would love to say its going like the clappers and I'm really looking forward to a highly alcoholic lemonade, but I'd be lying if I did. After 36+ hours, its doing fcuk all . Not a single bubble coming from the airlock. No bubbles rising in the mix, no nothing.

Ideas anyone? I put my yeast in dry, maybe get a yeast starter together and shove that in, in the hope it will kickstart it?

Please help!!

[mattfuzzy]

only thing i can think of is if you used anything with preservatives in, that would stop fermentation i think.

tip: dont use jif lemon for TC as i once did

[Blue Brew]

I made a batch of this three weeks ago with the following:

Juice of 10 big lemons
1 small jif lemon bottle (55ml I think)
500g sugar (dissolved in 1l of water)
Topped up DJ to top with water and just bunged in Youngs high alcohol wine yeast.

Mine also did nothing for a couple of days and I was getting worried so I gave it a good old shake and it went mental within about 5 mins.
Fermented like mad for two weeks and came down from 1050 to 1000.

What I would say is that it is mouth puckeringly sour .

So I intend to top it up with a a glug of boring lemonade over loads of ice and a couple of limes.

I'm trying it later so I'll let you know how it tastes.

[timothio]

So, 48+ hrs have passed since the yeast was added, I added a bit more yeast just for the hell of it, and then "gently roused" it by shaking the bejezus out of it. This was a couple of hours ago, and now...? Nowt. Not a sausage. I think there must be something very wrong going on here. Maybe the grated rind had something bad on it? Or would the acidity of the lemon juice cause the yeast to not work? Or maybe its simply that I'm a cheapskate and used bakers yeast rather than brewers yeast. Who knows. Still, I'm not going to give up (yet), I'll give it another couple of days and if there's still no signs of life, the sewer rats will get the lot.

Disappointing, but I 'spose its not like I spent a fortune on it or anything... Whole lot cost less than 1.50.

[O'Henry]

Try putting something like vaseline on any of the seals where air could escape. Ie. The lip where the bung is and the join of the airlock and hole (if it has one). Maybe this will help if it has a leak somewhere. Other than that, not sure really. Sorry to hear it didnt work out so well. My attempt was terrible for another reason (bad instruction reading/wrong ingredient inclusion).

[timothio]

Well I'm pretty sure there's no gaps anywhere, all I have to do is touch the side of the bottle lightly and you can see the water in the airlock move. I guess that means its pretty airtight. I havent yet chucked it down the drain, and I wonder if maybe something could actually be happening... There are a few little bubbles on the surface, not a great deal, and the position of the water in the airlock does change... although I havent actually seen it bubble yet, and it sure as hell isnt fermenting like any of my TC's. I wondered if the "moving" water in the airlock could just be down to changes in atmospheric pressure?

I guess I'll just have to keep my eye on it and pray to the gods of alcohol...

Edit: Hows about if I stick in some more yeast? I got some proper wine yeast now, I could whack a teaspoon of that in and give it a good rouse, but dont want to end up with something that tastes of nothing but yeast. What will happen to any old yeast in the brew, will it just sink to the bottom? If thats the case I can rack off and get rid of it...

[lollypopp]

Why not rack it off, then with a little sugar, say about 25 grams, make a yeast starter, (brewers yeast this time) and see what it does? just a thought here, have you got it in the warm? I was wondering if the acidity level was a little high, I know some meads take for ever Tim, I know this isn't a mead, but perhaps the chemistry is similiar? would be interesting to see what happens to this brew, but for goodness sake don't tip it yet, even if you do in the end, you'll learn quite a lot from this one, I mean the likes of us like to play, so we're going to get the odd one that won't run?

[Benson_JV]

My first TC took forever to go into overdrive, just because it was too cold so aye make sure its in the warm.

After seeing this recipe though i've gone out and bought some lemons. I'm gonna give it a go and in true Benson Style (as KevP would say ) make it nice and strong

[timothio]

Well, I got impatient last night and whacked another teaspoon of yeast in (wine yeast this time), then invigorated it a little (a lot).

This morning I can confirm that it is indeed fermenting, albeit very s..l..o..w..l..y. Maybe it just needs a little time to get going now (glad I didnt flush it now!).

Temp is OK I think, its in my front room, as are all my brews, its usually around 19/20 C, but does get down to about 14/15 sometimes. My TC's are doing good in this temp so wouldnt have thought it would be too cold.

What I'll probably do is leave it for a week or so, then rack it off with some more sugar. This of course assuming it carries on fermenting and doesnt decide to give up on me!

Cheers all! (and good luck Benson, hope yours isnt as problematic as mine has been!)

[Benson_JV]

Just to say, i've set mine off, the juice of 12 small lemons, some of the zest, about a kilo of sugar (OG was about 1.110! Now thats Benson Style ) and topped up with water.