Does that sound right for lemonade?

[Laurin]

Hi,
I want to make some hard lemonade for the early BBQ season. I looked at many recipes and kind of mocked up my own one now.
I am still quite new to the brewing business and it would be great if anybody who has a bit more experience could check if the following recipe sounds alright.


Ingredients

ca 23l water
2.3kg of sugar (probably with a bit of dark sugar for flavour)
juice and zest of 15 lemons
zest of 5 oranges
250ml of bottled lemon juice (contains Potassium metabisulphite)
10 teabags of green tea with lemon
1 cup of chopped ginger
5 tsp yeast nutrients
1 sachet of Lalvin K1V-1116 All Purpose Yeast (make a starter a couple of days before)


Instructions

- I would dissolve all sugar in pan with the 250ml lemon juice and some water and simmer it a bit
- boil first the chopped ginger for 30 min, then add all the zest simmer a bit more and strain it.
- make the tea and let it steep for 15 min or so.
- pour everything in the fermentation bucket and fill up to 23l.
- ad nutrients and yeast starter and aerate with a whisk.


If my calculations are right I should end up with a OG of about 1.040 which should ferment to just over 5%.


Cheers and thanks in advance for any help.


Laurin.

 

[RobWalker]

K-sorbate will inhibit yeast production. Not sure if you can boil it out but it's not likely to ferment with that.

Don't underestimate dark sugar, you don't need very much to get a deeper colour at all. Maybe light brown soft would be more to your taste...the molasses flavour is heavily exaggerated after fermentation too.

Not brewed anything like this myself but interested to see how it goes, good luck!

 

[Laurin]

Well I guess it means buying more lemons then or find juice with no preservatives.

What if I would use some golden syrup or light muscovado instead of some dark sugar. I am thinking of adding about 500g not more probably even less.

 

[Laurin]

I was able to get cheap lemons (4 for 50p). I bought 20 and will do the brewing in the next few days.
I also bought Earl Grey tea instead of green tea with lemon. All I need now is just some ginger and golden syrup.

I had a look in a charity shop and found a battery operated lemon squeezer. I did not have one at all and I could not be bothered to squeeze all of the lemons with just my hands.

When I mixed up the batch I will post the final recipe.


Laurin

 

[artyb]

i used some limes when i made mine gave it a bite... :thumb:

also joined two pieces of wood [slat style] together with a hinge, and used it to squeeze the lemons,

 

[artyb]

i also chopped and boiled the lemons in the water, then left them to steep..

 

[Devonhomebrew]

after fermentation you can add the lemon juice with metasul. in it if you want it carbed then you cant as this will case the yeast to die.

 

[Laurin]

Thanks for the advice artyb and Devonhomebrew. Much appreciated.

 

[Laurin]

Today was brew day and I made 5 gallons of lemonade. Lots of squeezing and stirring but it smelled fantastic in the end.

I changed the recipe slightly so here is the updated version.

Ingredients

20 lemons (juice & zest)
5 oranges (zest)
100g ginger
10 teabags of Earl Grey
2kg of white sugar
1 jar (680g) of golden syrup
5 tsp yeast nutrients
yeast starter (0.5l water + 5tbs sugar + Lalvin K1V-1116 All Purpose Yeast)

All the ingredients. The wine bottle has the starter in it, which I started 2 days earlier.

The zest of 20 lemons and 5 oranges.

Golden syrup and the ginger is simmered in the smaller pot. The bigger one has the 2kg of sugar dissolved in it.

20 lemons squeezed. I ended up with about 1.25l of juice. Luckily I bought a juicer a couple of days before.

The plastic jug in the back has the earl grey tea in it and the lemon juice. With the funnel and the muslin in
the jug the ginger and zest is filtered to just get the zesty and zingy juice goodness.

The colour of the lemonade after filling up with water to 5 gallons was golden brownish. The gravity was
about 1.042, just as calculated before.


I can' t wait till its fermented, bottled and a bit matured to enjoy it at a BBQ. I can post more detailed instructions if anybody wants them.

Hope you enjoyed that.

Laurin

 

[bobsbeer]

You may want to backsweeten before bottling. It will be very dry. Use a nonfermentable sugar if you want it carbonated, or use CT and Pot Sorb then granulated sugar if you want a still lemonade.

 

[cumbrian brewer]

im going to try this in the next week or so, how long will it take to ferment out? i will force carbonate in a corney should be nice for the summer, fancy doing an orange one as well :party:

 

[Laurin]

Hi Cumbrian,
I am not sure as I have not that much experience but I would guess somewhere between 1-2 weeks or so to fully ferment.
I am not 100% sure if my fermentation started yet (48h after pitching the yeast) the airlock does not bubble yet.
But when I opened the bucket I saw a few bubbles on the surface and the little bit of pulp floats on the top, so it seems to ferment.
The temperature is about 2C higher that the ambient temperature, I hope the bucket is just not properly airtight and that is the reason why the airlock is not going yet.

Give me a shout if you want more detailed instructions for it.


Laurin

 

[Laurin]

I checked the gravity today and my suspicion was right, it is not fermenting. I have no idea why, because the starter was bubbling well. If it is something in the mix then I can only imagine it to be some stuff that was on the zest, but I scrubbed them all thoroughly.
I pitched another sachet of the same yeast again today and raised the temperature up to 22C in the start hopefully making it a bit easier for it. Hopefully this will work.

Can anybody think of different reason why it does not ferment?


Laurin

 

[pittsy]

hi laurin , in the ginger beer recipe post many had problems with fermenting and in the end a champagne yeast was needed (although i used a sparkling wine 1 ) maybe its the same with this as there are similar ingredients , don't know for sure just a thought :)

 

[Laurin]

There is no action yet. I will wait for another 24h-48h and see, if there is nothing going then, I will use some Gervins Champagne yeast and hope for the best.
The juice looked all good when I added the yeast yesterday; no bad smells or anything else.

Thanks for the advice pittsy.

 

[pittsy]

to be fair 5 days is enough id go fir it asap extra and other yeast wont hurt it :thumb:

 

[RobWalker]

I don't know if i'm making this up, but something is playing in the back of my mind with lemon juice affecting fermentation...

 

[pittsy]

yeah i think that was mentioned in the orginal ginger beer recipe post , champagne or sparkling yeast shorts it out though , ive got a ginger beer with 2 large lemons and 4 small limes brewing away nicely just now :)

 

[Laurin]

The lemon juice I used was from freshly squeezed lemons. I think the potassium sorbate in bottled lemon juice can be problematic for the yeast. But to be fair I added more than 1 litre on 5 gallons and lots of zest, that all makes it probably hard for the yeast.

I give the yeast I added yesterday a chance till tomorrow evening. If its still not doing anything I will pitch the champagne yeast.

The berry cider I made about 2 weeks earlier was done in about 5 days and worked totally fine, but I used a different yeast.

 

[Laurin]

The airlock did not do anything so I mixed some Gervin No3 Champagne/Restart Yeast. When I opened the bucket it had bubbles on it and the gravity reading went down by 0.005. To make sure I mixed in the yeast anyway.

Hopefully the starting problems will not affect the taste too much.