Hard Lemonade

[Richard]

So, I took a look at the Skeeter Pee recipe and decided a few things:
Firstly that 10% is insane for a drink described as "refreshing".
Second that I'd be using S-05 rather than wine yeast (I hate the hangovers that I seem to get from 1118 in particular).
Third - why on earth do other recipes dump in all the lemon juice up front when you can just dump it in afterwards? Various reports of sulfurous emissions from the ferment and additional problems with the low pH; I figure ferment first - lemons later.

I did pinch the idea of inverting the sugar, since whereas a pound or so in an otherwise malt wort would probably be fine, 4 pounds is probably going to stress the yeast out some... I've had weird flavours in sucrose-based ginger-beers before that I think were down to this. I will probably back-sweeten using Ksorb + Kmeta.

5.5 Gallons:
2Kg Sucrose.
2x32oz bottles of real lemon.
Yeast Nutrient (stuff with yeast hulls).
Buttload of S-05 slurry (full cake from a pale-ale).

OG should be 1.037, fermenting down to 1.000 will yield ~5% ABV.

Invert sugar by dumping half a bottle (16oz) of the real lemon juice into a pan, add a gallon of water, and boil for twenty minutes. Top up to 5.5 gallons with cold water. Add yeast nutrient; pitch yeast. Add lemon juice later when done fermenting, to taste, along with back-sweetening sugar and Ksorb/Kmeta.

[Chris Craig]

I'd love to try this when it's done.

[Richard]

Well so much for "trouble fermenting"... this thing has a krausen on it two inches high

[Chris Craig]

So, basically, you're fermenting a sugar syrup. And, when that finishes, you'll add the lemon, stabilize, and carbonate?

[Richard]

Yup.

[Chris Craig]

Cool.  Makes sense.  I don't know why I never thought of that. I'll give it a go.

[brew]

I have a bag of brewers crystals on the next grain order - think I'll try some of it with this method...

[Richard]

afaik that's pretty much maltose + glucose so you could skip the lemon juice for inversion and just boil a little to sanitise.

[Richard]

This had no problems fermenting; got all the way down to 0.995. The smell is a little sulphurous, so I'm shaking + venting the keg as it carbs to try and flush the hydrogen sulphide. I suspect this could use a secondary. Despite emptying all the beer atop of the slurry there is a faint beer-like aroma and taste that could be due to the yeast, or the slurry containing some particles from the "donor beer".

When adding to the carboy I just added a cup of boiled sugar in about three cups of water since I couldn't be bothered stabilising. I'm counting on the temperature of the keezer (3C) and the pressure of force-carbing (30PSI) to inhibit the yeast.

I'm going to run this again, except this time I'll use a secondary and fresh yeast. Will report back...

[HappyHax0r]

Are you telling us it's got a little egg on the nose Richard?... Honestly? .

[Richard]

Yeah... basically, yes

At least I'm open up-front with the problem and don't serve it to the unsuspecting public  

[brew]

Doing one of these:

7 cans lemonade concentrate
3 cans limade concentrate

1 tsp yeast energizer
1 packet 1118

3KG Sugar
water to 5 gallons

Inverting sugar with a pinch of citric acid.

Should be interesting...

[Chris Craig]

Doing one of these:

7 cans lemonade concentrate
3 cans limade concentrate

1 tsp yeast energizer
1 packet 1118

3KG Sugar
water to 5 gallons

Inverting sugar with a pinch of citric acid.

Should be interesting...

I've done this before.  It turned out pretty good actually.  You may want to use some nutrient as well.  Save back half the nutrient and energizer for when the fermentation slows down (about 4 or 5 days).

[Richard]

At a guess you're looking at about 8% ABV there brew...

[brew]

Yeah I was really shooting for just a bit extra from the second bag o sugar, but there was more than I thought... hmmm.... at 19.8 brix...