I am planning to make and bottle carbonate a hard lemonade and have a couple of questions.
Perusing the internet I’ve found where a lot of people have problems with fermentation because of the acidity level in lemons. Because lemons only have a small amount of sugar (1.46 g per ¼ cup or 1.65 ounces per gallon of pure juice) they really don’t contribute anything to ABV. That led me to this question. Why not just leave the lemon juice out until bottling?
I’m thinking of doing a 20 minute boil in 4 gallons of water to dissolve and sterilize some extra light DME (12.5%) along with corn sugar (87.5%) to achieve the desired ABV. Cooling, pitching champagne yeast, and fermenting to completion.
When the fermentation is complete, I plan to combine with 1 gallon of natural lemon juice sweetened to taste using lactose, priming sugar, possibly some yeast nutrient, and bottle. I’m trying to achieve a carbonated Lemon Malted Beverage (i.e. Mike’s). While putting my recipe together on BeerSmith I noticed that lactose possessed a potential contribution to SG. Upon further research, I read where certain yeasts can actually partially breakdown lactose. Is it safe to assume that champagne yeast will not ferment lactose?
Any contributing thoughts on this process?
Perusing the internet I’ve found where a lot of people have problems with fermentation because of the acidity level in lemons. Because lemons only have a small amount of sugar (1.46 g per ¼ cup or 1.65 ounces per gallon of pure juice) they really don’t contribute anything to ABV. That led me to this question. Why not just leave the lemon juice out until bottling?
I’m thinking of doing a 20 minute boil in 4 gallons of water to dissolve and sterilize some extra light DME (12.5%) along with corn sugar (87.5%) to achieve the desired ABV. Cooling, pitching champagne yeast, and fermenting to completion.
When the fermentation is complete, I plan to combine with 1 gallon of natural lemon juice sweetened to taste using lactose, priming sugar, possibly some yeast nutrient, and bottle. I’m trying to achieve a carbonated Lemon Malted Beverage (i.e. Mike’s). While putting my recipe together on BeerSmith I noticed that lactose possessed a potential contribution to SG. Upon further research, I read where certain yeasts can actually partially breakdown lactose. Is it safe to assume that champagne yeast will not ferment lactose?
Any contributing thoughts on this process?