Basically you’re going to ferment a mixture of lemon juice, water, and table sugar. When it’s done fermenting, you add Sparkalloid (a fining) to clear it up. You’ll also add Potassium Sorbate + Potassium metabisulfite. These are stabilizers that basically kill the yeast. Then it gets sweetened to taste. Since the yeast are dead they won’t eat this new sugar.
It’s around 10% alcohol. I usually put it in wine bottles but beer bottles work fine too. Don’t expect to carbonate with sugar though. You’d need kegs for that. Most people like it just fine as an uncarbed drink. It tastes somewhat like a white wine. I serve it in wine glasses.
If you don’t have a “slurry” of yeast you can make a starter. Check the FAQ page for more tips. Don’t bother with a 1 gallon test batch. The ingredients are cheap and everyone loves it. It’s ready to drink in about 2 or 3 months. Mine is still good at 2 years and counting.
If you’re just interested in having something that tastes like hard lemonade as opposed to actually fermenting the lemonade, I’ve had real good success mixing lemonade concentrate, water, vodka and raspberry liqueur, then force carbing. It’s always a bit hit at the summer cookouts, if you’re interested I’ll track down the proportions I use and post.
I’m interested if you’re willing to share. I was going to ferment my normal recipe but have run out of time. This seems like a nice option.[/quote]
Hi sorry been away from the forum for a while, but if you’re still interested here is what I did this past summer, I change it up somewhat from year to year but it’s generally pretty close to this
9 cans lemonade concentrate
12.5 qts water
1 half gal cheap vodka
20 oz cheap raspberry liqueur
Mix it all up in a keg and carb. Should be around 4.5 gallons of roughly 5% abv hard raspberry lemonade. I usually make it about a week or so before I need it to give it time to carb up and make any adjustments as necessary(add more water if too sweet etc). Hope that helps. This year I’ve decided to make Hard Arnold Palmers :shock: …using the Half and Half mix in place of the lemonade and replacing the raspberry liqueur with vodka/water.
