Hard lemonade / Skeeter 4 Summer 2019

SSBrew - 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
HiImBrian said:
I like what I'm reading and think I'll give the old hard lemonade thing a go!

I've got a kolsch that I'm about ready to cold crash, which means access to loads of WLP830 lager yeast. I think I might just way over pitch and see what happens!
Click to expand...

That sounds interesting. I'm interested in hearing about how that works out for you.
 
I put yeast in mine yesterday morning, realized the bucket was too full to put the lid on and then had to scoop out some liquid. The yeast got mixed under the surface when I did this. No yeast smell and no bubbles at all today.

A few hours ago, I removed more liquid from the bucket and transferred about 2 cups of liquid from my super-actively-fermenting blueberry wine into the lemon-berry. I hope it starts something. I'm a little worried that it won't like the acid difference. I'll be away for a couple of days and don't think I have time to get any more yeast before I leave.

Edit: I just dug the yeast package out of the garbage. There were about 5 grains of yeast still in the corner, so I added those as well with some energizer. Really hoping for bubbles before I leave tonight.
 
Last edited:
Blacksmith1 said:
Just about the time i thought i'd have to repitch, mine took off. Hopefully yours will do the same.
Click to expand...

Thanks.

I just went down and removed the fruit bag and some of the juice from the lemon-berry to make room in the fermenter. Then transferred the bag of blueberries from the bubbling blueberry wine into the lemon-berry and added some of the fermenting blueberry wine as well. Dumped the leftover juice from the lemon-berry into the blueberry wine to get it back up to 5 gallon mark. I'm hoping this will get the lemon started.

Too bad I have to be away. I should have timed this better.
 
EricaM said:
I just went down and removed the fruit bag and some of the juice from the lemon-berry to make room in the fermenter. Then transferred the bag of blueberries from the bubbling blueberry wine into the lemon-berry and added some of the fermenting blueberry wine as well. Dumped the leftover juice from the lemon-berry into the blueberry wine to get it back up to 5 gallon mark. I'm hoping this will get the lemon started.
Click to expand...

The lemon has airlock movement. :happydance:
 
Last edited:
Cheers! This bad boy is awesome - it's my Extra Tart -- added acid blend & pure Lime Juice Concentrate. Lip puckering goooooood [emoji111]

0518191746a.jpeg
 
Racked the wine off the fruit today. Probably could have left it a couple more days. Still airlock movement, but slowed down. Sg 1.016 (originally 1.074). I tasted it and it doesn't taste very good. I don't taste the lemon at all. I'll try it again next time I rack it, but at the moment I'm thinking I'll need to add some kind of fruit syrup when I bottle it.

I racked my blueberry today as well and it tastes fantastic. Too sweet, but it's still working...
 
Yeah... I think I jumped the gun a bit. My husband wanted his work bench back to cut some wood and not sure how many days until I'd get it back, so if I had to move the wine, then I thought I would rack it now too. I didn't want to leave it a long time with the mushy fruit. How long is it ok to leave it in the bucket with the mushy berries? (for next time).

I'm sure it will be fine anyway. I'll just have fun cleaning yeast out of a carboy instead of a bucket. The wines are both pretty colors, that's for sure.
 
Last edited:
My batch is still bubbling away, will likely give it another 10 days at least, I have a bottle-neck in packaging in my pipeline right now and the limeaide is happy to bubbly away so that's fine by me.
 
EricaM said:
Racked the wine off the fruit today. Probably could have left it a couple more days. Still airlock movement, but slowed down. Sg 1.016 (originally 1.074). I tasted it and it doesn't taste very good. I don't taste the lemon at all. I'll try it again next time I rack it, but at the moment I'm thinking I'll need to add some kind of fruit syrup when I bottle it.

I racked my blueberry today as well and it tastes fantastic. Too sweet, but it's still working...
Click to expand...
I just checked my Cranberry-lime as well. Finally down to 1.002, just a few more points to go. Mine tasted better at .002 than it did at .016, so hopefully yours will start appealing to you as the last little sugar ferments away.

I'm kind of agog at the amount of backsweetening sugar in the original recipe. I suspect I won't use quite so much and will probably go for a barely sweet option.
 
CallyBrewster said:
I just checked my Cranberry-lime as well. Finally down to 1.002, just a few more points to go. Mine tasted better at .002 than it did at .016, so hopefully yours will start appealing to you as the last little sugar ferments away.

I'm kind of agog at the amount of backsweetening sugar in the original recipe. I suspect I won't use quite so much and will probably go for a barely sweet option.
Click to expand...
Thanks for letting me know your experience. Hope mine is better at lower sg as well.

If I sweeten, I may use lime syrup. I generally don't like sweet wine, but have a couple of people in my family who do. If they drink this, maybe they'll stay out of my blueberry.

I have a question. If I wanted to make the lemon sparkling and sweet, how could I do this? If I add campden, then it will stop the yeast, so I can't let it keep fermenting in the bottles to make co2.
If I don't add campden, then it will ferment dry in the bottles, right?

I've never done this before. I had a sweet wine kit that I put the sulfites into, then bagged and refrigerated. After a couple of weeks, I put some in flip top bottles with sugar to see if it would carbonate. It seems to be doing something, because I popped the top of one after a few days and got steam that came out. So... maybe it works even with the campden?

Edit: I checked sg again just now. Lemon-raspberry is .098 and still working. It is starting to taste a bit better.
Blueberry is 1.019. I didn't taste the blueberry, but it's still fizzing away as well.
 
Last edited:
EricaM said:
I have a question. If I wanted to make the lemon sparkling and sweet, how could I do this? If I add campden, then it will stop the yeast, so I can't let it keep fermenting in the bottles to make co2.
If I don't add campden, then it will ferment dry in the bottles, right?
Click to expand...

Yeah, the problem is you can bottle still, sweet stuff, or you can bottle dry fizzy stuff, but sweet, fizzy is problematic. Sadly, the original Skeeter Pee recipe only shows how to sweeten.

The cider makers in this forum who are bottle carbing sweet cider that is meant to be fizzy do it by 1) fermenting out or cold crashing, 2) racking, 3) back sweetening, 4) bottle carbing and then 5) pasteurizing. There's a sticky at the top of the forum that has very detailed steps for this.

I've never tried pasteurizing as I don't have bottling equipment at all, just kegs. I'll be force carbing my batch in one of those half-sized 2.5 gallon corny kegs, with the expectation that I may still have a mild ferment going on.

Note that if you decide to go the potassium stabilization route, I think you need both the potassium metabisulfite and the potassium sorbate, not just the campden tablets. This thread might help: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/cider-sweetness.68481/#post-1000661
 
Just tried the first bottle of my limeaide. Pretty impressed honestly it has the limey hint at the beginning and end with a bit of heat throughout.

I added a scored jalapeno tot he bottling bucket when I bottled and I think the touch of heat is nice, really a backdrop to the lime and alcohol, but there if you know where to taste.
 
So I popped another bottle of this last night, had my girl try it and she gave the cursory, "It's pretty good!" OK I think that could really mean good or bad. Then she asked me if I had another one cold, the real test. With her endorsement seems like I'll be doing variations of this all summer.
 
Let it settle a few days and racked it again today. Cleared some but not see through. Light layer of lees and sediment. Stole a taste at room temp and WoW! I see why this is popular. It needs nothing other than to chill. It tastes like homemade lemonade with light sugar. I've never been a fan of candy sweet lemonade so this is perfect. I have no idea what the ABV is.

Tomorrow this is history!
 
I racked lemon-berry yesterday, after several days of no airlock movement. Since it was in a carboy already, I could also see no bubbles at all and a layer on the bottom. It's about 10% abv. Still cloudy, but tastes much better. I can taste both the lemon and the berries. It's very dry and needs to be sweetened. I tried some in a cup with lime cordial to sweeten and it tasted like cough medicine, so that's not going to work. Cran-raspberry cocktail was better, but all I could taste was the cranberry, so that won't work either. I may add plain sugar, or just leave it as it is and mix it with 7-up when I drink it.

My blueberry is still working after 3 weeks and so far it's at 16% and tastes very strongly of alcohol... and blueberries.
 
Last edited:
I want to keg, but the bubbles won’t stop. Longest ferment I’ve ever had!
 
bmd2k1 said:
Gonna jack up 1gal with some jalapenos [emoji111]
Click to expand...
Ooh, I was thinking of doing this with a little bit of mine. My brother-in-law loves spicy. Can I add some jalapenos in after it's done fermenting and let it sit with them for a month, then bottle?
 
EricaM said:
Ooh, I was thinking of doing this with a little bit of mine. My brother-in-law loves spicy. Can I add some jalapenos in after it's done fermenting and let it sit with them for a month, then bottle?
Click to expand...
I only add after fermentation is complete [emoji111] I use bottled & sliced jalapenos from Sam's Club -- 10 or so per gal.

Cheers [emoji57]
 
I racked mine today.
I had already added the clearing agent a while ago and it's nice and clear now. I thought it needed something to make it taste better since it's quite sour and bland, so I tried some jalapeno and sugar in a cup with it and that was fantastic, so I added jarred jalapenos to the carboy when I racked it. Since I added "fruit", even though it's not fermenting, do I need to do the clearing agent again later? Is that a bad thing to do? Will it stay clear without it?

Also racked blueberry today and added the clearing agent.
It's very strong. Planning to let it sit with oak cubes once it's clear.
I'm thinking about adding some juice to cut the alcohol and sweeten it a bit. Would white grape juice be a good choice, or is there something else that works better for blueberry?
Sorry about all the questions, I'm quite new to this.
 
Last edited:
bmd2k1 said:
I only add after fermentation is complete [emoji111] I use bottled & sliced jalapenos from Sam's Club -- 10 or so per gal.

Cheers [emoji57]
Click to expand...

I added peppers from a jar to mine a week ago. Added 10 per gallon. It still didn't have any heat a few days later, so I scored a fresh jalapeno and dropped that in. Today, still no heat, but it tastes and smells like jalapenos. Can you think of any reason why there's no burn?
 
EricaM said:
I added peppers from a jar to mine a week ago. Added 10 per gallon. It still didn't have any heat a few days later, so I scored a fresh jalapeno and dropped that in. Today, still no heat, but it tastes and smells like jalapenos. Can you think of any reason why there's no burn?
Click to expand...
Sorry...no clue on that [emoji15] The jarred jalapenos I get from Sam's work great all the time. Good luck -- maybe a pepper expert here can chime in with some insight.
 
At 49 days I’m at 1.040 which means I’m at 9.45%. I think it tastes a bit boozy with sweet body and just the right amount of tart at the end. I would like to ferment out more of the sugars, even though I’m still getting a nice healthy bubble every two seconds, I’m thinking of pitching some champagne yeast. I can always back sweeten by adding more lemonade.
 
Yeah, but I screwed up and made it from memory. OG was 1.121 or something stupid. I have it written down, just not with me.
 

Similar threads

Thinkey
Hard Lemonade...my crazy way
Replies
11
Views
6K
Thinkey
Thinkey
C
Hard Lemonade Malt Beverage
Replies
9
Views
3K
Nate
Nate
InkBird 300

Latest posts

Back
Top