Step 1: Mise en Place, Starter
Ok, so this is basically fermented lemonade. I'm trying to make something that my wife will enjoy drinking. She hates beer. The one thing that all styles have in common is that they all taste like beer. And she hates that taste. I thought about trying my hand at EdWort's Apfelwine, since she has been known to enjoy commercial hard ciders. But, I wanted something a little lighter and refreshing for the hot summer months. This one seems to fit the bill perfectly. The recipe was taken directly from this website and all credit should go to the original author.
I considered calling it "Lemonade Wine" because I'm trying to elevate its image a little bit. The guy who originated this recipe calls it "Skeeter Pee." Hard Lemonade would be a perfect name for it, but he was trying to differentiate it from the commercial hard lemonades on the market, and rightfully so. This beverage is not at all the same thing, and puts that other stuff to shame. Still, I certainly can't call it Skeeter Pee and have any hope that my wife will drink it.
"Here, Honey; I made you some Skeeter Pee."
"No Thank You. Thank you though."
Hmmmmm...yeah.
I came up with the name "Drunken Lemon." This is a simple, easy summer sipper, so it shouldn't take itself too seriously--but at the same time, it should carry some level of sophistication. "Drunken Lemon" is sufficiently playful, but not quite sophisticated enough, so I translated it into French: citron (lemon), and ivre (drunk) combined into one brand new, perfectly silly word that sounds sophisticated. Nice!
Citronivre
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| Mis en Place. This thing is basically just pure lemon juice, a little wine tannin, some water and lots and lots of sugar. Oh and of course some heavy duty wine yeast. |
The true recipe calls for a yeast slurry from a previous batch of wine. Since I don't make wine, I don't have any wine yeast slurry. Instead, I will be making a starter from two fresh packets of Lalvin EC-1118 (wine yeast derived from Champagne) and one half gallon of Newman's Own Virgin Lemonade. The significance of the lemonade I chose is that it contains no preservatives (whose job it is precisely to inhibit yeast activity), artificial sweeteners, or other silly chemistry. It's just lemons, sugar, and water to give this yeast a fighting chance.
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| Gravity reading of the lemonade shows about 1.044, so just about right for a starter. |
I'm also adding a little yeast nutrient, yeast energizer, and aerating the bajezzus out of this starter before pitching the yeast. There is clearly a healthy dose of concern over the health and vitality of the yeast, since it's going into an environment that's a bit more hostile than it's used to. That's why the recipe's author recommends pitching onto a large yeast cake from a previous batch of wine. Lemon juice, obviously, is extremely acidic, and that is one of the primary factors that makes this "must" (winemakers term for wort) so hostile to the yeast. So much so that lemon juice will not ferment on its own; the sugars that naturally exist in lemons remaining virtually inaccessible to the yeast. This is why the recipe calls for so much additional sugar.
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| No Preservatives. |
The other factor that makes the must hostile to yeast is that most commercial botttled lemon juices contain preservatives. The recipe's author counters this by letting his prepared must sit in a bucket (covered with cheese cloth) for several days before pitching his yeast. During this time he frequently whips his must with a wire whip both to aerate it and to allow the preservatives to evaporate out. Luckily, I have found a great looking organic lemon juice that is free of preservatives, so I will be using that.
So the yeast has now been pitched into the starter. Now the task is just to wait a few days while the yeast multiply and start to get active. After that, I'll prepare the full 5 gallons of lemonade must and pitch the entire starter into it.
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| Citronivre Starter: half gallon lemonade with two packets EC-1118. No stir plate for this. That's busy spinning away a wlp530 starter for Wednesday's brewday. |
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| Dropping two packets of EC-1118 into 100ml of warm water to "bloom" |
Step 2: "Brew Day"
Today, Wednesday July 17, was "Brew Day" for my Citronivre. I made two mistakes: forgot to take a gravity reading for the OG (should be fine; I'm assuming around 1.070, which the recipe is formulated to), and I pitched the yeast a little warm (in the low 80s, just got excited I guess).
Other than that, this beverage couldn't have been easier to make. Heat a little sugar water on the stove to make invert sugar, cool it, add lemon juice, top off water to 5.5 gallons, tanin, and yeast nutrient. Easy Peasy. Then pitch the starter. This yeast is a beast! Saw activity within 30 minutes, the yeast cake is visibly larger than when I pitched it, and the airlock is going crazy now about 2 hours in.
I'm keeping it in the kitchen since it's supposed to ferment in the 70s. When it reaches 1.050 (probably soon), I add the rest of the lemon juice and more nutrient, then wait for terminal gravity. This EC-1118 I think is going to chew through this thing in no time. Then it's just wait for it to clean up it's act, add some finings, wait for it to clear (I think like 30 days), then bottle.
Really excited about this one--hope it turns out well!
Step 3: Transferring to Secondary/ Stabilizing and Clearing
Saturday, July 27. Yesterday a gravity reading revealed my Citronivre to be holding steady at a bone-dry 0.997.
So I racked it to a 5 gallon carboy and added K-meta and sorbate and finings. The first two additions are stabilizers (kill off any remaining yeast so that the wine can be back-sweetened without fear of further fermentation); the finings cling to solids in the wine and pull out of suspension to make the wine clear.
Today I drew a sample out of the carboy for Stephanie and me to try. It's amazing to me how much this has cleared in just 24 hours. I think this is ready to bottle any time.
Big nose of fresh squeezed lemonade; presents on the palate as a bone dry white wine; medium-short finish of fermented lemons. Very cool! It is quite tart though--makes you pucker!
We're now trying to decide how much (if any) back-sweetening, and with what.
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