so, my first attempt at hard lemonade produced a pretty tasty (and strong) beverage...it wasn't really what I'd call hard lemonade, more like lemonpagne... champagne yeast definitely added some flavor. turned out really sour too, had to backsweeten.

anyway, I tweaked the original recipe and decided to try out this experiment using 4 different yeasts.



the updated recipe I came up with for 4 gals was:

8 cans frozen lemonade concentrate
3# light DME
1# lactose (unfermentable- hoping to keep some sweetness and mouthfeel without having to backsweeten)
1# white sugar
1/2 tsp wyeast nutrient
1/2 tsp irish moss (I had a packet that was free with something I ordered, not sure if it will do anything in this, but won't hurt)

I boiled the DME and lactose in 3 gal of water for 60min. Added the yeast nutrient, irish moss, and white sugar 10min. before the end of the boil. added the frozen lemonade at flameout. chilled and added ice and water to bring my volume to just over 4 gal.

from there I separated the "wort" into 4-1gal glass jugs and pitched 4 different yeasts:

Safale-05
Safale-04
Safbrew-T58 (2 packets because they expired in july)
Saflager-33 (2 packets becuase they expired in april)

the T58 and 33 started fermenting vigorously right away (the 58 needed a blowoff tube), the 04 followed about 1 1/2 hrs later, and the 05 took about 3 hours to really start moving. as of now they have all been steadily fermenting for 48+hrs at an ambient temp of 74F. (it's august and 101F outside, what do you do?). the T58 smells very similar to the last batch I made at this point, the 33 and 05 smell more citrusy, the 04 doesn't really have a strong smell to it yet.

I'll post more in a few days.

-kris

(oh, I have no idea what the OG was because I forgot to get the frackinometer from bake...but I'm more concerned with the flavors created by the use of different yeasts on this anyway.)

Also, I added a new addition to the keezer.

we kegged up biers of war and villain yesterday afternoon. updated the keezer. got a taste of some merrills hard lemonade and must say i was pretty buzzed after a glass. very tasty stuff.

picked up our score sheets from the beehive brewoff today. we didn't win anything this year, which is a bummer. but brynnemaker and diplomanator scored in the "very good" range and we got some good feedback from the judges...so we'll just have to step up our game. shippenmaker scored in the "good" range- the judges said it contained too much shocker.



since I was near wasatch, I stopped in for some more pumpkin ale. I'm 2 sixpacks up on bake already. I also saw this new amber ale in the cold case and decided to give it a whirl. got to say, don't think I need to travel for fat tire if they keep this in stock. It's a full strength (5.75%abv) american amber ale that's crisp, super malty, and finishes with a nice hop bitterness that's sort of like a pale ale but more subtle. pretty tasty. really wish wasatch used pry off instead of twist off bottles though.



-kris

So, I went back through baker's records and re-counted how many kegs I've killed. grand total since my first kegged batch, Safety Champ 2, 21 total kegs killed. I forgot to record my achievement.

Also, dropped off our entries for the brewoff: diplomanator, brynnemaker, and shippenmaker...we don't work for the beer nut though, so I don't see a gold medal in our future.

And I've had a chance to start sampling the hard lemonade I cooked up a few weeks ago. It was verrry sour and yeasty on my first sample. Earlier this week, I tried backsweetening it by cooking up a simple syrup and adding it to the keg. This has kind of helped with the sour. It definitely does have a champagne flavor to it though from the yeast, I think I'll try a more neutral flavored yeast next time...possibly a sweet mead yeast because it tends to leave around 3% residual sugar. I'll have to give it at least 1 or 2 more weeks in the keg to know for sure what it will finally taste like, so we'll see.

-kris

had a serious brew session yesterday, ended up moving 35 gallons of beer. racked sake maker to the kegs, biers of war and the red to glass carboys, and brewed villain, a surly cynic clone from nb. kris also somehow managed to score the last glass of brynnemaker and shippenmaker before both kegs kicked.

I made this, thought it was cool. use it as your iphone wallpaper...

-kris