Lemon Ade / Lemon Beer / Lemon Mead HomeBrew

A little over a week and a half ago I was strong armed into making a Hard Lemon Ade-Beer-Mead due to some cheap good looking lemons.  Of course this was something that my SO had wanted for a while so jumping up and down we picked up 36 lemons.  

I had done some initial research for this request so I wasn’t completely in the dark when we got home.  With 45 minutes to figure out what I wanted and get to the local home brew shop there wasn't much time if I wanted to brew that day.  Since I don’t make very traditional items and like strong brews we headed off with a hazy idea of what the final product should taste like.  I figured the majority of the sugars would come from honey but it would need something to make it not a lemon mead.  I had a mix of hops from the farmers market so I was covered there.  That just left the yeast and I debated between a sweet or dry mead yeast

I wish my normal honey person was at the winter farmers market so I could beg and plead for some of her champagne honey, so light and crisp it would be perfect.  I also could have found some deep flavored honey like blueberry or orange but I think that would have messed up the lemon flavor.  I ended up with some clover honey.

What I found to lighten the body was rice syrup solids.  Usually used in a pilsner I knew it would add some fermentables and keep the drink from turning into lemon cough syrup.

So here is the final ‘Grain’ Bill:

• 4lbs of clover honey
• 1/2lbs Rice Syrup Solids
• Wyeast Sweet Mead Yeast (4184)
• 36 Lemons (hand juiced got about ¾ gallons)
• 4 lemons worth of zest
• 50 grams of Farmers Market Hops (mix of cascades and fuggles)
• Enough water to make 3 gallons (I needed 2 gallons)

I didn’t want to destroy the lemon flavor with a full boil and there wasn’t anything that needed mashing.  I just did what I do with my apple ciders and almost sanitize it.  Bring the whole batch to 150F for 8-12 minutes.  I know the heat isn’t hot enough and/or long enough but I figure I am about to pitch in a lot more yeast than most bacteria or other nasties can contend with.  Soon enough the alcohol content will be high enough to kill what is left over.  Plus with the very high acidity of 36 lemons anything that survives deserves to win.

My specific gravity came to 1.067.  With less honey this could be brought down if you wanted.  I’m going for a more sparkling wine version (and have a conditioned liver) so I’ll have no problems with the content.  I'm not sure if the high acid content is going to allow a full fermentation, the yeast seem to be happy, or if it completes if the s.g. will be less than 1.  Only time will tell.

I put it into my plastic primary fermenter for 36 hours and then moved it to a glass carboy for the secondary. Much of the zest was lost at this point as well as the escaped hops. 11 days later it is still moving along.  

So what did I make?  Is it a beer?  No, without grains I can’t call it beer.  Mead?  I’m sure you can add hops to mead but it wouldn’t be very traditional would it; plus honey to final product ratio is wrong.  Lemon Ade?  I guess that is all you can call it.  I know my samples have been worth a quarter per glass.

Lemon Ade in Secondary

A few other notes about having 36 lemons:
1.  The checkout person will need to get manager override to purchase this many.  I’m not sure who we are protecting with this rule, the store or me.
2.  Hand juicing 36 lemons will teach you where every small cut on your hands are.  It will also cause your hands to be very dry but also smell nice.
3.  Your trash will not smell even after a week with raw meat trimmings under the lemons.