Lemon wine, take 2

Feb 03, 2007 2 Replies
A

A year+ ago, I tried to make lemon wine from basically lemonade, I am certain it was too acidic, and fermentation refused to start. I don't think preservatives were a problem. The groups consensus was something like lemon juice--or even lemon aid--would have to be cut by something else.



I thought about this again after playing around with lemongrass for cooking. Could I get a refreshing wine from something like this?



(for ~1 gallon)


1/2 gallon juice from Welch's white grape juice concentrate
1/2 gallon lemonade from concentrate w/o preservatives
3 sprigs of lemongrass, finely cut (food processor)
3 tbsp fresh ginger, finely cut (food processor)

I wonder if cutting a lemonade in half would reduce the acid enough to make this viable. A somewhat related question would be what I can do to cut the acidity of lemons in general.



Alternate ingredients I assume would be leaves: lemon leaves or lemongrass leaves; or perhaps other things with a lemon flavor; or a pile of lemon zest.


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R

I think your idea of using Welch's White Concentrate is a good one. Use Welch's Niagara Frozen Concentrate. It mixes very well with other fruit wines so I am sure it would do well with lemon. How much you need to cut it is a good question. I would recomend you do some blending and check the acidity with a pH meter expensive) or at least with a titration kit (cheaper) and come up with a blend that gives an acceptable acid level. Check Jack Kellers recipe for making Welch's Frozen Concentrate wine but I think it calls for 2 cans per gallon. That is a gallon of water, not a gallon of lemon juice. Make the two mixtures seperately and then blend them. That way you can try different blends.

Ray

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O

A recipe I have in a book is (for 4.5 litres):

500 ml Lemon Juice avoiding white pith 200 gm raisins or sultana 1 kg sugar yeast, nutrients, vitamin B1, pectin enzyme water to 4.5 litres

Strain lemon juice dissolve sugar Ferment for 3 to 4 days, strain off raisins and continue fermentation.

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