Raspberry Hard Lemonade

I've been wanting to experiment with recycling yeasts. This is one of the more expensive aspects of a brew, as a good yeast can be between $7-9. When you divide that among 50 beers it's not too bad, but if you divide it among 15o beers (recycling it 3 times) it's even better. Doing this can drive down your batch prices to under $20 if you're not doing a real hoppy batch (and you can't beat 50 beers for $20!).

I used a Cider Yeast for the hard cider that I recently made, so this was a good time to experiment. I didn't want to spend $30 on a 5 gal batch to not have it turn out, so I only made a 1 gallon batch of raspberry hard lemonade. Here's my recipe...

Raspberry Hard Lemonade

Malt/Fermentables
Approx. 3/4 lb Pale DME
3-12 oz. cans Minute Maid Raspberry Lemonade Concentrate

Specialty Grains
None

Hops
None

Yeast
WLP775 English Cider Yeast - pitched approx. 400 ml of slurry from Hard Cider recipe

Adjuncts

None

Brew Day Stats

Brewed: 06/04/2008
Racked (Secondary): None
Bottled: 06/11/2008

Pre-boil Volume: guessed
Post-boil Volume: 3/4 gallon
Boil Time: 15 minutes

Cooling Method: Ice water bath
Cooling Time: Approx. 20 min.
Pitching Temp: 84° F

Fermentation Temp: 65-70° F (first sign of fermentation approx 20 min. after pitching)

OG: 1.092
FG: 1.024
ABW: 7.3%
ABV: 9.1%

Results & Photo's

Ultimately, this didn't turn out as I had hoped. I think I used too much malt, as the final brew had a lot of malt flavors, which detracted significantly from the lemonade and raspberry flavor.

Aroma - Overall, a malty aroma and quite sweet.

Appearance - Brownish-red. This was probably because of the excess of malt, as it contributed a dull brown color to the final brew.

Taste - Ha! Pretty much horrible. The excess malt flavor combined with the 9%+ alcohol content made for an excessively sweet character. Without the use of hops to balance out sweetness, it was just too much.

Aftertaste - Not bad actually. Occasionally I get a mediciny aftertaste, which was thankfully not present this time. Perhaps I'm weeding this aftertaste out.