Batch 125: Bad Cake: A Lemon Wine

I've been meaning to make a fermented lemonade for quite a while now, but I've been waiting until we stumble across some lemon juice that doesn't contain preservatives that render it non-fermentable. Turns out that's less common than I would have thought. In any case, this is going to be split into smaller batches when it's done fermenting, each of which will get some fruit or herbs: basil, hops, some kind of berries, lavender, mint. Perhaps. In any case, I'm going to call this batch Bad Cake, inverting a formula from what just might be the most hipster song of all time.

Ingredients in this batch

• 4.5 lb. C&H pure cane sugar.
• Denver tap water, treated with a Campden tablet, to 3 gallons.
• 2 tsp. Wyeast beer nutrient (note: no SNA planned for this batch).
• 1 qt. Santa Cruz organic pure lemon juice.
• Approx. 6 fl. oz. fermenting mead from batch 120, containing Red Star Premier Cuvée yeast.
• A honey starter, begun on 16 July 2018:
  • ½ tsp. Wyeast beer nutrient.
  • 8.1 oz. Kirkland clover honey.
  • untreated tap water to 2 quarts.
  • 1 pouch (5g) Lalvin K1V-1116 wine yeast, rehydrated in ¼ c. untreated tap water at 100℉.
• Volume-building additions on 19 July:
  • 1 qt. Santa Cruz organic pure lemon juice.
  • 3.5 lb. C&H pure cane sugar.
  • Denver tap water to 5 gallons (that's an addition of about three-quarters of a gallon).
• 1 qt. Sadat lemon juice (containing sodium benzoate and sodium bisulfite, both of which are preservatives that inhibit fermentation, added on 30 August.
• Additions on 9 September:
  • Batch 125A: 1 gallon lemonade over 2 lb. frozen Driscoll's strawberries.
  • Batch 125B: 1 gallon lemonade over 2 tbsp. Penzey's dried lavender.
  • Batch 125C: 1 gallon lemonade over .35 oz. Penzey's dried peppermint in a hop bag.
  • Batch 125D: 1 gallon lemonade over 3 g fresh rosemary, on the stalk, frozen briefly.
  • Batch 125E: 1 gallon lemonade over, unmodified.
• Addition of 5 December:
  • Batch 125A: 4 tsp. C&H pure cane sugar (1 tsp. in each [large] bottle).

Sanitized. Mixed the sugar and the yeast nutrient into the lemon juice.. Stirred vigorously through the carboy mouth with a spoon and a wire whisk to aerate—we're using our new wide-mouthed PET carboy for this batch, at least to start—and injected about ¾ c. of fermenting mead. Covered with several layers of paper towels and screwed on the carboy lid over them to allow the brew to oxygenate for the first several days. Aerated with a sanitized wire whisk again on July 13, then again on July 15 before putting in an airlock.

The intent was to move it into a five-gallon carboy or bucket once it started fermenting, then to add more lemon juice and sugar. Initial fermentation took longer than expected to start, so I made a honey starter on 16 July. By the time the starter was going, of course, so was the lemon wine. Pitched it in anyway on 19 July, when the wine was moved to a six-gallon bucket, and more water, lemon juice, and sugar were added to build volume.

Brew date: 11 July 2018.
Original gravity: 1.074. (But we're using 1.071 as the OG due to the later sugar/juice/water additions.)

Bottling date:

• Batch 125A: 5 December 2018.
• Batch 125B: 10 February 2019.
• Batch 125C: 13 October 2018.
• Batch 125D: 13 October 2018.
• Batch 125E: 10 February 2019.

Final gravity:

• Batch 125A: 1.002.
• Batch 125B: 0.990.
• Batch 125C: 0.995.
• Batch 125D: 1.005.
• Batch 125E: 0.992.

Calculated ABV:

• Batch 125A: Approx. 9%.
• Batch 125B: Approx. 10½%.
• Batch 125C: Approx. 10%.
• Batch 125D: Approx. 8¾%.
• Batch 125E: Approx. 10½%.

Yield:

• Batch 125A:
  • 1 x 1L IKEA swing-top bottle
  • 1 x 500 mL swing-top beer bottle
  • 1 x 750 mL swing-top cider bottle
  • 1 x 22 oz. beer bottle
  • approx. 10 oz. leftover lemonade
• Batch 125B:
  • 2 x 500mL wine bottles
  • 2 x 22 oz. beer bottles
  • 1 x 500mL beer bottle
  • 1 x 12 oz. beer bottle
• Batch 125C:
  • 1 x 22 oz. beer bottle
  • 8 x 12 oz. beer bottles
• Batch 125D:
  • 1 x 22 oz. beer bottle
  • 8 x 12 oz. beer bottles
• Batch 125E:
  • 2 x 22 oz. beer bottles
  • 1 x 500mL beer bottle
  • 5 x 12 oz. beer bottles

Total yield: Approx 4.5 gallons.