Helen RandellHome-made lemonade
August 7th 2011 08:02
It’s been on the list for two years now, and with a lemon tree looking like this…
I knew it was time.
This process is pretty simple, and the secret is all in the sitting time. You let it sit for a couple of days in a fermentor (or food grade bucket if you don’t have) and then give it 12 days in the bottles to make it fizzy. I’m always a bit scared about drinking things I have made at home, but really, there is no reason to fear this. The taste is more like a store-bought lemon squash than the clear sweet lemonade you might expect, but it is perfect with some icecubes and a slice of citrus.
I am lucky in the fact that Mr Rough Cooking is very much into brewing his own beer (boutique varieties rather than just your run of the mill), so I ‘borrowed’ a lot of his equipment to make this - even down to the sterilised beer bottles and caps
However, I am pretty sure you can buy food grade PET bottles that are ready to go.With plenty of lemons left on the tree, I'm going to try this again, doubling up the quantities to make myself enough to last the summer!
Lemonade (from A Year in a Bottle by Sally Wise)
3.5 cups white sugar
4 cups boiling water
16 cups cold water
4.5 cups chopped lemons
200ml cider vinegar
Combine sugar and boiling water in a food grade bucket and stir to dissolve. Add cold water, lemons and vinegar and mix well. Cover with a clean teatowel and leave for 48 hours. Strain, then pour into clean bottles and seal. Lemonade is ready in approximately 12 days or when it is fizzy.
Addendum: If you do make this lemonade - and I recommend that you do - be sure to drink it within a month or so. I had a couple bottles left in the laundry which built up a lot of carbon dioxide and pressure, to the point where they exploded last weekend. So - just a warning. But still, I do recommend you make this one!
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