Girlfriend wanted wine so I brought up a spare fermenter from my other house, giving lemon wine a shot. This will be my first proper wine (that I won’t be immediately turning into brandy) Glad to be back at it after the hectic holidays. I want to make an orange brandy next, but after slicing 50 lemons by hand (I don’t own a mandolin) I think I need a short break from slicing citrus.
Good luck! Did a batch of that once and don’t think I’ll ever do it again. Keep an eye on your PH, most yeast has a hard time going in something that acidic.
I have a really nice ph meter but since I’ve already deviated from my no boil process, I’m just gonna send it. Worst case scenario I learn some tips for next time (mainly I don’t feel like busting out the ph meter and calibrating it)
Second this. Also, what did you do for fermentables? I may be wrong, but I don’t think lemons alone would have enough. I’m curious how it works for you. If it doesn’t then you may try fermenting separately and doing a reduction with the lemon slices to add after fermentation. That would make it easier to dial in your flavor as well.
Indeed, I had a stall once in a melomel with just a few lemons in secondary. Not a big deal since it was secondary, and residual sweetness counterbalanced the tartness nicely. Got really quickly really clean though.
I would say using just the skins for flavor is much more feasible. Also I quarter citrus, slicing them like this is just asking for lots of mush at cost of laborous slicing.
Can confirm. Especially after boiling there is a stupid amount of mush. Last I looked at the fermenter it seems to be starting up alright! Guess we’ll find out in a few days though lol