How to Make Hard Lemonade
If you live in a hot climate, there is no substitute to lemonade as it prevents dehydration and enhances the level of vitamin C in the body. Apart from being extremely effective for health, lemonade can be quite delicious. Lemonade flavoured with a malt liquor product with the help of a number of other ingredients is called hard lemonade and it can be easily made at home as well. It is commonly believed that hard lemonade is all about lemonade with vodka; however, that is incorrect.
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 90 min
Total time: 1 hour & 40 min
Yield: 6 to 8 persons
Utensils: Mixing bowl and slow cooker
Ingredients:
Distilled water: 1 gallon
Lemon juice from concentrate: 1 can
Ready to bake yeast: 2 tubes
Lemons: 7
Sugar: 4 cups
Lime juice: ¼ cup
Instructions
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1
Brew the lemonade
Grab a slow cooker and put sugar, water, lemon juice from concentrate and yeast in it. However, you do not need to add lemons or lime juice in the mixture at the present moment because your hard lemonade will be much better if these items are added later. You are now required to preheat the slow cooker to approximately 200 to 250 degrees. You should stir the mixture occasionally until you witness the yeast changing to a brown colour and sinking to the bottom. This will allow the lemonade to brew. This process is expected to take about one hour. -
2
Add lemons & lime juice
You can now peel the lemons and add them in the mixture. You can also add the natural lime juice as well as a pinch of salt if you wish. You can now increase the heat of the slow cooker to 350 degrees and allow the juices to absorb into the lemonade for about half an hour. -
3
Fermenting
Adding the yeast to the actual malt liquor base is called fermenting. Use the refrigerator to speed up the process. Pour the hard lemonade into a large pitcher before covering it and placing in the refrigerator for a night. -
4
Final touches
In order to add a final sweet touch to your hard lemonade, you can pour the rest of the sugar into the mixture. If you can touch the top layer of the pitcher and your finger stay clean then your hard lemonade is ready.
