Hard Seltzer

[HarryFlatters]

Not sure if this belongs in recipes, wine & Cider or what, and not wanting to derail @Hopsteep 's thread about not beer brewing, has anyone made a hard seltzer? I'm thinking...

2kg sugar
a couple of bags of frozen fruit
juice of lemons and limes
yeast nutrient
pectolase

23 litres of Campden treated water, boiled in my Hopcat for 20 minutes, then in a sanitised fermentor, I dump in the fruit, sugar, pectolase and yeast nutrient. Dump the boiling water on top and give it a good stir to dissolve the sugar, let it drop to fermenting temperature, then hit it with some EC-118 Champagne yeast and see what happens.

Once it's all finished and is as dry as it'll get, rack it to a keg with the lemon and lime juice and force carb.

Refreshing summer low calorie fizz, or just awful hooch p1sswater?

For about £7, I'm willing to find out

Edit: should I forget about the fruit and use a bottle of Lowicz syrup? I'm keen to experiment with fruit because I've got an idea for using pineapple in a stout...

 

[RichardM]

There's an article about Hard Seltzer in this month's BYO magazine. If I remember I'll read it after work and then comment on your recipe

 

[HarryFlatters]

Cheers @RichardM , much appreciated.

 

[user 18729]

Not sure if this belongs in recipes, wine & Cider or what, and not wanting to derail @Hopsteep 's thread about not beer brewing, has anyone made a hard seltzer? I'm thinking...

2kg sugar
a couple of bags of frozen fruit
juice of lemons and limes
yeast nutrient
pectolase

23 litres of Campden treated water, boiled in my Hopcat for 20 minutes, then in a sanitised fermentor, I dump in the fruit, sugar and yeast nutrient. Dump the boiling water on top and give it a good stir to dissolve the sugar, let it drop to fermenting temperature, then hit it with some EC-118 Champagne yeast and see what happens.

Once it's all finished and is as dry as it'll get, rack it to a keg with the lemon and lime juice and force carb.

Refreshing summer low calorie fizz, or just awful hooch p1sswater?

For about £7, I'm willing to find out

Derail away!

 

[Hanglow]

I will be interested in your results

Why are you boiling the water for 20mins though?

 

[HarryFlatters]

Why are you boiling the water for 20mins though?

To kill anything unsanitary in the water, to remove chlorine, and so the temperature will defrost and sanitise the fruit and help the sugar to dissolve.

 

[RichardM]

The recipe in BYO use RO water with 4.5g of gypsum.
The recipe is for 20l OG 1031 FG 1000
1.65 KG of sugar
US05 (although it says champagne yeast is popular)
Yeast nutrient x2, first lot with yeast then more after 36 to 48 hours.
It ferments the sugar and water then kegs it and force carbs it.
Then releases the pressure and adds 2.8ml of lime extract, 2.8ml of lemon extract and 420ml of orange juice with 14g of citric acid dissolved in it. Then re-pressurise the keg.

It doesn't use pectalose although it does say commercial hard seltzers are filtered or centrifuged

 

[HarryFlatters]

Thanks @RichardM much appreciated.

I'm thinking about using Pectolase as I'll be using real fruit, and I've had success with it before when I've made cider.

I've read a thread from an American homebrew forum where they've used US05, which is an option. I've got a sachet of EC-118 that is probably needing used up soon so I'll fire that in and see what happens. I don't have access to RO water so I expect that the final product will have haze.

Interesting point about the yeast nutrient being added twice - I wouldn't have thought to do that, but I will.

 

[HarryFlatters]

A wee update; this turned out remarkably well. In the end, I didn't use frozen fruit, I simply tipped a litre of mixed tropical fruit juice in the keg, racked the prison hooch on top, force carbonated it and stuck it in the keezer.

It tastes EXACTLY like Lilt