My quest to find yummy fermented drinks continues. Fermented lemonade is now my second favorite so let me share how I made mine.
You will need 6+ fresh lemons, wash well and roll on the counter to get the juices flowing. I then peel with a vegetable peeler to get thin lemon peels. Farther down I will share uses.
Half them and squeeze out the juice; try and limit seeds but the odd one is not an issue as they can be strained out later.
Strain if preferred into a gallon glass jar.
Stir in 1 cup of white sugar, 1 cup whey (process shown below) and fill jar with fresh water to top. Lightly cover with a lid and let ferment for 3 days out of direct light.
I do not like to waste things if they can be reused and all the pretty yellow zingy lemon peels can be used. I add them to my
kombucha and
water kefir second ferments as well any recipe needing fresh lemon peel. I store them in a glass jar with a bit of sugar sprinkled over them in the fridge. This website has many
other great lemon peel uses.
To make the fresh whey I used my
milk kefir. Once it was fermented for 24 hours I put a coffee filter in a strainer and poured in the mixture.
I left it overnight in the fridge to drain and it separated perfectly leaving the curds (AKA cheese) in the filter.
This cheese tastes lovely on salads and tacos using it like a soft cream cheese or sour cream replacement. Again I store in a glass container in the fridge and the whey is ready to use for the lemonade recipe above.
Now back to the lemonade, here is the bubbly fermenting mixture after 3 days. Separation is normal.
Just stir; now it is ready to enjoy straight out of the jug as shown above or better yet bottle it in flip tops bottles and second ferment for a couple days to get added carbonation! Delicious!!
BOTTLING TIP!!! Reusing store bought kombucha bottles and Grolsch beer bottles are a very economical way to bottle your beverages. Here is how I cleaned mine.
I made a second batch half size and used my
kefir water as starter instead of the whey. It was good but I prefer the whey version. I also made this
ginger bug lemonade recipe as directed and as my own adaptation not boiling but rather just mixing and both were really good. I am a HUGE lemonade fan so always on a quest to find good recipes.
I have enjoyed learning how to make all these fermented beverages,
kombucha is my favorite then this yummy lemonade followed by
water kefir. I like my
milk kefir but it is less refreshing and more based on health reasons as it is a great probiotic. And it works well for my dogs probiotic too. Currently I am working on ginger bug soda with grape juice but it turned out nasty like dry wine. I also made
Mexican tepache but was not a fan of it even though I love pineapple. It is too yeasty flavored for me.
Shared at these great link up parties
This looks fantastic! I am a lemonade junkie and try any recipe I stumble over. My mom and grandmother used to do something like this but I was too little and never was able to get a recipe as they did everything by sight, taste and feel. Thanks for sharing, I am so excited!
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Naomie
I too love anything lemonade, and this is a great one finally, I also have a new recipe I concocted using my kombucha and will be sharing soon. I hope yours turns out tasty!
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