Homebrewing - Beer, Mead, Wine, Cider

2572 readers

3 users here now

A community dedicated to homebrewing beer, mead, wine, cider and everything in between. If it ferments, bring it over here.

Share recipes, ideas, ask for feedback or just advice.

Some starting points for beginners:

Introduction to Beer Brewing

A basic mead primer

Quick and diry guide to fermenting fruit - cider and wine

Brewing software

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Does lemon peel kill fermentation? (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 41 minutes ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

16 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've been brewing lemonade with a ginger bug and water kefir for quite a while. But whenever I try to incorporate lemon peel it seems to completely halt fermentation. I have tried normal and organic lemons without success. Currently I have a small batch of kefir with lemon juice going. Half of the batch is with lemon peel and that half shows no sign of fermentation after 30 hours (I have already bottled the other half because it was ready). Did any of you have similar experiences? I would really like to include peel for the taste 🙃

EDIT: Thanks for the many inputs! Summarizing the responses it seems like lemon peel doesn't inherently stop fermentation and the cause is more likely to be whatever pesticide the lemons were treated with. So I got myself a very expensive (supposedly) untreated lemon which I will use in my next brew (after washing it thoroughly) and continue from there.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I used to work at a pro brewery that made a beer with loads and loads of lemon peel and juice (no bitter pith, thank you) and it absolutely does not kill fermentation.
My fingers and thumbs still hurt from the early days when it was quite a manual job!
That said, you could probably add so much juice that the acidity might kill fermentation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 35 minutes ago

Juice shouldn't be the problem because the other half of my brew without the peel (but also with juice) worked without a problem. But good to know that the lemon itself should work, might be due to pesticide on the lemons...