Back Sweeten SP

[fishonline]

Hi everyone! I'm getting ready to back sweeten my first batch of SP. I used malt in mine to try to get it to taste more like Mike's Cranberry Lemonade. I used 7 cans of frozen lemonade and 3 cranberry.. Sugar and malt. It tastes pretty good but it's quite bitter at an SG of 1.000. I tested the SG of a Mikes Cranberry last night and it was at 1.035. I plan on kegging this and charging it with C02. First off would you recommend that I back sweeten with corn sugar or would you recommend I use more of the frozen concentrate? Is 1.035 a good sg to shoot for since that's what the Mikes is? Seems like a lot of people sweeten it to 10.10 from what I have read. Will the flavor change much once it's charged with C02? Also in comparison Mikes was quite tangy.. It has a bit of snap to it where mine was pretty dull. Has anyone ever played around by adding some acid blend to it to get a little more zing? Thanks for any thoughts!

 

[djrockinsteve]

The majority of my skeeter pees are back sweetened to 1.008-1.010

That is where we really enjoy it. Add the concentrate to the level of taste you like. If it is still too tart add sugar. Inverted sugar specifically.

As far as adding acid blend I never did as the lemon juice, and lime juice dependent upon the recipe, added plenty.

Try a small batch and see how you like it.

 

[Duster]

+1 for Steve

 

[clifton]

Did you decarb before checking the gravity of your Mike's? If it wasn't still then the CO2 coming out of solution would have pushed the hydrometer up making it read higher.

 

[fishonline]

That's a good point, I didn't think of decarbing the Mikes first.