BeerBorg

After several years of struggling to keep my mom's lemon and lime trees alive (we carted them from Florida over many moves) the 3 day deep freeze we just had spurred me to harvest the lemons before they froze solid so I have this lovely basket of lemons freshly picked this morning.

I'd like to first salvage the zest, can I dry it in the oven to preserve it?

And then to deal with the juice. I found this :

ginger-lemon brew
this beverage is delish and power-packed with immuno-stimulating properties.
basically, it’ll kick the pants off whats ailing you or give you a boost to the moon!

8 cups cold water -filtered
3-4 inches ginger root -grated
3 tablespoons lemon or lime juice -fresh squeeze
2 tablespoons honey -raw, unfiltered
quart mason jar

Grate ginger root (peel or not peel). add to a large pot with the water and bring to a boil. turn off the burner as soon as the water boils, cover and let steep at least 15 minutes or till cool to the touch. strain ginger out of water (or leave in) as you pour into mason jar(s). squeeze citrus and add to brew. after the ginger and lemon has cooled sufficiently (you can leave a finger in it w/out burning) add the honey. cap, shake and either enjoy warm or chill in the fridge.

tip: when using raw honey your goal is to keep it cool... heating above 109 degrees begins to kill off all the beneficial healthiness, eventually leaving you with just sweetener

and found it intriguing as something that could possibly be introduced into a brew day to increase the tastyness even more but fermenting highly acidic liquids is beyond my skill set so I toss my freshly picked lemons out to the Borg for contemplation and collaboration.

How about making some hard lemonade or limeade with the citrus? Use cane sugar, maybe some lactose to back sweeten, and ferment with wine/champagne yeast. I made a hard citrus punch using natural fruit juice concentrate and the champagne yeast gobbled the sugar right up, no problem. Even with the high acidity of the citrus juice.

ORRRRR.... maybe try a lemon meringue pie?! yum!

I was thinking about the hard Lemonade but the info I fond made it sound a bit complicated.

It seemed that because of the acidity the brewers (?) were having to keep re-pitching yeast and yeast nutrients in a sugar solution as soon as fermentation started to slow.

They were using a high gravity yeast. But you say you had success with Champagne yeast? Interesting maybe I'll put them in the fridge until I can get to the LHBS.