Making lemonade is very easy. All you need is
- around 5 lemons
- white sugar (I've used turbinado too but it makes for an unappealing color)
- water
- clean half gallon bottle
- some other doodads
- halve the lemons and squeeze them into a 2-cup measuring cup with a
citrus reamer.
- careful not to get seeds or too much pulp in. you could filter the juice with a mesh strainer or cheesecloth after this step I suppose though I have never bothered.
- the ideal amount of juice here is 1 cup but as long as it's close to that and you use an appropriate amount of sugar the recipe should come out all right
- put the juice in the bottle for safe keeping
- measure out about ¾ as much sugar as there was juice (you should have noted down how much juice there was)
- pour the juice back into the measuring cup with the sugar, stir them together until the sugar is mostly dissolved, then pour the mixture back in the bottle
- fill the measuring cup with water and stir it around to get the
extra sugar to dissolve. then pour the water into the bottle
- do this a couple times. eventually you want the bottle to be filled
- cap the bottle and shake it well. (make sure the lid is on tight)
- refrigerate it overnight & then shake it again before serving. (it blends better if given this interval of time) not sure how long it keeps for but I'd drink it within the week
notes:
- I wrote the recipe with US measurements but it is a very easy ratio-based recipe so if you're metric, 4L bottle, 500mL lemon juice… etc
- this lemonade is to my taste but if you like a sweeter lemonade you can try 1:1 juice:sugar instead of 1:¾. or perhaps reduce it to 1:½ for a very tart lemonade
- I usually drink it chilled without ice but if you like a lot of ice you may want to use less water (i.e. fill the bottle less) or more lemon juice… either way it will be stronger
