The intense sour flavour fades after about 5 to 10 seconds, leaving a fairly mild candy that contains the much less sour ascorbic acid and citric acid.
Citric acid is a slightly stronger acid than typical carboxylic acids because the anion can be stabilized by intramolecular hydrogen-bonding from other protic groups on citric acid.
When citric acid is added, it is always done after primary alcohol fermentation has been completed due to the tendency of yeast to convert citric into acetic acid.
Chemically, it is an invert sugar: one that has been converted from sucrose to a mixture of fructose and glucose by heating with water and some acid (usually citric acid).
Commercially available lemon pepper may also include smaller amounts of other ingredients such as salt, sugar, onion, garlic, citric acid, additional lemon flavor, cayenne pepper, and other spices.
As there is very little acid produced by the yeast fermentation, lactic, acetic or citric acid is often added to the fermentation stage to stabilize the process.
