jroth420

Recipes 

I have made a couple of batches of ginger beer at around 5.5%, but they keep drying out on me. Does anyone know of a way to keep some of the residual sugar or stop the yeast from eating it all so that I can end up with a product that is somewhat sweet, but still has the kick I am looking for? What kind of sugar should I be using (have used corn sugar)? I even managed to bottle it at the right point, but then it just continued in the bottle and fermented all of the sugar out, leaving a spicy, but dry finished product. Help!

twgardner2

Recipes 

Try pasteurizing to kill off the yeast and stop them from eating up all your sugars. See this sticky in the cider forum:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/

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shawnbou

Recipes 

I agree that pasteurizing the way cider-makers do would be your best bet. Another option would be to let it ferment out and then add Splenda or another artificial non-fermentable sweetener, but I haven't done this personally.

jroth - would you be willing to post or PM me your recipe? My wife and I just returned from a trip to the UK, and she fell in love with an alcoholic ginger beer called Crabbie's. I'm collecting recipes so I can try to duplicate it or come close.

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jroth420

Recipes 

I have been tweaking it to get it where I want it, but the last one (which was killer until it dried out) was:

5 gal. water
2 lbs. Ginger root (peeled and chopped in food processor)
5 lbs. corn sugar
Zest of 3 limes
2 packets dry ale yeast

I boiled the ginger and water together for about 20 minutes just to pasteurize and incorporate the flavor into the water and then added the zest.

Pretty simple and after a week it was awesome, so I bottled, but it just finished out in the bottle. Good carbonation but all of my sweetness was gone.

Does pasteurizing change the flavor significantly?

I am trying to avoid using artificial sweeteners to make up the difference, but haven't had too much luck finding non-fermentable sugars that will work instead. Suggestions?

KevinM

Recipes 

Yeast will continue to eat up fermentable sugars until said yeast is killed.
Pasturize.
Rack first and add sulfites and force carb
lactose, maltose, stevia, sucralose?, aspartamine.
Or say screw it and mix it with sugar syrup when serving.
or make a non-alcoholic and mix it with rum when serving.
Use something other than yeast that has a lower alcohol tolerance?

BreadMan

Recipes 

I have Made about 12 batches of non alcoholic ginger beer and im just starting to drink my second batch of Alcoholic ginger beer. I found that the first batch i made was really dry, I fermented that one for 2 weeks. With the second batch i have only fermented it for 1 week and there is a dramatic difference in the sweetness. When i try my 3 rd batch i think i will only ferment for 5 days and then it should be a little sweeter. I think that stopping fermentation earlier will give you a sweeter ginger beer. The Alcohol content of the second batch ended at about 5.5%. I am also using organic cane sugar and champagne yeast, I'm using a similar recipe to yours but i'm only using 1 5 gram packet of of yeast.

Not to sure if this will help or not just thought i would give you my 2 cents.