ginger something?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

BFR

Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2012
Messages
20
Reaction score
3
Location
auckland
Hello all

Newbie brewer here giving it a go.

I decided to give ginger something a go.... I don't know if i'm making ginger beer or ale or wine how do you tell the diff?

neway this is what i've done:

1.7kg of ginger root minced up into my barrell
4 lemons zested then juiced/chopped up into barrell
1 kg of sugar
poured boiling water over and left for a while then topped up to about 17l of boiled/warm water.

left for 2 days before adding campden tablets
24hours later added latvin ec1118 yeast and wine nutrent within 24 hours had a good steady bubble from the airlock.

once the airlock slowed right down I added another 1kg of sugar.... airlock slowed again so I added another 1kg of sugar.

Airlock activity is next to nil now and FG is 1.0 at 12deg c

now the questions:

I didn't measure the OG so abv is gonnar be a guess correct?

I'm going to rack off into carboys... advisable to have airlocks on my carboys correct?

I have taken a sample and it has a nice level of sweetness what else should I be tasting for?

Acid and tannins.... I know tannins add mouth feel and acid can even out sweetness are they required?

any suggestions anybody has would be great

Rob
 
Shame no-one replied to this thread a while back - here's a quick bump. I am thinking of doing some ginger wine, or beer, or whatever - no, I am not too sure of the difference, seems to me the wine recipes generally call for more sugar, and you will presumably end up with a higher alcohol content, plus the beers tend to be carbonated in secondary fermentation, whereas no sugar is added to the wine before bottling. I could be wrong about all that.

Anyway, I was thinking of making a batch to be ready for the festive season (might be a little late already), but may not be able to source any wine yeast quickly enough. Just wondering whether ale yeast (S04) or something would work as well, or whether it wouldn't tolerate the higher alcohol levels, or some other problem.

Would be interested to hear if anyone has done ginger wine.
 
Search for ginger and you will find my recipe for ginger wine. At least part of it! I forgot to go back and look up all the aditives. I tried to copy it.... It was search result number 8 ....

I does not answer very many of your questions, but it came out really good!! Very drinkable and will settle an upset stomack nicley:) I will be making this again soon!!!

I have sampled way too much while botteling! Night now!

jensmith said:
No clue on any answer for you! I have never made beer. Just fruit wine. I have made one ginger wine however. I did a google search for ginger wine and sorta used one of the recipies. So far it is tasty. Not much will make a "real" bottle!! I made it just like any other wine.
This is all done at room temp. Except the simmering! No fridgerator was used.

Without my notes, this is about what I did.
14.8 oz fresh chopped Ginger
5 pounds realy old honey ( it needed to be used!)
1 pound chopped raisons
1 each lemon and orange. Zested and then sliced
1-2 ripe bananas sliced
2 quarts water
I put everything but 2 pounds honey in a pot and simmered 15 minutes or so. Turned off stove and let sit covered untill cool. At this point it was very very tasty just as is!!! Would make a great cold remedy or other healthy tonic.
After it cooled I added 2.5 galleons of water and 3/5 pkt of "cortes de blank" yeast. ( or however you spell it!) I just sprinkled the dry yeast on top. Let ferment in a bucket with a towel on top. Stirr several times a day. Ferment almost dry, decide there really is not enough abv , add another pound honey. Repeat in a few days with remaining honey. That honey was old and lonley in the bottom of its jug! It is much happier in the bucket with everything else.
Rack off into a secondary fermentor after sg is about dry, or bubbles are slow comming up when stirred. Re-rack in a few weeks. It is very drinkable even at the first racking. But I am liking the very fresh slightly active wines, so this may just be me, and several suckers that happened to stop by on racking day!
I have not bottled this wine yet, but it is about ready to be. Still tasty!

Good luck with your ginger beer/wine.
 
Sounds like wine to me, and it also sounds dang good! should be pretty potent stuff too. I'd let it age out. Sounds like a ginger port.

Jesus that ex 1118 works miracles. There must've been almost no nutrients in there but the wine nutrient.

The tannins and acid blend are for taste so it depends on what you want. Think of a cab Sauv ( high in both) versus a Moscato ( low in both). Tannins take longer to age out, and it sounds like your wine will be pretty 'spicy' as is. I'd go for a little, then taste and adjust.

Airlocks are good things. Use them. Put some vodka or clean water in the airlock too

Can't help you too much on the taste, other than that if it's sweet you still got some work for the yeast to do. The ec1118 will prob take it down pretty far , unless you've whacked em with too much sugar.

A clearing agent (bentonite, etc.) after fermentation is implement would probably be advisable.

Good luck,
 
Recipe looks good, similar to some other recipes I have seen around. I know what you mean about it being hard to save some for actual bottling. But yours is quite a small quantity I think? I would be a bit loath to chuck 5 pounds of honey in there in case it went pear-shaped. Mind you, I can get 5lb for about $10 from my beekeeping friends so I suppose it's not terrible, I just wonder if regular sugar, or unrefined sugar of some sort would make that much difference.

Wait a minute though, that sounds like a HUGE amount of honey for only 2 quarts of water (that's, what, less than 2 litres? I am not too hot on US measurements). This fairly standard recipe calls for 5 litres of water (a little over 5 quarts?) and only 1.4kg of sugar (about 3 lb).

Why the discrepancy?
 
Its a three galleon recipie. I added the other two and half galeons after the simmer.

Here is the full recipie for the second time. Hopefully my fat finger hits send instead of deleat this time!!!!!!!! I had not even sampled any wine yet either!! I am this time so maybe it will go better:)!

Simmer for 15 minutes then turn off and let set over night
14.8 oz fresh chopped ginger root
3 pounds honey
1 pound choped dk raisons
1 each lemon and orange, zested and sliced
2 qts water

Next day add the remaining,
2.5 galeons water
2 cans frozen and thawed white grape juice
2 ripe bananas
2 tsp yeast nutriant
1/2 tsp yeast energizer
3/5 pkt Cotes Des Blanc yeast sprinkled on top
Cover with cloth, stir several times daily. SG 1.050

SG 1.010 add 1 pound honey ( in two days)

SG again at 1.010 add 1 pound honey ( next day)

Squeze out pulp and rack at SG .098 ( 6 days from start)

Rack again in one month. Bottle in about two more weeks. Finished SG .097. It held there with no sediment for two weeks plus. Abv 11%.

This recipie uses way more ginger then other ones I looked at. I just could not beleive there would be any ginger flavor with as little ginger as they had, so I made up my own. The wine does have a very nicly balances ginger flavor. It does not burn the insides like raw ginger does. It is very drinkable. Also my sweetest wine to date. Good for upset tummies and sore throughts. Everyone who has had some wants more! I am going to make another batch as soon as some realy nice ginger root comes my way!!

Jenny
 
PS. The honey worked so well I would not bother trying table suger. If it ain't broke don't fix it!! Besides the combo of honey and ginger is very healing. A wine with both is medicinal and does not count as drinking!!!
 
Thanks for the recipes. Might have to just take the plunge with the honey :).

Check out this academic paper though: http://bs.payap.ac.th/bs/download/journals/2.pdf where they investigate the best ratios of ginger to water for making ginger wine (are they getting funding for this "research"..?! :D)

Quote the conclusion:

Therefore, for the best ginger wine production, it should be fermented
by using yeast K1V-1116 with the ratio between ginger juice and water of 6:4, and adjusting total
soluble solid within the range in 20-22 Brix

The paper is from Thailand, so do they have a radically different take on ginger wine - 6:4 ratio of juice to water?! That's surely going to have much more of a kick than the recipes we are kicking around here.

I would definitely juice and pulp the ginger to begin with just to make sure as much of it gets in the brew as possible. Not sure if I would go as high as 6:4 though, that's a ton of ginger..!
 
P.S. If you ask me, the amount of ginger you use is entirely a matter of taste. I reckon the more the better..! Even your 15 oz seems modest for 2.6 gallons!
 
The recipies I looked at only called for 2-3 oz of ginger per galeon! I am glad I used double that amount. Certainly no less for my next batch! Although I may scale it up from the three galleons to a full five next time.
I fermented the whole root, not just the juice. I don't have a juicer so I chop and toss in the whole thing, and let the yeasties extract the juice themselves.
6-4 ginger to water does sound stronger then I would want!! Then again, maybe I will try a galeon that strong just to see what it does taste like! I can always use it for blending with other wines.
 
I've basically tried the recipe in the first post. Yes the 1118 does work well. The lemon taste I did not care for at all. Normally I really like lemons but something about it in the ferment makes it taste funny. I have a 6.5g and 5g going to make more right now but without lemon, and with raisins.

I take the ginger root, peel what I can easily peel off, then put it in a 1/2 gallon mason jar and use one of those stick blenders to make it into a pulp. Then I pour/squeeze that down into the carboy.

I have seen suspicions out there that some ginger root gets irradiated when imported.
 
I've basically tried the recipe in the first post. Yes the 1118 does work well. The lemon taste I did not care for at all. Normally I really like lemons but something about it in the ferment makes it taste funny. I have a 6.5g and 5g going to make more right now but without lemon, and with raisins.

I take the ginger root, peel what I can easily peel off, then put it in a 1/2 gallon mason jar and use one of those stick blenders to make it into a pulp. Then I pour/squeeze that down into the carboy.

I have seen suspicions out there that some ginger root gets irradiated when imported.

Hmm, well, I have planted bought ginger roots before and they have actually grown, so hopefully they are not, but shouldn't matter anyway. Funny about the lemons, maybe the zest needs to be cut down on.

Think I will peel, then juice in the juicer and then just chuck the whole lot in. Still debating the ratio of ginger to water, but it ain't gonna be 6:4, that's for sure...!

I wonder if I should put a chilli pepper in... I have a couple of habaneros growing on my window sill ;) Or maybe ginger wine doesn't need that zing like with ginger beer...
 
Hm that sounds good. Fermenting seems to change many flavors so much, like things you might think would be nasty actually taste wonderful, and the other way around, so maybe hot peppers or other ingredients would work! Yes maybe I did include too much zest with the lemon. It just overpowered the whole flavor, I could hardly taste the ginger, and this slightly off lemon taste was pretty present. I will say it did have some kick to it though and I'm glad I started two more batches earlier.

I'm sure not all imported ginger is irradiated, and maybe it was a suspicion only for the u.s. The thought was that you should be able to start ginger beer without adding any yeast if you leave enough of the peel on the ginger, since naturally the root has yeasts on it. Some people couldn't get it to work, and that makes suspicions that it might have been irradiated. Yes I"ve noticed with my root too if I don't keep it in a very dark place it starts to grow chutes. I've noticed it also gets a bitter taste when that starts happening.
 
Well, I have kicked off my ginger wine experiment, using a sort of hybrid of the methods here, by shredding a load of ginger - gave up on grating/juicing, as it is so fibrous it just fouled up the food processor, so I just used the knife attachment and whizzed it up, along with a pound of raisins and the zest from 4 lemons (yeah, I thought I would just risk it, but I didn't zest very aggressively so there is not THAT much in there).

I used a POUND of ginger (450g peeled), which is WAY more than any of the recipes I have seen - because I am going to make only 5 LITRES (around 1.3 gallons) of the final product, not the 3 or 4 times that amount that people are making. I just don't need that much ginger wine :). So the ginger kick is going to be very strong - maybe I overdid it, but that's why we do these experiments :).

I poured about 2 litres (about 1/2 gallon) of boiling spring water over the whole lot and am leaving it to steep for 24 hours, wrapped up to stay warmish, though it's basically back to room temp now. Don't want to leave it too long for fear of contaminants, and I don't want to use preservatives if possible.

This evening I will boil the rest of the water (2-3 litres) and melt the brown sugar or honey (still undecided about that!) in it while still hot, add the lemon juice and bananas to the cooled mixture (I thought hot water would destroy the taste of those) and then put in a demijohn somehow (pulp and all - not sure how to get it in there, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!) and pitch the wine yeast (not 1118, some unidentified Saccharomyces cerevisae - it ought to be alright), and just leave it. I MAY have to finally get a hydrometer though because I really won't know what's going on. I may also consider adding sugar/honey in stages depending on gravity and sweetness, to see if we can get the yeast to eventually die off and leave a bit of sweetness.

We shall see..!
 
Just thinking, I guess the tradeoff with this recipe is leaving the mixture in the bin as long as possible to get the maximum extraction of all the flavours, but not too long so as to risk contamination. Some recipes reckon 3-4 days is enough, I have seen others saying 2 weeks. I suppose you just have to decide for yourself - probably give it a taste, too, to see if you are happy.

Seems a real shame to chuck that pulp though, I bet you that could be cooked up a bit (to get most of the alcohol out), a few more spices added, perhaps some more diced vegetables and fruits and things, and you would have some sort of chutney :)
 
My last batch of ginger wine had 1/2 pound of grated ginger added to secondary, but none at all in primary. The batch size was 3 1/2 gallons. The ginger flavor was about right after letting the grated ginger steep for about a day. So I removed it from the solution. That was a mistake. Two weeks later and there is almost no ginger flavor left.

Ginger also varies widely in strength and flavor profile. Young thin skinned ginger is much less fiery then mature thick skinned ginger.

In a previous batch I had cooked about twice that amount of mature ginger in water for an hour or so, and then added the liquid only to the brew. That reduces the fieriness, but leaves most of the flavor. Same batch size. The amount of ginger flavor in the final product was much better. It was not fiery at all though.

Imported ginger is sometimes irradiated. Though I believe that is only done to ginger that has been ground and dried before it was imported.

Since this kind of brew usually has lemon juice in it, it's a good idea to add some pectin enzyme. Citrus fruits are extremely high in pectin and your brew will not clear unless you do something about it.
 
All sound advice, thanks. Looking around, I now realise I have REALLY overdone it with the ginger - a pound on the gallon :) It's going to be crazy hot, though I can probably tone it down with extra water and raisins or grape juice in the secondary - make it up to a gallon and half or two or something. But then I might just leave it like this and see if I can get quite a high ABV, almost like a liqueur or something. Glad I am keeping notes, this is a real make-it-up-as-I-go-along job!

P.S. No pectin enzyme to be found where I am, not too bothered if it's a little hazy.
 
Just to update on the ginger wine, it seems fermentation has pretty much finished, after 9 days all told. I've had to guess at the OG because of the raisins, bananas etc., but I reckon I must have hit almost 16% alcohol and the yeasties have expired in their own waste products, so to speak. I have racked off into a new demijohn, but it was impossible to do so without sucking up a load of raisins and lees, so in the end I chucked it all through a cheesecloth to filter a little and it may need another racking before we're done. Most of the advice seems to be to leave to stand around for a couple of months even when primary is finished, before bottling. I hope the taste has mellowed out a little by then. It's quite a dry taste, as you would expect, the ginger is very strong, though not overwhelmingly so, but there is a bit of a harsh alcoholic tone right now. Have toyed with sweetening it, but don't really think that is what's needed. Anyway, it's certainly at the high end in terms of alcohol content, had just a small swig on an empty stomach and certainly felt it!

P.S. Oooh, no, wait, I see some bubbling action still going on. We could still be headed down to 1.000 territory. Not that I really want a higher alcohol content than I have...
 
If the yeasties aren't done they you will probably get some mellowing. Even if your gravity doesn't continue to fall. Once all the sugars have been eaten yeast will eat up some of the other fermentation byproducts. That usually improves the flavor of the brew. :)

You might also try mixing a small sample with some tea. The tannin from the tea can be used to help reduce the apparent alcohol. If you like that, then you might want to add a couple tea bags to your secondary.
 
If the yeasties aren't done they you will probably get some mellowing. Even if your gravity doesn't continue to fall. Once all the sugars have been eaten yeast will eat up some of the other fermentation byproducts. That usually improves the flavor of the brew. :)

You might also try mixing a small sample with some tea. The tannin from the tea can be used to help reduce the apparent alcohol. If you like that, then you might want to add a couple tea bags to your secondary.

Thanks for the ideas - it looks like the bubbling may just have been some residual gases coming off the trub after all, things look pretty much dead, though only the hydrometer will tell for sure, in a few days.

The tea idea sounds interesting, I will try some things like that out with the extra that didn't quite fit in the fermenter.

I wonder if the somewhat harsh alcohol taste may also be due to the white sugar used - I was a bit loath to use that much honey, plus I wasn't really sure what quantity I would substitute for the 1.4kg of sugar. But there's just something rough about alcohol from refined sugar...

Hopefully time will tell. MAYBE even a bit of sweetening might not do any harm. I notice that Stone's Ginger Wine (the one I am most familiar with) is about 13.25%, but also has about 20g of carbs per 100 ml - that's going to mostly be back-sweetening with sugar, isn't it? Sounds very sweet, I haven't tried Stones in ages so not sure, but I will actually try it on a sample just to see. May try it with caramelised sugar for a bit more taste.

TAKE 3: Ooh, wait, no there's definitely still some active bubbling going on. Well, quite surprised, those are some hardy yeasties, hopefully they are hard at work improving the taste :)
 
OK, update on backsweetening experiments: assuming fermentation is more or less finished, I tried a few things on some "samples" I had left over from the racking ;). Since Stones is quite sweet - as I said above, probably as much as 20% sugar, I tried several combinations on 100ml samples:

10g white sugar/100 ml
10g honey/100 ml
20g honey/100 ml

My immediate impression was that just sweetening the wine to any degree greatly improved the taste - it's just not meant to be a dry wine, I guess. With sweetening, it is a LOT more palatable.

10g of sweetener was perhaps not quite enough for my taste, while 20g was just a bit too much. Sugar gave a neutral sweet taste, while the taste of the honey came through a bit too strongly for my liking.

So I reckon I will compromise and backsweeten the whole batch with about 15g sugar or honey per 100ml, assuming that minimal additional fermentation will occur now owing to the high ABV - just not sure whether to risk honey and hope that the honey aroma will calm down a little over time as I don't really want to taste the honey that strongly. Or maybe I will even mix sugar and honey for an additional compromise. Thoughts?
 
Back
Top