Ginger Wheat Ale

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jpsloan

jpsloan

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For my next brew session come early June, I was thinking about doing an extract wheat beer with a ginger flavor. I wanted to keep it fairly light... in color, body, and ABV, and let the ginger kind of snap to the fore.

Here's the recipe I'm toying with:

3 lbs wheat extract
2 lbs extra light DME
1/2 lb honey malt, steeped
1/2 lb crystal malt 10L, steeped
1 oz Hallertauer hops, 60 min
4 oz grated fresh ginger
San Francisco Steam Yeast

I was thinking that I wanted to avoid hop flavor and aroma, hence a full boil on the hops. Was also thinking about adding the extra light DME and ginger 15 minutes before flameout.

Any recommendations, particularly on the yeast?
 
I think it is shaping up nice. I wouldn't change the malts.

I am not sure, but you may want to secondary some Ginger if you want it up-front. Keep an eye on it after primary, taste and see. Double check your Hops amount, you may need a bit more...although without doing the gravity math and knowing the AAU this is just a hunch. Personally, with the Hallertau I'd even consider extending it beyond the bittering and get some flavor and aroma going there, I think it would do well.
 
Way too much ginger, IMHO. This looks like a relatively low-grav brew. I made a high-grav winter warmer last year. OG was 1.095. Yeah. And in that brew, I used only 3 ounces of grated ginger root. It's great brew, but I'll tell you, once it dried out and conditioned, the ginger really took the spotlight. It's 2 steps from a true ginger beer.

And here you are with a recipe that will most likely yield an OG roughly half of what mine was, and you've got 1/3 more ginger than I used.

Believe me when I tell you that this will be a ginger bomb. Go to 1.5 ounces.
 
I'd recommend wheat DME, instread of liquid extract. It would tend to be lighter in color, and that looks like what you want.

Of course, if you can get VERY FRESH LME, it wouldn't matter. (LME will darken over time. My LHBS won't even sell it, for that very reason. He does sell wheat DME, though.)(Funny, he {or we} sell{s} a LOT of other LME, just not wheat.)

steve
 
Evan! said:
Way too much ginger, IMHO. This looks like a relatively low-grav brew. I made a high-grav winter warmer last year. OG was 1.095. Yeah. And in that brew, I used only 3 ounces of grated ginger root. It's great brew, but I'll tell you, once it dried out and conditioned, the ginger really took the spotlight. It's 2 steps from a true ginger beer.

And here you are with a recipe that will most likely yield an OG roughly half of what mine was, and you've got 1/3 more ginger than I used.

Believe me when I tell you that this will be a ginger bomb. Go to 1.5 ounces.
Click to expand...

Evan, did you add it to the boil, or secondary? I have never used Ginger in a brew, but your experience confirms what I thought about papa's amount of Ginger (iirc 4 oz/5 gal).
 
I don't believe my LHBS even carries liquid wheat extract, so dry it is!

In this beer, I'm sure I don't want to punch that ginger too hard, so I'll try the 1.5 oz out.

My buddy recommended WLP570 Belgian Golden Ale Yeast. I figure some extra esters would help to "fill in" the flavor a little. Also, the optimal temperature range for that yeast goes up to 75, which is nice, since my buckets pretty reliably ferment at 72 without any intervention.
 
I used 1 oz. fresh ginger root in a recent brew. We started with 1/2 oz. at the start of secondary. After 3 or 4 days we tasted it wanted more ginger flavor so I put the other half in. Waited about 3 more days and went to bottle. I'm not a ginger fan but as it has aged, it does have some gingerness to it and my GF seems to like it alot. It did seem to have a bit of trouble getting it's carbonation though. But after 3 weeks, it's coming along nicely.
 
In the way of an update, I just bottled this beer a couple nights ago. Here's the recipe I ended up going with:

6 lbs Munton's Wheat Dry Malt Extract
1/2 lb Honey Malt, steeped
1/2 lb Wheat, steeped
1 oz Hallertau hops, 60 min.
2 oz crystallized ginger, 15 min.
1 tsp. Irish moss, 15 min.
White Labs WLP001 California Ale Yeast

The fermentation was enormous. I measured an OG of 1.054, and a FG of 1.010. The flavor of my sample was very nice. Light on the palate, but had a kind of warm finish with the alcohol. I stepped up the priming sugar just a tidge to get a little more carbonation.

Regarding the ginger, there wasn't a pronounced "ginger" flavor, but there was a kind of aroma which I wouldn't describe as gingery, but did seem to knit together the "bread" flavors in the beer with the bitter. We'll see when it's done bottle conditioning, but it might be better just to call this a wheat beer, and have the ginger as a nifty flavor-enhancing adjunct.
 
jpsloan said:
In the way of an update, I just bottled this beer a couple nights ago. Here's the recipe I ended up going with:

6 lbs Munton's Wheat Dry Malt Extract
1/2 lb Honey Malt, steeped
1/2 lb Wheat, steeped
1 oz Hallertau hops, 60 min.
2 oz crystallized ginger, 15 min.
1 tsp. Irish moss, 15 min.
White Labs WLP001 California Ale Yeast

The fermentation was enormous. I measured an OG of 1.054, and a FG of 1.010. The flavor of my sample was very nice. Light on the palate, but had a kind of warm finish with the alcohol. I stepped up the priming sugar just a tidge to get a little more carbonation.

Regarding the ginger, there wasn't a pronounced "ginger" flavor, but there was a kind of aroma which I wouldn't describe as gingery, but did seem to knit together the "bread" flavors in the beer with the bitter. We'll see when it's done bottle conditioning, but it might be better just to call this a wheat beer, and have the ginger as a nifty flavor-enhancing adjunct.
Click to expand...

Sounds good. My personal method with anything 'unusal' (flavorings usually) is that I'd much rather under-do it and get only a 'hint' or 'mysterious addition' that adds to the overall experience rather than something that dominates the brew and makes it possibly undrinkeable or overwhelming.
 
Melana said:
I used 2oz of fresh grated ginger in my Ginger hefe and i'm hoping that the ginger shines through.
Click to expand...

The fresh-grated ginger will probably punch through more than the crystallized ginger did for me. I went with crystallized ginger, though, because I was wanting to avoid some of the "heat" fresh ginger can bring.
 

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