Using Ginger

I know some people on here love to use ginger. In what form do you sprinkle ginger in? Grated right off the root? Powdered? Boiled down liquid?

I tried using grated ginger and didn't like it at all.

I have been making ginger beer with kefir.

Now I like HOT ginger tastes in my beers so I tend to use quite a bit. I generally aim to have about 4 cups of ginger per gallon. I chop the ginger fairly fine, and add to my sugar water (Honey, molasses and coconut sugar/nectar) and boil for 15-20 minutes. Usually I leave the chopped ginger in the liquid when I add it to my starter. Note: for kefir I try to bring the temp of the boiled liquid down to about 85 degrees before adding it. kefir does not like getting over about 105 degrees. I am not sure what the kill temp for a scoby is, but I've always cooled my sugar tea down before adding my starter/scoby. I've yet to try ginger in my kombucha yet, though. I need to culture a new scoby sometime soon. Last one was contaminated while I was on holidays.

O.

Thanks for the reply, wow 4 cups has gotta be intense!

I grate a small amount and place it in a small pan of water bring to a boil cool and add to Kombucha when bottling

Skinned and match-stick chopped. I used 0.9 oz/gal in the last 10 min of the boil and then 'dry gingered' 0.25oz/gal 3 days before bottling. I was going for subtle spice and refreshing. I wasn't able to taste it until it had aged for ~9 weeks and at that time it was pretty close to what I was aiming for, aside from over-carb issues.

Leithoa said:

I used 0.9 oz/gal in the last 10 min of the boil and then 'dry gingered' 0.25oz/gal 3 days before bottling.

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I don't understand, you add boiled down ginger at ferment and then dry ginger 3 days prior to bottling?

Nope. I used 0.9 ounces of fresh chopped ginger root and threw that into the boil and strained it out with all the trub. Then I added 0.25 ounces of fresh chopped ginger root 3 days prior to bottling.

After adding fresh sliced ginger to the boil of one of my brew pots for an extended time/ batches, I came to the conclusion that there are antibacterial properties to ginger that are detrimental to strong scoby growth. I've since taken to grating ginger and squeezing just the juice into the Kt just prior to bottling. It does energize the yeasts so go lightly if lots of sugar remains so as to not lose too much through over-carbonation. Also the ginger starts to develop a breakdown taste left un-refrigerated as is my practice after 3-4 weeks. Not terrible.

The above is correct. Do NOT put ginger in your primary.

What I'm trying here (being a former water kefir junkie) is do my first ferment. Then I bottle it but I put the ginger in with a little liquid in my magic bullet and make a ginger paste out of it... Then I dump that back in my bottles for the 2nd ferment.

But, what I thought of the other day was this... I eat ginger candies from the local store. They're called "Gin Gins". They're very good and quite spicy (ginger wise). On my next batch I'm going to put one of these in each bottle to see if it dissolves. The ingredients are ginger and cane sugar... so the sugar is there for the bugs to eat, and the ginger flavor is too! Could be a super easy way to add good ginger flavor.

I (dry) fresh Asian, up to 3 oz. peeled and sliced thin in a muslin in the secondary for a week in an amber recipe Turns our excellent...
I've used Hawaiian but the Asian ginger is sweet/hot instead of just spicy hot.

Cheers

Sounds like a reasonable idea. There is a similar product already on the market:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/nb-fizz-drops-8-oz.html

However, not ginger flavored. You'd need to find out how much sugar is in each Gin Gin. You could over carbonate and experience a catastrophic failure.
Here's what I'd suggest, drop one in a 2-liter soda bottle and fill with finished KT. This way you can take notes on the stiffness of the bottle. Soda bottles can handle a lot of pressure before they rupture, and they're easier to squeeze than glass ;þ

Take notes and report back with your findings. Include a taste test before and after.
To the Science!

http://gingerpeople.com/gin-gin-candies/original-ginger-chews.html

This is what they are.... says 10g of sugar. Not sure how much that is. maybe start with 1/2? Or compare it to the amount of sugar in the fruit used for a 2f?

So 1 serving of gin gin's has 10g of sugar in it. The brix scale is based on grams of sugar in grams of solution and since for our purposes brix = *P = 4 gravity points. It takes a change of 1.0x3 ->1.0x0 (3/4 *P) to carbonate your average beer. So adjust your servings of gin gins so that you raise the sugar content of your beer by 0.003 units.

I'd test this in plastic bottles in small batches until I was sure I had my math right.

Sorry, um... what?

so for each GT bottle, how many gin gins would you suggest? I think the GT bottles are 16oz.

What's a GT bottle?
Basically if you start with 1L of water and add one serving of gin gins you would make a solution of approximately 1 °P. Which is slightly more sugar than we need to carbonate beer.
If you have 19L (5G) of beer you would need to add 17-19 servings(9oz, if 6 servings/3 oz bag) of gin gins to carbonate the beer. Remember this is a touch over the suggested middle of the road carbonation so if your fermentation isn't 100% complete and your bottles have flaws in them they could burst.
You might want to start out lower than 9oz per 5G, maybe try 7.5 first and work your way up in 0.5 oz increments.

I'm not sure if your question was wanting candies per bottle but priming individual bottles is a poor way to carbonate even when the sugar amount is well known. Bulk priming is much more consistent.

FWIW, I use dried ginger that is sugar coated (lightly, sort of like a spice drop coating). I slice the cubes into thin pieces and put a total of 3-4 cut up cubes in my 2nd ferment. Tastes great and still get some fizz in the bottle after about 4-6 days.

Leithoa said:

What's a GT bottle?

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GT's is a kombucha brand.
They use "16oz" (480ml) boston rounds with a 28mm cap.

Tried the gin gins. They dissolved in about four hours. Added good flavor too!

I used one candy per 16oz bottle and did a 2 day second ferment.

scobysurfer said:

I know some people on here love to use ginger. In what form do you sprinkle ginger in? Grated right off the root? Powdered? Boiled down liquid?

I tried using grated ginger and didn't like it at all.

Click to expand...

I press the ginger into a larger cup and the drop maybe a tsp or two of the fresh ginger juice in each bottle before i bottle the KT.

I've been using 100% ginger juice from a juicer. I was using approx 1.5 cups for a 5 gal. batch and it was turning out great! I also recently used a local Hawaii juice called "Ginger Rush" and poured 3/4 of a half gallon container into a 5 gal. Batch. I add the ginger juice when kegging.

I second ferment my kombucha with about 1/4 cup of my ginger bug into an 8 oz. glass container... second ferment for about a week, and it is delicious and super bubbly

--Sue

I've had success with the following methods. I use continuous brew technique, and I add all of these to the individual bottles for secondary fermentation. I rack off the primary fermenter, add the ginger, and let them sit at warm room temp for 3 days before the fridge:

1. 2 tablespoons of sliced/peeled fresh ginger per quart of booch.
2. Trader joes makes a ginger syrup. I use about 1 tablespoon/quart.
3. I make a simple syrup out of 2 cups water and 2 cups sugar. Melt them together. Them, I add about a pound of sliced/peeled ginger and a couple tablespoons of black peppercorns. Let them sit overnight, strain out the ginger/pepper, and store in the fridge. This makes a HOT ginger tea.

So many different methods, thanks for the responses. I'm going to try fresh pressed ginger juice (http://chinesefood.about.com/od/vegetablesrecipes/qt/gingerjuice.htm) on my second ferment.