Ginger Cider

I really enjoy ginger beer and have a 3 gallon batch going right now. I am giving serious thought into using the same recipe but instead of water and turbinado sugar, just using apple juice and reusing the yeast cake from the ginger beer.

Ginger beer recipe:

3 Gallons spring water
2 pounds Fresh chopped and bruised ginger
1 teaspoon Cayenne pepper
2 lemons zest+juice
2 Limes zest+juice
Turbinado sugar to bring it to 1.045


Bring Ginger, sugar, and water to a boil and remove from heat.
Add juice, zest, and cayenne. (this is also when I make my yeast starter)
Let steep for an hour and strain into carboy. Add yeast when cooled to room temp.

So the Ginger Cider recipe would look something like this:

3 Gallons Apple cider/juice
2 pounds Fresh chopped and bruised ginger
1 teaspoon Cayenne pepper
2 lemons zest+juice
2 Limes zest+juice



Bring Ginger, sugar, and 1 gallon apple juice to a boil and remove from heat.
Add juice, zest, and cayenne. Let steep for an hour and strain into carboy. Add yeast when cooled to room temp.

I know boiling apple juice will set the pectins and cause haze. But I hope by using only one gallon it would be "less" prominent.

Any tips, hints or thoughts are appreciated.

Dont boil anything. Put the ginger in a blender with some of the apple juice and give it a whirl, its pretty easy to get the juice out, you can then filter out the pulp and wring it out with your hands. You are putting a log of ginger in there, excellent, I never saw the point of adding just enough ginger to barely taste it! Just stir the sugar into the juice, if you need to extract the zest do it in a teacup full of hot water. We did a ginger mead this year, on the pulp we added a gallon of cider, waiting for it to clear up. Good luck, WVMJ

WVMJ said:

Dont boil anything. Put the ginger in a blender with some of the apple juice and give it a whirl, its pretty easy to get the juice out, you can then filter out the pulp and wring it out with your hands. You are putting a log of ginger in there, excellent, I never saw the point of adding just enough ginger to barely taste it! Just stir the sugar into the juice, if you need to extract the zest do it in a teacup full of hot water. We did a ginger mead this year, on the pulp we added a gallon of cider, waiting for it to clear up. Good luck, WVMJ

Click to expand...

I like the blender idea, Nice thinking outside the box. I will treat with Campden let it sit for 24 hours then add yeast. As for the ginger its my brother in laws recipe and according to him the reason for the amount of ginger is " It's GINGER Beer not alcoholic water that almost tastes like ginger".

I just opened my first bottle of this last night and wow. The ginger really shines and still has a bit of heat but the apple really compliments it. Going to let the rest age a bit longer as it was still a little green. But it was really tasty.

My wife talked me into doing this same recipe but adding fresh raspberry. So I started a 1 gallon batch and racked it onto 10oz of fresh, but then frozen for week to kill off any wild bugs, raspberry's yesterday. I cant wait to try this, the smell is amazing all ready.

I should mention Raspberry's look terrible one the color starts leaching out of them. I have my 5 year old convinced that they are alien eggs that are going to hatch into three eyed frogs.

Hey there. Noobie here. I would like more info on what exactly is the yeast starter and how much sugar? Thanks.

A yeast starter is taking dry yeast and putting it in some water with sugar or juice to get all the little yeasties awake and multiplying before you add it to your must. Normally I take about a cup of warm (95-100 degrees) add a spoon of sugar and toss in the yeast. And let it sit at room temp for a couple hours to overnight. But its best to follow the instructions on the yeast packet you are using. Some yeast can be tossed right into the must from the packet. I am not sure I understand the second part of the question. How much sugar for the recipe or for a starter?

Awesome explanation! I wanted to know how much sugar for the recipe.

For the cider I added no extra sugar. The only sugar was from the fruit and apple juice.

Thanks.

Lodestone said:

I really enjoy ginger beer and have a 3 gallon batch going right now. I am giving serious thought into using the same recipe but instead of water and turbinado sugar, just using apple juice and reusing the yeast cake from the ginger beer.

Click to expand...

What is your preferred yeast, for both the ginger beer and ginger cider, if they're different? ALSO, any particular aging schedule?

I am a pretty big fan of Knotingham. And use it in almost everything but meads. As far as aging I bulk age for a minimum of 30 days after clearing in a glass carboy. After bottling I open one every few weeks and once they hit the sweet spot they get consumed en masse. I should mention this recipe is rather bold when dry. I normally sweeten ciders with fajc to a 3 to 5 ratio, 3 cans per 5 gallons. This I sweetened with a 1 to 1 ratio.

Sorry to revive an old thread @Lodestone, but this cider recipe sounded fantastic.

1) Have you made it since? Any tweaks or improvements that you'd like to update?
2) Did you actually end up using the Cayenne and citrus juice? To what purpose?

Thanks, if you're still around

I've added sliced fresh ginger...I had left from getting sushi....to a 1gal cinnamon conditioning in fridge....and it turned out awesome!

Cyzer? I didn't even know Her!

I have done 5 gal ginger cyzer several times wimth good results. 5-ish gal apple juice, 2-3 cups fresh squeeze lemon and/or lime juice, 5-6 lb clover honey and 1 kg fresh ginger.

I dice ginger into small cubes (about size of standard dice) and toss in the freezer for a couple days until I'm ready to use.
Brew day: (or night before) pulse ginger cubes in blender or food processor in small batches then toss in pot. Cover with apple juice and honey and slowly heat - around 150. Keep covered for several hours. (Search consommé recipes) add juice to fermenter and let it go.

Personal preference, but I like this as a sparkling.

Thanks for the extra input @S-Met. As I'm still a novice...is freezing a typical technique for "sanitizing" organic things you'll be adding to a batch?

Technically yes, per some people, but I freeze for other reasons. Slow freeze (home freezers) form ice crystals that break cell walls of fruit to allow better access to the juice.

Regarding ginger: easier to blend frozen, kinda like grinding meat. Doesn't gum up as much. I also keep fresh-frozen ginger for cooking. Pull out of the freezer and hit it with the microplane.