Ginger "Beer" (with wine yeast)

I have been making ginger beers in small (1 gal) batches for a while now, using different amounts of fresh and powdered ginger, sugars, yeasts, and brewing schedules. I have just sampled the most recent iteration and it's damn tasty so I thought I'd share.

approx 4" thinly sliced ginger root
1lb brown sugar
1 tsp Cascade hop pellets
1 tsp ground ginger
Cote des Blancs yeast (gave a much better finish than the beer yeasts I have tried)

put ginger in a quart of water over low heat for 15-20 minutes (you are essentially making a ginger tea)
add sugar, stir to dissolve and bring to a boil
add hops and powdered ginger
boil 5 minutes
remove from heat, dilute to 1 gallon, pitch yeast when temp is appropriate.

I made this on 1/27. OG = 1.044, Today (2/17) FG = 1.004

This one has a great ginger taste, though without the direct heat of fresh ginger. Just enough sweetness left and slightly effervescent.

I will have to keg, chill, and tell you more, but this one is great so far! Maybe some ginger added to the keg (like a dry hopping) could raise the heat...

~M~

That souds great!

make a gallon. It's fast and super easy!

I'm going to make a few! I got the stuff today... Does it come out clear?

Any foaming/krausen?

What do the rest of you think about this?

with the cote des blanc yeast there was very little krausen at any point. It always has cleared in the past, and this looks to be no different. I am crash cooling it tonight to see if that will increase the clarity more before bottling tomorrow. After a little time in the bottle I get pours that look like store bought apple juice.

Thanks for all the tips and info!

I made 4.5 gallons last night, it is going strong this morning. I varied the recipe a little (ok a lot )but it is essentially the same thing. I used white sugar with molasses, lemon zest and juice, some chopped raisins and Lalvin D47 yeast. I used about 1.5 pounds ginger with several different drops of dried ginger during the boil, some early some late, etc. I also added 1/3 oz Argentine Cascade hops at the first of the 30 minute boil. Now I know what people mean when they say cheesey hops. Hopefully they don't screw this up too much, they had little hop selection at my lhbs, nothing on my list, I wanted the regular cascade you used. This morning it smells like some strong stuff, different from other things I have made. I'll let you know about its progress, sorry to deviate from the recipe...

no need to apologize. If we all always brewed the exact same thing...shudder...that'd be awful. Besides, now we all have something new to learn about.

~M~

It it still going strong, I'l keep you updated when appropriate...

How much yeast for a 1 gallon batch?

Eric

I'd use a whole pack but a teaspoon is probably OK.

OK, I checked my Ginger Beer and the hydrometer says it is done, .995! I racked to a glass carboy and gave it a taste. It is what I guess you call "rocket fuel" right now, but the aftertaste is great and I think it will be awesome after some aging.

I make Ginger beer also with a similar recipe except no hops, use lemon for bittering. Now you have Ginger beer, get some good dark rum & mix up some Dark & Stormies. Yum.

Does ginger beer age to get better? I tried some more last night and it was pretty funky. It just had a general bad odor to it, not sulfery but stinky. I think it will get better but maybe all that white sugar was just bad. Keep in mind this is the recipe I posted earlier in this thread not the original posters.

I made another ginger beer a couple of days ago much closer to the original recipe posted in this thread, I'll let ya'll know how it goes...

EDIT: AFTER A WEEK IN THE PRIMARY IT IS MUCH, MUCH BETTER!

Im going to try this. I want to make sure the recipe is right. When you say a 4" thinly sliced ginger root I assume you talking about the whole root and not just one slice. And I also assume your diluting it with water?

yeastluvr said:

Im going to try this. I want to make sure the recipe is right. When you say a 4" thinly sliced ginger root I assume you talking about the whole root and not just one slice. And I also assume your diluting it with water?

Click to expand...

Yup, that is four inches of root sliced thinly (or food processed, i suppose). I dilute it out to one gallon final volume.

~M~

Mr. Nice Guy said:

Does ginger beer age to get better? I tried some more last night and it was pretty funky. It just had a general bad odor to it, not sulfery but stinky. I think it will get better but maybe all that white sugar was just bad. Keep in mind this is the recipe I posted earlier in this thread not the original posters.

I made another ginger beer a couple of days ago much closer to the original recipe posted in this thread, I'll let ya'll know how it goes...

Click to expand...

I'm not sure about the stinky smell, as i haven't ever had that... Mine is usually pretty much good to go right away, however it does seem to get better after a few weeks in the bottle. I let it sit in the bottles for about one week, then the fridge until cold (hard to keep a 1 gal batch around for more than a week)


~M~

I have made it with dried ginger powder from the asian market and with fresh ginger root. If your ginger root is young (not has firm as mature ginger root) it will not be as good and can have an off smell. I actually prefer the one made from the dried ginger powder, it has a more concentrated bite in the taste.

ftlstrings said:

I'm not sure about the stinky smell, as i haven't ever had that... Mine is usually pretty much good to go right away, however it does seem to get better after a few weeks in the bottle. I let it sit in the bottles for about one week, then the fridge until cold (hard to keep a 1 gal batch around for more than a week)


~M~

Click to expand...

I'll see how this second batch goes. I guess i just got too crazy on the first one.

I tried my first batch today and it is much better! I guess I was just tasting yeast.

Lets see if this works....

Should be a pic of ginger beer #3 after about a month in the bottle...

~M~

Mr. Nice Guy said:

Thanks for all the tips and info!

I made 4.5 gallons last night, it is going strong this morning. I varied the recipe a little (ok a lot )but it is essentially the same thing. I used white sugar with molasses, lemon zest and juice, some chopped raisins and Lalvin D47 yeast. I used about 1.5 pounds ginger with several different drops of dried ginger during the boil, some early some late, etc. I also added 1/3 oz Argentine Cascade hops at the first of the 30 minute boil. Now I know what people mean when they say cheesey hops. Hopefully they don't screw this up too much, they had little hop selection at my lhbs, nothing on my list, I wanted the regular cascade you used. This morning it smells like some strong stuff, different from other things I have made. I'll let you know about its progress, sorry to deviate from the recipe...

Click to expand...

I broke out a bottle last night, to be honest I was scared it was so bad last taste but this time it was great! I can't believe the improvement.

This tastes like a nice dark and stormy! The ginger has a strong bite and there is a nice rum smell too. The rum smell is so nice! I wish I had oaked this, it would be great that way.

Hey Everyone,

I just started brewing 3 gallons worth of the original recipe posted.

Keep you posted.

OG: 1.050

How long for primary? Did you do a secondary?

TSW

Man I am keen to try this. I would like to brew about 3.5-4 gallons but only have small pots (about 2 quarts). Do you guys think it would be fine to do the boil in 2 pots and make it a both bit stronger (say 8" ginger + 2 lbs sugar + as much water a possible per pot) and then dilute to 4 gallons?

Bumping this topic after a search.

What do Hop Pellets add? I'm guessing they have the same bitter effect as in beer?

I made mine pretty similar to the original recipe except I mostly used turbinado sugar and added some molasses. Now it has a strange... ?minerally.... Taste to it which I attribute to the molasses. Do you think this will improve with age, or do you think I should judge whether it goes down the throat or down the drain based on it's current flavor profile.... I'm usually pretty good with patience, perhaps I should give it a good 6 mo's before judging it.

Everything improves with age! Try degassing/bottle conditioning and see what works...

How did it turn out? I have been trying to make some sort of ginger drink with alcohol. I have let the sugars ferment out and it is drinkable but not enjoyable entirely, although it isnt terribly bad.

i always include 1 spoon of molasses in my ginger beer, it ties the drink together
my strategy for excellent young GB is to use a ginger beer plant instead of yeast; slow fermenting, multiple microorganisms for a complex taste profile. strain off the plant when it is still pretty sweet, i have a very limited sweet tooth but this stuff needs residual sugar
or you can ferment with ale yeast, cold crash when it's sweet to your liking, bottle carb in plastic, keep in the fridge. drink young!

I have been testing the readiness and refridgerating when it cant take much more but it makes me nervous and I am not a gambling man. Id like to make something that I can let suit for a while and if I forget it then I wouldnt be cleaning up a terrible mess. Most recipes that I have found are for either ginger ale, or the ginger plant and refridgerating. I did find a ginger wine recipe but it has an above 10 percent alcohol potential maybe 18 I cant remember. It takes 6 months to a year to finish.

Im going to try some 1 gallon batches and see what I can figure out.

just a thought, but you could use a wine or ale yeast to ferment down to the sweetness/alcohol amounts that you want, cold crash the yeast, bottle, check carbonation regularly (should be enough yeast to carbonate after the crash but difficult to predict), and pasteurize the bottles when they are at the right level. this goes against your 'not a gambling man' theory since it's a bit dangerous, but it's a possibility.
i have done this with a gbp batch and it was ok, but lots of gloopy sediment.
the method for pasteurizing is here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/

The pasteurizing method seems like an option for storing it for longer than what youd want to keep it int he fridge. For me I cant fill the fridge up with bottles of stuff or I may get yelled at. I already have a second fridge in the basement for my plant tissue culture and I dont want to keep consumables in a chemical fridge. My only other option is to store them on a shelf somewhere until I can use them.

I will try the pasteurization with a small batch and see how that works.

I also want to try to ferment out completely and them prime and bottle like you do with beer and see how that goes. I imagine that you can control the taste a lot better with pasteurizing though.

Thanks

DIYSeattle said:

I already have a second fridge in the basement for my plant tissue culture and I dont want to keep consumables in a chemical fridge.

Click to expand...

orchids?

Whatever I feel like trying to tissue culture. I dont particularly care for orchids too much but I did think about trying hops in the near future.

but hops can be propagated vegetatively from rhizomes!

That is true but how many can you get from one plant at a time? In one season? It may be beneficial but it may. I have yet to look into it but I will soon.

ftlstrings said:

I have been making ginger beers in small (1 gal) batches for a while now, using different amounts of fresh and powdered ginger, sugars, yeasts, and brewing schedules. I have just sampled the most recent iteration and it's damn tasty so I thought I'd share.

approx 4" thinly sliced ginger root
1lb brown sugar
1 tsp Cascade hop pellets
1 tsp ground ginger
Cote des Blancs yeast (gave a much better finish than the beer yeasts I have tried)

put ginger in a quart of water over low heat for 15-20 minutes (you are essentially making a ginger tea)
add sugar, stir to dissolve and bring to a boil
add hops and powdered ginger
boil 5 minutes
remove from heat, dilute to 1 gallon, pitch yeast when temp is appropriate.

I made this on 1/27. OG = 1.044, Today (2/17) FG = 1.004

This one has a great ginger taste, though without the direct heat of fresh ginger. Just enough sweetness left and slightly effervescent.

I will have to keg, chill, and tell you more, but this one is great so far! Maybe some ginger added to the keg (like a dry hopping) could raise the heat...

~M~

Click to expand...

This seemed like the best thread to pull for this, but please mods feel free to break out if necessary into a separate thread.

I've been playing with a similar ginger beer recipe to the one above, with some slight variations. Here's my current (5 gallon) recipe for my organic, gluten free ginger beer with Champagne Yeast:
1. Mix 3 lbs high quality ginger into 2.5 gallons water
2. Add 10 cups turbinado sugar, or 8 turb, 2 brown sugar. Generally, 2 cups/gallon is mildly sweet.
3. Add 1 tsp cream of tartar, 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper, pinches of sea salt and other spices
4. Boil all that for 15 minutes, then cool for 120. Strain, transfer to fermenter, double the water, and add 1 cup each of lemon and lime juice. Add yeast when temp is right (I shoot for 101). Usually OG is around 1.044 here.
5. Ferment for 48 hours (stirring regularly) for "Ginger Ale" at around 1.3% ABV, or 96 hours for about 3.3%. I haven't yet tried to fully ferment and add priming sugar yet. Alcoholic potency isn't my primary goal. 3.3 sessionable is.
6. Bottle to carbonate, and refrigerate when plastic bottles are rock hard (24-48 hours, depending on temp and amount of yeast in bottles).

I'm at the point where I'm pretty happy with this baseline recipe, and want to start mixing it up with variations of yeasts and hops. Does anyone have experience or advice about which combos might work best with this type of brew? Sounds like cotes des blancs yeast and Cascade hops mentioned above worked well. I'm quite happy with it in its current form, but would like to see where else I can take this recipe. Those two sound like a good jumping off point.

Also, I'm happy to answer any questions someone else might have on ginger beer making. Doesn't seem like there is a vast wealth of knowledge out there about ginger beer, at least relative to the amount of knowledge out there about regular beers. I've had about 13 passes at getting to that idealized batch and have learned some good lessons along the way. Thanks!

Just bottled a couple 3 gallon, hopped ginger beer test batches, following the same recipe as above, except for the cream of tartar. One batch used the Cote de Blanc yeast, and 1/2 oz Crystal hops boiled for 15 min, with 1/2 oz boiled for 5. The other batch used Champagne yeast, with an identical hop schedule. Bottled at 100 hours, each at about 5% ABV. Hoping to refrigerate in 2 days and sample this weekend. The intent of the hopping was just to add aromatics and complex notes to the basic recipe (hence the low bitterness hops), and to compare these two batches to earlier batches. I'm cautiously optimistic after sniffing the thief.

Just in case anyone in the future is curious, the (Crystal) hops I used were not a good addition to the 5% ginger beer made with the above recipe. It wasn't awful, but nothing I wanted to drink 3 gallons of. I ended up throwing out all but a liter to keep for reference. Also, 5% really is too dry with the recipe above. In the future, if I plan to go to 5%, I'll up the OG from 1.04ish to 1.05ish. Live and learn, I guess.