General % by volume question

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.

isubrewer

New Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2006
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
I have just started into brewing and I started with what they called an alcoholic drink. It is called ginger beer and there is a relatively low % alcohol by volume. My question is how do I increase the alcohol content by using the recipe I followed? Thanks!

# 2 tblspns warm water
# 1/2 tspn sugar
# 1/4 tspn dried yeast granules
-
# 1 cup sugar
# juice of 2 lemons
# rind of 2 lemons
# 1 tspn to 1 tblspn dried ginger
 
I'm not sure how much water you put in there but I would replace the sugar with dried malt extract. Maybe 4 pounds for a 5 gallon batch and you will need some hops. Also, make sure you have some good beer yeast. Then you will have "ginger beer". You will get all of this at your local home brew store and they can help you decide on your ingredients and procedures.
 
yeah... that recipe isn't for 'beer'... it's for some kind of cheap alcoholic beverage since it uses plain old table sugar for the fermentables, no hops, no barley.

if you really want to get started on homebrewing beer, read www.howtobrew.com

-walker
 
More sugar is all it takes, double the sugar, double the ABV. Double again and your yeast dies. More of a Hard Ginger Lemonade, people like to reserve 'beer' & 'ale' for grain beverages (but then there's barleywines). I've done ginger in ales and ciders and consider the cider approach better.
 
Since you're brand new to brewing, I offer one bit of advice: take it easy on the ginger if you plan on drinking the beer any time soon.

I did a five gallon Christmas ale batch with 1.5 oz (per the recipe) of fresh ginger and it's overpowering, even after two months. I had to hand the keg off to a friend of mine to avoid tossing it down the drain. He can drink it, but it's way too strong for me.
 
Back
Top