Kegged Ginger Beer- Sediment? Agitation?

Hey everyone, I'm a long time follower of this forum but I just joined because I want all of your expert thoughts. I'm in the process of opening a bar in downtown Miami (if anyone is every in the neighborhood stop by for a drink on me!) and we want to keg our own house sodas and run them like draft beers through taps. Everything is going great, the one issue I am having is with the ginger beer!

We have a fantastic ginger beer recipe, essentially:
1 part fresh ginger juice
2 parts lemon juice
3 parts sugar
10 parts water

It comes out fantastic, the one problem is since it isn't based on an extract the real ginger sinks to the bottom after about an hour. It separates so fast that even if I had an employee agitate the keg it would have to be done so frequently it wouldn't make sense. This leads to 2 problems, 1- the sediment carries a strong ginger flavor so the product would be inconsistent (and probably waaay too weak/overpowering depending on how much of the keg had been tapped) and also I'm afraid if we ran that sediment through a draft line it would gunk it up and ruin it (we have a 50+ foot run)

At first I figured I didn't filter it enough, so I literally filtered this for a day through a 1 micron filter- no dice. So I'm asking for your help for a solution!

The problem with simply siphoning off the "clear" liquid that sits on top of the sediment is that it doesn't have the full ginger flavor that is included when it is mixed. Also, I could pull some "clear" ginger beer with a pipet, but if I used a siphon I think it would agitate the sediment and it would come out with the "clear" ginger beer, defeating the entire purpose.

I'm wondering if there is an emulsifier that would work or some type of chemical that could be added to bind the sediment. Maybe someone has another solution. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Pasteurize, age and then filter?

In the new york times article i posted recently, they have a link to a company that sells ginger beer with sediment. They explain why that is a good thing on their bottles that the consumer has to roll it before opening. It just might be a clue that they were unable to remove the sediment without killing the flavor. I had some ginger syrup with a leaky screw top so i couldnt shake it, and it turned flavorless as sediment settled down. Or maybe use a paint shaker?

Instead of juicing the ginger you could try steeping it in hot water.

all good points, i still cant figure this out. fathersergius ive found that steeping in hot water doesnt extract the same ginger profile as using fresh raw juice, steeping even for an hour led to a mild flavor. i wonder if i could use a juicer, then steep the juice and some pulp, let it sit for a day or two and then filter. anyone else have any ideas?

Made some great Ginger beer juicing, filtered out the sediment and still tasted strong after 6 weeks of fermenting, about 5+% alchohol, used a lot of ginger and added second and third lots of ginger and sugar to the mix and multiplied until I had about 5 gallons in gallon water bottles.

Working on the next lot now, boiled the solids after juicing to see if there was more ginger favor.

Not sure if I should remove the solids during fermentation process so hence my joining this forum, it looks like most people think you should keep the sediment????

I wondered if the sediment could do any harm to the mix or flavor????

Regards, Bob

Any time I've used ginger, I find it best to leave the sediment in, though I don't juice so my sediment is not fine. Mine are usually force carbonated, so I'm adding it directly to the keg.

Basically what usually do is take the root and slice it very thin so I get as many slices as possible, but the chunks are still big enough that they don't really clog the keg's dip tube. I boil or steep them with whatever other flavors I'm adding in. Sometimes lemon zest, sometimes just water and add to apple or white grape juice. Then I pick out the big chunks and add those to the keg. Then I strain out the sediment that would clog the dip tube and discard. Anything that will flow through the lines just fine I don't worry about.

That way I've still got ginger in the keg adding an extra kick, but I don't have many floaties or anything that will clog the keg either.

For bottling I have added 1/4" to 1/2" cubed ginger root to a yeast fermented soda with similar results. I've never done a longer fermentation using ginger for a significant alcohol content, but I would expect having solids in there during fermentation would only add to the ginger flavor rather than hinder it. I don't know how much heat you'll end up with in the end, but there should be some residual flavor.