Hi, a question on ginger beer.

Hello friends. My name is Brian, and I've just begun learning to make various homebrewed sodas and beverages. My goal is to eventually make "the ultimate rootbeer." While this forum seems more geared towards beers and alcoholic beverages I figured I would also find a lot of wisdom in regards to this kind of homebrewing as well. I decided to make ginger beer to begin with (due to access to materials) and things have gone seemingly smoothly so far. The recipe I'm using uses golden raisins and lemon juice with sugar and ginger and water as a starter. The fermentation of this appears to be similar to how sour dough bread is made. Dew is forming on the top of the jar where I'm letting my starter start and the liquid has turned cloudy. The problem is that after the third day I awoke to find a small lily pad of mold floating at the top. I scooped it off and fed it with sugar and some more ginger and stired it a bit. A couple days have passed and no new mold has started to form, the smell seems right and the raisins are floating at the top (like a sour dough bread starter when the yeast is working.) Now my question is: have I saved my starter? Will I eventually need to toss it out? Any advice would be appreciated!

That mold might have just been some yeast clumping together. Some top fermenting yeasts will do that.

I'd be interested in seeing the ginger beer recipe, as I haven't found one I really like.

The yeast floaters happen to almost every beer I brew. I just finished a Pilsner that I could have sworn up and down it was infected and even looked bad. After a few weeks, it tastes like a MGD. From what I have red, if you question if it's bad or not, then it's good. When you get mold or infection, it jumps out at you with a signal flare and neon's saying "I'm BAD!!!!!!"

That's great! The recipe I'm using I found in an old article of a do-it-yourself/ selfsustainable living magazine that I found online. I don't know how good it is going to be, but if the smell is any indication- it's probably very good. You can find the article here: http://www.motherearthnews.com/library/1981_March_April/Ginger_Beer

Thanks, I've got that issue! I actually have all of the issues from #1 until they went belly up the first time and the new owners cancelled the life subscriptions.

I had the same problem with my starter. After a couple of days it looked really moldy so I threw it out. I was too frightened to follow through.

The latest batch I tried was with fresh ginger. I wanted to bring it to an event so I put it into a pop keg before it finished the primary fermentation. It called for adding more sugar to the batch but the recipe assumed I was bottling it (when it was finished fermenting). I put in an extra 1/4 cup sugar. Well it seems I over COed it. My friends put it on draft with more CO2 and it then fizzed all the carbonation out and I was left with quick high head but flat as hell. We have been releasing the CO2 out and hope that it may be finished and if it is too flat we can try to add the CO2 again later if needed. Oh well.

My two recipes were from "Sacred and Herbal Beers." Sorry a little too lazy to give the recipes yet.

Tomico