Partial Grain Ginger Ale

So I went to my homebrew store planning on following one of the Ginger Ale recipes from this site, however when I got there I started playing around with the ingrediants pretty heavily and I want yall's opinions on the combo.

(this is a copy/paste from the recipe I put together in Beersmith)

Ginger Ale
Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer
Type: Partial Mash Date: 4/28/2012
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 2.5 gal
Boil Time: 60 min Equipment: Pot ( 3 Gal/11.4 L)

Final Bottling Volume: 5.0 gal
Fermentation: Ale, Single Stage Taste Rating(out of 50): TBD
Taste Notes: Pre fermentation very sweet, somewhat spicy.


Ingredient Bill
--------------
1Lbs Honey Malt
1Lbs DLME
3.3Lbs Liquid Pilsner extract
3Lbs Clover Honey
.5Lbs Table Sugar
40oz Ginger Root
2 Lemons
1 Irish moss tablet
1oz cascade hops
2.0 packages of Wyeast 1056 (dry)
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Order:
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1 lbs Honey Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 2 10.8 %
1 lbs Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 3 10.8 %
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 4.5 IBUs
---------------------------------------------------------------------
3 lbs 4.8 oz Pilsner Liquid Extract (3.5 SRM) Extract 4 35.5 % (30 min Boil)
30.00 oz Ginger Root (Boil 30.0 mins)
2 Lemons, Juice + Zest
2 lbs Honey [Boil for 30 min]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1 lbs Honey [Boil for 15 min]
0.25 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 15.0 mins)
.5 lbs Sugar, Table (Sucrose) [Boil for 15 min]
10.00 oz Ginger Root (Boil 10.0 mins)
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 2.0 min
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.0 pkg American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [124.21 ml]

Beer Profile

Measured Original Gravity: 1.068 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.002 SG Measured Final Gravity: TBD SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 8.6 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: TBD%
Est Bitterness: 4.9 IBUs
Est Calories: 227.9 kcal/12oz


Thoughts/Suggestions?

It might taste a little bitter with all of that ginger. That's almost 3 lbs. of ginger! I would go with candied ginger near the end of the boil or in the secondary. All the rest of the ingredients look fine, except you are going to have to mash the honey malt with some pale 2-row. Should be an interesting brew. You might also want to substitute a can of ginger ale extract (the one used for making a straight ginger ale).

Good luck!

I can't speak to the ale, but I made a mead a long time ago with aproximate 1.5 lbs of ginger and it was basically undrinkable. I would seriously consider scaling it back. 8 oz maybe? (or less even) That should still be plenty.

Well I made it yesterday during the day (because it's supposed to rain the rest of the week and I do my boil outside). Like I said in the note, the wort wasn't super spicy and tasted great to my palate. (Granted in the process of peeling it I probably lost 6-8oz lol)

Why would I have needed to mash the honey malt with pale 2-row? I was mostly using it as a flavor grain rather than for the sugars. I didnt have any Iodine on me to do a starch test but I think I got good conversion in the mash.

Andrew5329 said:

Why would I have needed to mash the honey malt with pale 2-row? I was mostly using it as a flavor grain rather than for the sugars. I didnt have any Iodine on me to do a starch test but I think I got good conversion in the mash.

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I'm pretty sure the honey malt needs to be mashed to be converted because it doesn't have very much diastatic power to convert itself, but I could be wrong. Also, I usually add honey to the kettle at flameout to get the most flavor out of it. Honey has delicate flavors that will boil off really quick.

acidrain23 said:

I can't speak to the ale, but I made a mead a long time ago with aproximate 1.5 lbs of ginger and it was basically undrinkable. I would seriously consider scaling it back. 8 oz maybe? (or less even) That should still be plenty.

Click to expand...

This is relevant to my interests because i am a fan of the "ginger beer" variety of soft drink, and i prefer if it's spicy enough to cure mild flu.

Undrinkable how? too sharp or too bitter?

TimpanogosSlim said:

This is relevant to my interests because i am a fan of the "ginger beer" variety of soft drink, and i prefer if it's spicy enough to cure mild flu.

Undrinkable how? too sharp or too bitter?

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Well I know that ginger is like garlic, it's really pungent at first but when you cook it the flavor softens a lot.

TimpanogosSlim said:

This is relevant to my interests because i am a fan of the "ginger beer" variety of soft drink, and i prefer if it's spicy enough to cure mild flu.

Undrinkable how? too sharp or too bitter?

Click to expand...

Not bitter- hot/spicy/sharp. Also, mine was shredded and went straight into the fermenter, so your mileage may vary. Good luck! I'm considering doing something with ginger this summer, so let us know how it comes out.

rcsoccer said:

I'm pretty sure the honey malt needs to be mashed to be converted because it doesn't have very much diastatic power to convert itself, but I could be wrong. Also, I usually add honey to the kettle at flameout to get the most flavor out of it. Honey has delicate flavors that will boil off really quick.

Click to expand...

Unless I'm mistaken, honey malt is basically like a crystal malt, so you can use it as a steeped grain without mashing.

Update on this recipe:

It's been 3 weeks since I put it in the primary fermentation, I opened it up today to take a hydrometer reading which was 1.012.

I tasted my hydrometer sample and it was fairly hot&spicy (more spicy than "hot") though not overwhelming (some might disagree but to my palate it was where I wanted it) with a very slight sweet/honey aftertaste.

The color is gold/light with a slight green tint and fairly clear.
The aroma was a very slight sweet/floral smell with a healthy dose of ginger.

Right now I'm planning on letting it sit at least the rest of the week in the primary until I have time to bottle it probably sometime this weekend.

Normally I wouldn't give a second thought about a FG of 1.012 but since this is the first time I've brewed with so much honey and I've read that honey can take a long time to ferment, not to mention the beer-smith expected FG of 1.002... I'm slightly concerned about potential bottle bombs.
Thoughts anyone? (and yes, I know, 3 days of measurements in a row to confirm, I'm asking for your first-hand experience with honey)
The beer is at a decent 7.5% by volume right now so if a little alcohol gain is the only consideration I'm not terribly worried about it, I just haven't had a bottle bomb yet and don't want to start now

Update # 2

Bottled it 2 weeks ago, very light mouth-feel with a pleasant ginger aroma. For taste, it has a slight spicy/alcohol tingle as you drink it, with a floral/sweet after-taste.

I'm overall very happy with it, and the only change I might make is slightly less ginger root.

Cheers!