Ginger

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toniogarces

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Could anyone tell me what the regular amount of ginger root for a 5 gal batch is? I'm trying to brew a partial mash rye pale ale with perle hops and ginger root, but I'm not sure what quantity of ginger root I should use.

Please and thank you!
 
I make a ginger wheat where I use 8 oz of grated ginger root. 6 oz in the boil and 2 oz as a dry hop. It's a very ginger-y beer - it's like gingerale soda in a beer. Recipe here.
 
Could anyone tell me what the regular amount of ginger root for a 5 gal batch is? I'm trying to brew a partial mash rye pale ale with perle hops and ginger root, but I'm not sure what quantity of ginger root I should use.

Please and thank you!


It depends on how much you like ginger and how prominent you want the ginger to be in the beer. Start with 1 oz for a subtle but noticeable effect or up it to Captain Damage's quantity for a big ginger flavor.
 
+1 on an ounce of fresh ginger root, to start, at 10 or so minutes before the end of the boil.
you can add more (dry hop) as Capt Damage mentioned.
you just cant remove it if you added too much : )
 
I've found that the "bright" part of the ginger flavor comes from the "dry hop" portion. So I might suggest you start with half an ounce of grated ginger, soaked in vodka overnight. Put it in a weighted hop bag in your carboy (pour the steeping vodka in too). Taste your beer after 2 days and see if you want to add more.

The vodka soak seems to be important for getting that ginger heat into your beer. But the amount I'm recommending here won't burn you. Again, the beer I make with 8 oz of ginger tastes like gingerale soda, and has about that amount of heat.
 
I don't/haven't soaked the whole hop bag, but there's no reason you can't. I just put the ginger in a jar and pour in enough vodka to just barely cover. I put a few marbles in the hop bag, tie those off, sanitize the bag and fill with the ginger. Tie it off and tie on a piece of sanitized string or dental floss. When you drop the bag in the carboy, lower it to approximately half way down into the beer and tie the string around the neck of the carboy. Replace your airlock.

After your beer is done and you're cleaning up, pull the string to get the bag out. It will have swollen a little so it will get stuck in the neck of your carboy and the string will break. You'll learn a bunch of new swear words as you get yeast and trub all over your hands as you cut the bag to be able to empty it into the carboy and pull it out. But the beer will be great! :)
 
Sorry, I was being a little facetious/sarcastic. More than once, a hop bag has swollen on me and got stuck in the neck of the carboy so hard that the retrieving string has broken while I was cleaning up - after I'd emptied all the beer out for bottling. The only way to get the bag out of the carboy at that point is to cut it and empty the contents into the carboy.
 
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