Brewing a ginger session ale. Near explosive recipe

[sanity1676]

yesterday i started a ginger session ale, i intend it to be light amber ale at 4-5% abv. the ginger does most the malt balancing
ingredients
1oz saaz hops
22 oz ginger
1.25 lbs brown sugar
1.25 kilo dry amber malt extract
1 lb honey
1 lemon
1 lime
zest of 1 lemon and lime

here is my boil.
add half gallon of water to pot. on high heat
when water is too hot to touch add your ginger, finely chopped and beat up pretty good.
Star san EVERYTHING
add 1/3 gallon really hot water
:55 add .5 oz saaz pellet hops
:50 add malt extract
:40 add lemon and lime juice
:35 add brown sugar
:25 add .5 oz saaz hops as flavoring hop
:10 add 1lb honey
:5 add citrus zest
Allowed to cool, pour into carboy with 2 gallons of water inside.
Fill carboy to 5g
pitch Safeale S-04
airlock and put somewhere dark for 8 hours
remove airlock and allow krausen to overflow for 6 hours,
when level in carboy is normal again re affix airlock
** this is as far as ive gotten**

the ferment is incredibly vigorous, bubbling faster than anything ive ever brewed, the head retention going to be ridiculous. it had a gyser of foam all night My question is because i removed the airlock are my chances of infection high? and does my recipe look okay? its my first self madeish recipe. Im stoked for this this brew est og 1.044 est FG 1.011 est abv 4.35%
est ibu 5.42 est. srm 7.33 .

 

[HopSong]

Can't be of any help.. but what hit me between the eyes was 22 oz of Ginger.. that is one heck of a lot of ginger.

 

[aprichman]

Wouldn't be surprised if your beer ended up lower gravity with all that sugar and honey.

 

[treacheroustexan]

Can't be of any help.. but what hit me between the eyes was 22 oz of Ginger.. that is one heck of a lot of ginger.

Yeah.. I would say 2, 3 or 4 oz of ginger would be plenty lol

 

[sanity1676]

I'm meaning for it to be like a ginger soda ginger beer thing, like I'm using ginger as a bittering rather than hops, the hydro samples taste good and spicy but it lacks body, it's in secondary now. Maybe it will age nicely, or I may dry hop it and add a cinnamon stick for complexity. May also add a pound of dark malt extract

 

[Kobie]

I only brewed ginger beer once and it ended up incredibly dry - FG was lower than my hydrometer would go, (below 1.000).

I've heard some people say they use campden tablets to stop fermentation - it might be a good idea in your case just to keep some sweetness in there.

 

[sanity1676]

Wouldn't bottle pasturizing work better?

 

[d3track]

Suck me sideways that looks like it will be dry.

I don't know about head retention on that, with all the simple sugars there's not much for protein in there.

Looks more along the lines of ginger ale skeeter-pee, and that may not be a bad thing. Might want to look into a higher carbonation level for it too.

 

[feinbera]

Don't worry about an infection – spores and microbes are not generally known for their motility; if it was blowing off that vigorously, there's no way anything could've "swam upstream" into the carboy while it was geysering.

In the future, though, you can set up a blow-off tube if you're fermenting too vigorously for an airlock. You've already got the stopper, starsan, and, presumably, a bottle somewhere between a quart and a half-gallon lying around, all you'll need is a couple feet of tubing.

 

[sanity1676]

just bottled! added 2 cups sugar dissolved in water, and a spoonful to each 24 oz bottle. smells awesome, tastes dry. but i think with enough carbonation and iced down, this will be a light easy drinking ginger beverage. going to bottle pasturize. pics coming soon. 7.52 percent abv it finished at. (i had a late addition of cane sugar :\) so its not a session beer, its an oddity. this is the closest to beer any of my brews have ever been. color is Amber to brown. ale yest esters, remind me of bannanas. slightly spicy. may age a little.

 

[elpenoso]

I'm going to clone this one.

 

[madscientist451]

just bottled! added 2 cups sugar dissolved in water, and a spoonful to each 24 oz bottle.

Did you use the whole 2 cups of sugar for the 5 gallon batch?
Seems like a lot so I plugged that into an on-line priming sugar calculator and came up with possible 7 volumes Co2.
I don't know at what point 22oz bottles will break from pressure.

 

[sanity1676]

im going to stove top pasturize them before they break.

 

[sanity1676]

I'm going to clone this one.

Add another kilo of Amber or light dme, adds more body. I wish I did

 

[sanity1676]

tasting notes. spicy ginger, slightly sweet, big heavy beer. vanilla flavors and a nose of spicy ginger. not my favorite but my girlfriend loves it says it tastes like starbucks hibiscus refresher and at 7.53 percent where it finished, i cant stop her from drinking it. she hates beer btw.

 

[songe]

Can't be of any help.. but what hit me between the eyes was 22 oz of Ginger.. that is one heck of a lot of ginger.

i made a 3.9 gal batch with 22 oz of ginger. Im mad at myself that i did not weigh the hops, or wrote down at which time i added it. It tasted glorious.

 

[sanity1676]

After some aging, it now tastes like a vernors soda! And it finished at 8% alcohol. Dangerous stuff. Kinda tastes like you'd use it as a mixer for a dark and stormy

 

[songe]

After some aging, it now tastes like a vernors soda! And it finished at 8% alcohol. Dangerous stuff. Kinda tastes like you'd use it as a mixer for a dark and stormy

I might need to give this a try. the ver i added yesterday. damn its a heavy APA so you cant really drink a lot of it. but damn its good

 

[sanity1676]

I might need to give this a try. the ver i added yesterday. damn its a heavy APA so you cant really drink a lot of it. but damn its good

I also added a 4 cups of sugar as a late addition. Backsweetened and bottle pasteurized after carbonation

 

[songe]

I also added a 4 cups of sugar as a late addition. Backsweetened and bottle pasteurized after carbonation

Hmm. i might try to add ginger root at 60 min, 30 min, and then 10 min next time. coz i dont get the spicy tingeling sensation