Alcoholic ginger beer

[xgfhfjh]

I've made this a few times. I like a lot of ginger heat. You can reduce the ginger if you don't like it that bold. Try this

 

[JimShortz]

Sorry, no gravity numbers. I have only bothered to measure it once - I calculated it at around 7% alcohol, and it sure feels like it, though with no discernible taste of alcohol.

As soon as I increase the sugar level, even by only 50g I start to taste the strength (in a way that I don't like). Actually, I like to drink it with a touch of soda for added sparkle. If you plan to do that then 750g sugar works great (if doing this I add 50g more ginger too - up to 350g)..

 

[supersleeves]

'Thai me up, Thai me down' Ginger Beer (with apologies to Almodovar)



2 gallon batch

(to split one gallon carboys after the primary is down to 1015-1020 and I nuke it with K-meta after cold crashing, one will get the half of the strained ginger/lemongrass pulp added back in a muslin bag as a 'dry hop', other stays the same)



Theory behind madness: Add volatile aromatics as late as possible as you would when cooking.

Per Gingerman’s research. 6 minutes is best time for ginger essence extraction

Per my experience, cooked lemongrass tastes better than raw



1 gallon H2O to a boil

5 cups (2.5 LBS weighed) Raw Sugar



till dissolved, then added



12 oz finely processed fresh ginger

1 stalk finely processed fresh lemon grass ( avoid the green)



boiled gently for 6 minutes, removed from heat, added micro-planed zest from



1 meyer lemon

1 lemon

2 limes



poured into kettle,



1 gallon cold tap water



added



4oz lime juice,

4oz lemon juice

4oz meyer lemon juice (needed extra meyer to hit 4 oz)



Strained into 2 gallon bucket



SG was 1.060, tastes wicked pissah now, like Crabbies but without the fake flavors (but very, very sweet, we know this will go away)



Added



1 t nutrient and aerated



sprinkled



2.5g Red Star Pasteur Champers yeast at about 90F



Set it in 63 degree temp, hope to crash it at 1015-1010



TO be continued

I'm brand new to the ginger beer brewing (or any brewing, for that matter), so forgive me if my questions are very basic!

I followed the recipe above, cutting it down to make a 1 gal batch. Tasted pretty decent going in, OG was 1.050. Let it do its thing for two weeks... Down to 0.996, which comes out to about 7% abv. That's almost exactly what I'm shooting for... Except it tastes pretty horrible.

I realize there is nearly zero sugar left. The brew is really bitter, and the ginger bite seems to have disappeared. Any suggestions?? Can it be saved?

I'm shooting for a final product that is similar to Hollows and Fentimans... Had some when I was in London last year and fell in love. Any tips to get me closer to something like that would be much appreciated

 

[bembel]

Hi Supersleeves

Glad you tried it, to rescue it you could try adding some sugar to back sweeten it, but first rack it to a new container and crush up 1 campden tablets and add that in with a little boiled water to kill any leftover yeast. Let it stand 24 hours and then boil a cup of water along with 6 oz of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of potassium sorbate and add that to the new container. The final gravity of mine is usually around 1015 which has definite sweetness and ginger flavor. Here is a useful table to determine how much sugar to add.

https://www.beer-wine.com/blog/how-to-adjust-specific-gravity/

I also stopped using wine yeast and switched to ale yeast, in this case WY 3056, which seems to help keep a bit more of the ginger flavors too.

Making another batch right now, and have added some green cardamom to the mix!

 

[johnnyrains]

Thanks, bembel, and nice one supersleeves.

I've been trying to make good ginger beer for a couple of years. I recently gave up on it because I could never get the right sweetness, if any at all. I had a couple of near disasters with massively distended plastic bottles at an alarming PSI.

I went for cold crashing my one gallon batch of this recipe, and then bottled. I only cold crashed for 2 days, so might go a little longer next time.

The trick for me is getting it to carbonate in the bottle with the right amount of sweetness. I don't want to use artificial sweeteners because I don't like the taste.

Good luck!

 

[gingerman]

If you dont have a juicer that will handle ginger, this is a great way to extract the maximum flavor without diminishing the heat.

How do you normally juice ginger, if there is an easy way, then yes, add it right to the sugar-water mixture.

Rule of thumb, the more heat applied to any food, the more the flavors break down and dissipate, so the 6 minute boil is an attempt to extract as much flavor as possible from shredded / chopped ginger without cooking off the flavor and heat.

Im just kegging a 5 gallon batch today that turned out beyond amazing, my guests go through this so fast I have had to start making 5 at a time, and I dont worry about bottle bombs when its kegged. I cold crash it at 1.020 and have not needed to use any sorbate to stop further sugar conversion, the combo of the keg, the cold and the pressure pretty much keeps the SG around 1.020

One last thing, I save the strained chopped ginger/lemon grass and put them in dry hop bags inside a ziploc in the freezer, and if I want to add more flavor after fermentation, I toss the bag into the keg. I have also had great success doing the exact same thing to a few batches of beer that did not meet my expectations, so I lightly flavored the finished beer with the leftover ginger mix.

This latest 5 gallon batch was made with Wyeast 3056, which added a lovely clove and banana aroma to the mix!

Checking in after a long break. Lots of questions I'll try to answer in a less than timely fashion obviously. But bembel is pretty much right on across the board in the above post.

One thing I've been playing with lately is adding the ginger minutes after flame out, for 10ish minutes. A couple benefits to this approach - less temp means less gingerol conversion to zingerone. Gingerols/shoagols in raw ginger provide that raw, pungent flavor while zingerone is that more cooked, mellow/softer flavor. Adding my ginger juice/bag at around 190ish preserves some of the gingerol taste. Full boil, at whatever interval, seems to covert almost all to zingerone, which is delicious but not as full a ginger flavor as possible, IMO. 6 min for a boil is fine and delicious as well.

Regarding sweetness for best taste - yes 1.015 - 1.020 taste best to my palate. This also seems to make the best mixed drinks. If you like it more like Crabbies or commercial ginger beers, even higher, up to 1.025. Yes, in the summer this can result in very short ferments. Which is a good thing!

As for the idea of fermenting dry and backsweetening, that's never worked for me. Bad news, I know. It always tastes diet-y/crappy when backsweetened (with simple syrup) for some reason. A cidery who I respect very much just released a completely dry ginger perry, and unless I got a bad batch (entirely possible), its taste has validated my suspicion that ginger beer is much, much better when moderately sweet. I couldn't even backsweeten that though to get a better taste. Best to start over, and if you're aiming for Fentiman's level of sweetness, I'd guess 1.023-5. It's pretty sweet.

Re: dialing in carbonation in bottles. It bears repeating: always use at least one plastic bottle as an indicator. Fill a couple inches low, squeeze out air. When that's firm (usually 2 days at 70 degrees, less for 75, some times one day at 80 in my house in the summer), add to the (cold) fridge and keep it there. Also, make sure the fridge is in the 30's. If you see bubbles in the top of the plastic bottle's liquid after a few days, it's not cold enough. A handtowel draped over the top of an overcarbed bottle when opening will prevent much cursing as well.

Re: juicing/blending, I've never tried juicing ginger, but it seems like it'd be a pain, especially as I don't own a juicer. I ended up getting a Vitamix blender, and I can kill about 700 g of ginger with 40 oz of water in 30 sec. I'll let that rest ~ 10 min so the super fine white elasticy crap settles a little, then pour off all but the white crap into my hop bag/pitcher before adding to the cooked syrup.

So yes, in summary the trick lately for the Alcoholic ginger beer is to get the OG right (1.05ish), time the ginger addition a few minutes after flame out, steep for 10-15 min. Cold crash at 1.020+ for sweet, 1.015 slightly less sweet, 1.010 bare minimum. Under 1.010 the taste goes to **** for some reason I have yet to figure.

Love the other yeast ideas. I've been wanting to try something along those lines. I'm also finally going to kegerate my refrigerator, which is long overdue. Any recommendations for best PSI for 1.015-1.020 ginger beer?

You mention above a 15 min boil, but now you found to add the ginger in a hop bag for final 6 minutes. What is the 15 min boil then if the ginger goes in for the final 6, is this an additional amount added to the original?

And what are your best to date ginger/sugar/citrus amounts?

Many thanks for all the info and efforts!

I had meant the last 6 of the 15 min. The 15 minutes is to sanitize the water/sugar syrup... Super important to cook the full 15 min for beer, less important for ginger beer, which won't bottle ferment for weeks in a cellar somewhere. But if you did 15 regular min and then 6 for the ginger, there'd be zero difference.

I've dialed down my citrus substantially with the under-boiled ginger. 1/2 a lemon zest added to the boil, equal parts lemon/lime after cool down. I'm down to 1/4 cup total citrus at this point. For ginger, you get diminishing returns over ~2 lbs for a 5 gallon batch. So I use about 2.5 lbs these days. For Sugar, whatever gets to 1.050, which is ~4 lbs for 5 gallons. I like to vary the mix between raw and cane to total 4 lbs.

Hope this helps. Cheers all. Great to see this thread so active recently.

 

[gingerman]

As an update to my last recipe in the noble pursuit of the tasty alcoholic ginger beer, I just finished a batch that's my best yet. Building on others' subsequent comments (and more foraging through the forum), here are my changes from my orig recipe above.
- no more cream of tartar. It had no purpose.
- cayenne bumped to 1/2 tsp+ to stand up to the sweeter FG I want (1.024-1.026 at bottling). 1 tsp of cayenne would be a solid, hot ginger beer.
- added 1/2 tsp high quality vanilla just for smoothness; added the zest of 1 lemon to the boil
- 1/2 cup each of lemon and lime, 1/4 cup pineapple juice, added after splarging to 5 gallons.
- Upped sugar almost 50% to 2700g total. This brought the OG to 1.05-1.052. Added sugar after flameout. Also, used ~80% organic cane and ~20% turbinado for a much yellower brew.
- fermented for 106 hours down to 1.024. Bottled for a day, until plastic test bottles were hard, then chilled. ABV was 3.99% before bottling. Likely 4.5% by the time it went into the fridge.

After 24 hrs of refrigeration, it's damn delicious. Sweet and spicy and highly drinkable. It's less sweet than crabbie's (which I couldn't imagine drinking more than one of), with different aromatics. But yeah, this one's the winner so far. And there's probably enough left over sweetness to go higher ABV while still tasting good. But 1.05 down to 1.024 for 4-5% seems to be the best combo I've found so far.

Lessons learned since I wrote the above post:
- I'm back to adding at least 1 tsp cream of tartar. It's function is adding acidity, which stands up to the sweetness.
- I dropped using cayenne. Adding ginger after the boil results in more heat, it seems and cayenne isn't necessary.
- I no longer add vanilla. Everything else, pretty much the same.

 

[bembel]

Hi Supersleeves

Glad you tried it, to rescue it you could try adding some sugar to back sweeten it, but first rack it to a new container and crush up 1 campden tablets and add that in with a little boiled water to kill any leftover yeast. Let it stand 24 hours and then boil a cup of water along with 6 oz of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of potassium sorbate and add that to the new container. The final gravity of mine is usually around 1015 which has definite sweetness and ginger flavor. Here is a useful table to determine how much sugar to add.

https://www.beer-wine.com/blog/how-to-adjust-specific-gravity/

I also stopped using wine yeast and switched to ale yeast, in this case WY 3056, which seems to help keep a bit more of the ginger flavors too.

Making another batch right now, and have added some green cardamom to the mix!

CARBOY nightmare!!!
Was stupidly pouring the already cooled mixture back into a 6.5 oz pail since I wanted to ferment it on top off all the chopped ginger, since for some reason this batch's initial flavor was not as intense, and the carboy slipped and I have spent the last 5 hours getting sticky ginger goo off of everything and out from underneath the washer and dryer

Back to using buckets as primary, I just wish they made see through ones!

 

[bembel]

Gingerman, thank you for returning to the thread, and for all the great information!

Love the other yeast ideas. I've been wanting to try something along those lines. I'm also finally going to kegerate my refrigerator, which is long overdue. Any recommendations for best PSI for 1.015-1.020 ginger beer?

I find it harder to carbonate GB ( have it hold the carbonation ) than regular beer, even in the keg, it has to be very very cold for some reason to get carbed, I usually have it dialed in at 15PSI at 45 degrees but I start out at 30 PSI for a few day to get it going. More to play around with until I get this right.

I am very excited to try filtering this next batch after I crash and rack it through a 1 micron keg to keg system to get rid of the yeast and then stabilize it with K-Meta and see if that will solve some of the bottle bomb issues.

It does commercially, so we will see!

Back to get more

 

[gingerman]

CARBOY nightmare!!!
Was stupidly pouring the already cooled mixture back into a 6.5 oz pail since I wanted to ferment it on top off all the chopped ginger, since for some reason this batch's initial flavor was not as intense, and the carboy slipped and I have spent the last 5 hours getting sticky ginger goo off of everything and out from underneath the washer and dryer

Back to using buckets as primary, I just wish they made see through ones!

Ugh that is a nightmare. Clean exquisitely. Bugs love the sugar water explosions.

Re: carbonation, yeah CO2 is way more soluble at colder temps approaching freezing. So that makes sense. I've got a cheap 2nd fridge that gets silly cold, so my intent is to keep it around 34-35 and use as high a carb as I can get without creating a gusher. I'll start with 30 and work up. I seem to remember hearing it can take a couple days to properly carb a sweet drink at temp.

Speaking of carbing, I've got Dave Arnold's incredible book Liquid Intelligence, which is pretty much the equivalent of On Food and Cooking for mixed beverages. I'll comb through there. I know he's talked about difficulty in carbing mixed bevs in a keg (think a keg of moscow mule), but I'll do some more research on sugary/soda carbing and report back with any insights.

EDIT: Liquid Intelligence confirmed higher PSI (45-60) for sweeter drinks, and recommended as cold as possible. All good insight. My plan is to keg it, chill it for a day, carb it for a day, and carb again if needed. I'll report back with how that goes. He also highly recommends the Bottle Carbonator, which is a lid that attaches to standard plastic 2-liter and 1-liter bottles and large CO2 tanks/regulators. Really looking forward to trying that out for bottled samples.

Re: your pressure bombs, how long did you wait to chill them? Or did they get added pressure under refrigeration? If it's the latter, get your fridge colder using the thermostat (45 is definitely too warm to stop fermentation completely).

Yeah carbonation issues (more often under than over, actually) is what sent me to finally getting a large CO2 system. I've also been playing with high grav ferments of ginger syrup and just adding that to Sodastream carbed water in the pint glass just because my last couple batches came out undercarbed. Lots to learn about kegging this weekend.

 

[supersleeves]

Hi Supersleeves



Glad you tried it, to rescue it you could try adding some sugar to back sweeten it, but first rack it to a new container and crush up 1 campden tablets and add that in with a little boiled water to kill any leftover yeast. Let it stand 24 hours and then boil a cup of water along with 6 oz of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of potassium sorbate and add that to the new container. The final gravity of mine is usually around 1015 which has definite sweetness and ginger flavor. Here is a useful table to determine how much sugar to add.



https://www.beer-wine.com/blog/how-to-adjust-specific-gravity/



I also stopped using wine yeast and switched to ale yeast, in this case WY 3056, which seems to help keep a bit more of the ginger flavors too.



Making another batch right now, and have added some green cardamom to the mix!

Thanks for the suggestions!

After racking from secondary, then again to a couple of clean 2 liter bottles, it seemed like fermentation had stopped (judging by the fact that no pressure built up in the 2 liters). I decided to skip the campden tablet and potassium sorbate. I've been drinking the stuff, and while it seems to have mellowed a little bit, it's still not fantastic. The ginger flavor is almost nonexistent when it's cold, but it does get a little more flavorful as it warms up. I've been sweeting each glass to taste using a little bit of homemade tonic syrup and either simple syrup or honey, and it definitely renders the stuff drinkable.

I picked up some ale yeast the last time I was at the homebrew store--the guy working recommended S04 to start, and told me to come back when my batch was done and he'd help me tweak it from there. Also picked up some campden tablets and potassium sorbate...

Quick question on that: I've been reading through some cider threads, and it seems like the campden and k sorbate can contribute off-flavors... Any experience with this? Would cold crashing be effective in this case?

Starting on the next batch tonight!

 

[etcetrah]

I've made several batches of non-alcoholic ginger ale that turned out great and decided to try an alcoholic version. It was very simple and may have been mentioned in an earlier thread (I didn't read all 20 pages). The basic recipe is Alton Brown's ginger ale recipe, but I used Safale US-05 as the yeast rather than bread yeast as he uses in his recipe. I also think scraping most of the skin off the ginger before grating makes it taste better. Anyway, for the alcoholic version, instead of putting the mixture into a sealed 2 liter bottle to develop carbonation, I simply put the mixture into a growler with an airlock and let it ferment on my kitchen counter at roughly 65-70F until it stopped bubbling. Then I added back the same amount of sugar that the original recipe called for and placed into a sealed 2 liter to carbonate. When the 2 liter was nice and firm when squeezed, like a newly purchased soda, I put it in the fridge to cool and stop carbonation. It seems to have worked great and is fairly uncomplicated. If you wanted to scale up, I'm sure you could grate a lot of ginger and make a multi-gallon batch to ferment, then prime with the appropriate amount of sugar and bottle in either 2 liters or perhaps 20 oz soda bottles.

 

[cyborgmexican]

I’ve always liked drinking straight N/A ginger beer as well as a dark n' stormy or Moscow mule so I decided to take a shot at doing a ginger beer. Reading through this whole thread I decided to follow the advice and recipe of Gingerman pretty closely.

Brewing started was this past Sunday at noon. While the 2 gallons of water heated up on the stove I blended 2.5lbs of chopped ginger in the Blendtec with water until it was a smooth watery paste. I then juiced 2 lemons and 3 limes Once the water was starting to steam I put in 1tsp of cream of tartar and 1/2 the zest of a lemon. Then 4lbs of turbonado sugar went in. By this time the water was over 200; I lined a mixing bowl with my grain bag and dumped the contents of the blender in. A lot of juice came out straight away. The residual ginger pulp in the bad was then steeped for 6 minutes exactly. At 6 minutes I pulled the bag out, let it drip, and placed in in a strainer over the mixing bowl that held the rest of the ginger juice. Next I combined the strained ginger juice and 'wort' in the bucket and placed the strainer with the ginger pulp over the bucked and ran cold water over the pulp until the volume was up to 5 gallons. Cooled with an immersion circulator to 101F and pitched Lalvin EC-1118 Champagne. OG was 1.030 @ 101 which translates to 1.040

Fermentation took off within hours. Yesterday after work (~40hrs of ferment time) I took a hydrometer reading and it was at 1.010 which is lower than I was hoping for after that amount of time. The sample was definitely not sweet enough so I threw in 5 campden tablets and moved it to the kreezer.

I plan on kegging tonight and will probably back-sweeten a little but we'll see how it tastes first.

Overall the process went well. I next time I'll probably go with 6lbs of sugar to try and hit 1.050+ before and 1.020-15 after, and maybe 3lbs of ginger. Will report back soon.

 

[NorskKiwi]

Hey all

I have been making home made alcohol free ginger beer for some time. Aside from Bundaberg ginger beer which is readily available back in New Zealand and Australia I have never tasted anything close to as good as my ginger beer.

I tried making home made alcoholic ginger beer last year and it ended up being all sorts of wrong. The recipe I used was something my friend gave me and had nothing to do with my basic non alcoholic recipe. We let it sit in the cardboy till it was finished fermenting then bottled it with a little sugar to carbonate. Upon drinking I have been adding simple syrup. Whilst it is not disgusting and is drinkable I would much rather drink my ginger beer with a little vodka added to it.

In the coming summer months I will be following my normal alcoholic free recipe and modifying it to make alcoholic ginger beer. I will also be following the legendary recipe I see here from Gingerman himself. During the process and upon completion I will post updates followed by tasting notes. Can't wait!! Happy drinking everyone.

 

[3Barreto]

Hey Moonshae when you say add some sugar to some water and boil it to add the keg before you rack on top of it. How much sugar to how much water are you talking. I also like a lot of ginger spice in my ginger beer. Just wondering how much you added and why you dont just add more in the boil.

 

[3Barreto]

I've made this a few times. I like a lot of ginger heat. You can reduce the ginger if you don't like it that bold. Try this:

5 gal batch

2 lbs fresh ginger, cut into slices
17 cups sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
3 cloves
1/2 tsp allspice
1 vanilla bean, split
1 packet champagne yeast

Boil 2 lb ginger for about 30 mins. Remove from heat, stir in the sugar and spices. Cool, transfer to fermenter, pitch yeast.

After fermentation is complete, rack to a secondary, crush and add 5 campden tablets to kill any remaining yeast. You can also add another lb of fresh ginger if you really like the ginger flavor. Let it sit for about 2 weeks (1 week if not using more ginger). Boil a small amount of water and add sugar needed for desired sweetness. Add to keg, then rack the ginger beer on top. Force carbonate @ 30 PSI (serving pressure).

Good luck!

Hey guys i brewed this fri night and forgot to get a OG reading. Did anyone who has tried this recipe get one they can give me. Or can someone take there best guess. Cheers!

 

[fumanchu282]

After going through all 20 pages of this thread, I tried to compile an updated version of gingerman's recipe that takes the best of all his replies and combines them. Here's what I came up with, not sure if gingerman is still around these forums to weigh in because this thread is a couple of years old...

1. Finely process 2.5lbs of ginger with some water in batches in the blender

2. Let that rest ~ 10 min so the super fine white elasticy crap settles a little, then pour off all but the white crap into a hop bag in a pitcher

3. Boil 2.5 gallons water

4. To the boiling water, add:
2160g organic cane sugar (~4.75 lb)
540g turbinado sugar (~1.2lb)
1/2 tsp+ cayenne pepper (1 tsp of cayenne would be a solid, hot ginger beer)
1 tsp cream of tartar
zest of 1/2 lemon
turmeric
a handful of cinnamon sticks
pinches of sea salt and clove

5. Total boil time is 15 mins. Steep the bag of ginger paste for the last 6-8mins.

6. Cool with immersion circulator til ~110

7. Transfer ‘wort’ liquid and pitcher liquid to fermenter through a strainer

8. Sparge by running additional water over the strained solids to wash all the sugar into the fermenter until up to 5 gallons

9. Add 1/4 cup each of lemon and lime juice, maybe 1/8 cup pineapple juice, 1/2 tsp high quality vanilla

10. Add yeast (Red Star Champagne Yeast) when temp is right (101? read the instructions on the yeast packet. 1 g/gallon?). Usually OG is around 1.050-1.052 here.

11. Ferment for ~80-100 hours down to 1.020 and then cold crash or add campden tablets to stop fermentation

12. Rack to keg, leaving as much sediment on the bottom of the fermenter as possible

13. Force carbonate to 30psi

I tried it this weekend. Only, I didn't have a food processor or blender on hand, so I just sliced up the ginger. I think that was a bit of a mistake, because after I cooled the "wort" my original gravity was 1.024, which is basically what I had been aiming for after fermentation. Not sure how it was so low, there's a crap ton of sugar in there. I'm guessing that I just didn't get much ginger to dissolve. But the sweetness is just right, ans it tastes so amazing now that I decided not to pitch the yeast. Didn't want to dry it out any more, so this one is 0 ABV. Oh well.

 

[fumanchu282]

just realized that maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought. something to keep in mind for everyone brewing this: hydrometers are calibrated for a certain temp (look on the box, it'll tell you), and if you measure at a different temp the reading will be off.

I measured my OG at 110 degrees because I didn't want to cool it down too much before pitching the yeast at 105, and according to this calculator http://www.brewersfriend.com/hydrometer-temp/ 1024 at 110 is equivalent to 1030 at room temp.

Still a far cry from the 1052 I was shooting for, but something to keep in mind with the elevated pitching temps nonetheless...

 

[FrodeM]

Good ginger beer is almost impossible to get around these parts, so I decided I'd be best of making my own. After reading all over the internet, from the most hideous recipes* to the more sensible ones, I've decided on starting with a small 5 Liter batch of a basic plain ginger and lemon/lime juice mix. For the heck of it, I also made another more exerimental 5L batch with some variation and spices added.

(* Bad recipe: Mix, pitch and immediately bottle to fridge. Drink within a week or else the fridge might become quite hazardous.)

Recipe for the plain one:

• 4.5 liters of water
• 250g fresh ginger root (with healthy buds)
• 1Kg white sugar
• Juice of 1.5 Lemons
• Juice of 2 Lime

The only differences in the "experimental" one is that half the sugar is replaced with honey. For spices, around 15 juniper berries + 3 clove buds were added. I guess this would almost qualify as some sort of mead hybrid!

Allthough being pretty fresh to brewing, I am well aware hygiene is one of the most crucial factors of making good brews. All water used was boiled, and equipment was sterilized with a food-safe dilution of phosphoric acid (10ml 75% solution in around 15 liters of lukewarm water).

The sugar was mixed in some of the water, under heating, and then the ginger root was grated into the water by using a medium-size grater. The mix started to boil about the time all the ginger was in there, and the lemon/lime juice was then added. It was left to boil for about 5 minutes, for a fresh gingery taste. From what I read, more boiling will give a more aromatic taste, but not with as much freshness to it. I like it fresh!

Everything was then mixed into the primary, including the grated ginger. The must was pitched with EC-1118 yeast, as most ginger beer recipes seems to call for Champagne type yeasts. Might try different types later (71B or in particular K1V seems like good candidates).

-----------------------------------------

OG for both batches was around 1070 at start, a bit less for the experimental one, a bit more for the plain one.

Day 1: Activity in the airlock 6 hours after pitching, problably before this as well (left home after pitching). Put them in a dark place, trying to stick around 18C (65F). Keeping a thermometer next to the carboys to have some control for when to open the window and when to turn on heating.

Day 2: The gass from the "Experimental" one has a distinct strong smell of evergreen forest. Sorta decided what to name it if it goes well. Added a teaspoon of WLN-1000 nutrient to each (it's the only thing they have around here).

Day 3: Today. Evergreen smell is declining a bit, and the ginger is getting more through. It will be very interesting how this one turns out. The plain one smells of crisp ginger.

----------------------

Roadmap: Rack at day 30, or maybe 20 if fermentation stops after a week. I will then let it stay in the secondary for some weeks to see if it clears. If it does, I plan to stabilize, sweeten it to taste, and bottle it. Else I'll try carbonation (or maybe 50:50 between the two). The experimental one might work better dry, but we'll see about that.

 

[FrodeM]

Small update.

After a hydrometer reading, the plain one hasn't changed in 5 days allthough it's bubbling constantly. The experimental batch is at half it's sugar converted.

I would guess the plain one has halted, but why is it still bubling then?

 

[scottkct]

Overall the process went well. I next time I'll probably go with 6lbs of sugar to try and hit 1.050+ before and 1.020-15 after, and maybe 3lbs of ginger. Will report back soon.

Hey cyborgmexican, curious how this turned out for you?

 

[NorskKiwi]

As am I. I didn't get back to making ginger beer yet but want to start in the coming months.

 

[MattMagic]

After reading through all 20 pages, I'm not quite sure how people are getting these gravity numbers. For a 5 gallon batch, you'll need about 5.5lbs of cane sugar to get to 1.050 OG, with slightly more turbinado to reach the same OG....

With 5.5lbs of sugar, if you ferment all the way to dry, you should end up with a FG of about 1.013 at just shy of 5% ABV. Fermenting only to 1.02 should leave with you something just shy of 4%.

Has anyone tried making say.... 4 gallons of unflavored sugar alcohol with whatever citrus to control bacteria to about 6.5% fermented all the way dry, and then after fermentation, adding a gallon of ginger steeped water+ additional sugar to taste (which will also carbonation in-bottle), and then pasteurize? Seems like that would give you about 5% alcohol with fresh ginger taste, and good sweetness. You could even make this stuff 10% pretty easily with good sweetness and a fresh ginger flavor.

I don't understand the important of having ginger during fermentation. I guess my goal is an alcoholic ginger soda really... and fermenting soda really doesn't have the time to change the flavors of the ginger... I could be wrong.

Any thoughts?

 

[jamin7]

I've made this a few times. I like a lot of ginger heat. You can reduce the ginger if you don't like it that bold. Try this:

5 gal batch

2 lbs fresh ginger, cut into slices
17 cups sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
3 cloves
1/2 tsp allspice
1 vanilla bean, split
1 packet champagne yeast

Boil 2 lb ginger for about 30 mins. Remove from heat, stir in the sugar and spices. Cool, transfer to fermenter, pitch yeast.

After fermentation is complete, rack to a secondary, crush and add 5 campden tablets to kill any remaining yeast. You can also add another lb of fresh ginger if you really like the ginger flavor. Let it sit for about 2 weeks (1 week if not using more ginger). Boil a small amount of water and add sugar needed for desired sweetness. Add to keg, then rack the ginger beer on top. Force carbonate @ 30 PSI (serving pressure).

Good luck!

brewed this guy a few weeks ago and served it last night.

did 2lbs ginger in the boil and added 1/2lb (very lightly boiled) ginger during fermentation. the second addition seriously ratcheted the ginger flavor up to 11, a little too strong for my taste.

also, the fermentation rate was pretty exponential -- went from 2-3% ABV to 7% ABV super fast. i was aiming for 4% but it shot above that before I could kill the yeast.

people loved it, however. most people added a splash of bourbon and an ice cube or two.

 

[FrodeM]

I just bottled the ginger brew I have been brewing for the past few months, and I have some results.

Replacing some lemon with lime was a bad idea in my case. Lime didn't work well with the somewhat bitter ginger flavour.

Second problem is that most of the taste dies off quickly, and there is nothing left to mask the yeast flavour.

In the end it tastes very much ginger, but a very sharp kind of ginger. After the ginger it's pretty sour and bitter, eventually going over to a more yeasty flavour. Letting it sit for some days will reduce the yeasty flavour though, but the combination of acid and bitter is still quite a bit rough.

It's absolutely impossible to taste the juniper berries or the honey I had in this, but who knows? Maybe in half a year...

 

[jimbostarr]

After reading through all 20 pages, I'm not quite sure how people are getting these gravity numbers. For a 5 gallon batch, you'll need about 5.5lbs of cane sugar to get to 1.050 OG, with slightly more turbinado to reach the same OG....

With 5.5lbs of sugar, if you ferment all the way to dry, you should end up with a FG of about 1.013 at just shy of 5% ABV. Fermenting only to 1.02 should leave with you something just shy of 4%.

Has anyone tried making say.... 4 gallons of unflavored sugar alcohol with whatever citrus to control bacteria to about 6.5% fermented all the way dry, and then after fermentation, adding a gallon of ginger steeped water+ additional sugar to taste (which will also carbonation in-bottle), and then pasteurize? Seems like that would give you about 5% alcohol with fresh ginger taste, and good sweetness. You could even make this stuff 10% pretty easily with good sweetness and a fresh ginger flavor.

I don't understand the important of having ginger during fermentation. I guess my goal is an alcoholic ginger soda really... and fermenting soda really doesn't have the time to change the flavors of the ginger... I could be wrong.

Any thoughts?

I am working on that right now. A month ago I started a 5 gal batch of well water with 7 lb sugar and wine yeast - EC-1118. OG was 1.09. Now it's 1.03 and it measures 5% alcohol in my Vino o meter. I plan to go down to 1.01 then add ginger and lemon. Or even cheat a little and add some Jamaican ginger beer soda if the flavor is wrong.

 

[witster18]

flash freeze? not freeze bottle explode freeze... but a quick freeze... is this option a possibility for bottle conditioning a hard ginger beer... I so want to make one(like WIld Ginger or similar... just something like an original say goya ginger beer but around 5%)... I've read this entire thread and feel no closer to accomplishing this goal... I don't wanna keg it for other reasons... or just brew-it, ferment, and then camden?

 

[witster18]

screw it... gonna just do a fairly basic unmalted wheat beer(pils,unmalted wheat, oats)... secondary the hell out of it with some lemon juice, lemon zest, a ton of ginger... couple cinnamon sticks.. then add a lot of non-fermentables at bottling...

 

[Dixon9717]

Costco has crystallized ginger. I've used it in beer. Works pretty good after about 2 months. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1458930635.512421.jpg

 

[z-bob]

screw it... gonna just do a fairly basic unmalted wheat beer(pils,unmalted wheat, oats)... secondary the hell out of it with some lemon juice, lemon zest, a ton of ginger... couple cinnamon sticks.. then add a lot of non-fermentables at bottling...

It's not very high on my brew list, but that's how I intend to try it. But instead of a ton of ginger in the secondary, I'll use dried ginger in the boil and a moderate amount of fresh ginger in the fermenter.