Full extract ginger ale - feedback wanted

[MadLuke]

Hi everyone,

I am planning to brew a ginger ale. Full extract, using a 6 l pot (going for 21 l in fermenter). I am planning following:

• Either 3.4 kg of extra pale LME or 1.7 + 1.7 pale and extra pale DME (any advice on that)? LME goes straight to the bucket
• 0.5 kg of DME boiled.
• 5 g of Taiheke hops + 250 g sliced ginger boiled for 60 minuites.
• 6 g of Nelson Sauvin (whole cone) +200 g sliced ginger for 15 min
• 10 g of Nelson Sauvin (whole cone) +200 g sliced ginger for 5 minutes
• Dryhop 25 g Nelson Sauvin
• Champagne yeast

Any experience / tips? To be honest, I have been struggling to find any proper recipe that would be more beer than giner lemonade, but would still be ginger-based. Plus I am not really sure how dry would combo of extra pale extract + champagne yeast be and whether not to sub that 1 can of extra pale with (just) pale.
What I want to try is to go for a refreshing drink combining the crispy aroma of ginger with some mellowing white-grape touch of Nelson Sauvin...

 

[cmac62]

Luke, that beer will be pretty dry. The yeast will go through all of the sugar.

 

[MadLuke]

I should give an update on this one. Bottled it some 3 weeks ago. After 2 weeks (still young) the beer is awesome. Yes, the champaign yeast is quite dry (some minimum sweetness, from the unfermentable sugars in pale extract I assume), aromatic, nice ginger backbone with a bit of bite... lovely drink now when summer slowly creeps in.

 

[cmac62]

Sounds good. How is the ginger profile? The last time I did a ginger beer I used like 1.5 LBs of grated ginger (if my quick math is correct you are in the same ballpark). I don't recall how it all went in, but I believe most of it was added at kegging in the form of a vodka tincture. I like the idea of the staggered ginger additions. Also I think a Belgian yeast or even a saison might be really good for this beer. I'm working out my Xmas beer recipe and will be using a lot of ginger and the Lalbrew Voss Kveik yeast at 95*

 

[MadLuke]

In the end I changed it a bit:
150 g ginger 30 min
250 g ginger 15 min
200 g ginger 5 min

The result is decent - I would be a bit disapointed if this was purely ginger, but with hops it gives enough ginger through while leaving space for the hops. Ginger bite at the start is modest, but apparent. Rather nice ginger finish. Next time I might try either some tincture / dryhopp or at least use fresh ginger at the end - freezing caused it to lose quite a bit of juice - and maybe wee bit more at the start.