Ginger Ale - what to do now?

[RobWalker]

I have 1 gallon of ginger ale sat clearing as we speak. Rough recipe...

Juice of 2 lemons
1tsp Cream of Tartar (for head retention, apparently.)
100g ginger, mashed and boiled
Montrachet wine yeast
Raw Light Brown Sugar (I forget how much, but enough for 4.5% I believe.)
50g Honey

It's pretty bland at the moment, and i'm going to have to sweeten it using a non fermentable sugar, get it in bottles and carbonate using sugar. The lack of flavour is my problem - i'm thinking of letting it steep with something to brighten it up, maybe cinnamon? It needs a lot more, as it's very thin and rather...boring. A small secondary fermentation would be possible too with something if need be.

So, throw ideas at me!

 

[erikpete18]

I've not mashed ginger, but I would think that would drive off some of the ginger flavors. I'd first suggest grating some fresh ginger and "dry-gingering" the batch, see if you can transfer a little of the ginger flavor to it. I'd have no idea of the amounts you'd need, but I'd be willing to wager someone on here has tried!

Otherwise, looking at your recipe, there's not a lot there for flavor if you're looking for a big punch. The brown sugar will give off a small amount of molasses, but the light won't have much. Ditto with the honey, most of it should ferment out. The cinnamon might be a good idea, I'm trying to think of any other spice that might bring out some of the ginger flavors. Hopefully someone can help you more than I can .

 

[zepolmot]

Do you mean mashed in the grain sense? Or like smushed?

 

[RobWalker]

Smushed, then boiled gently for 45 mins...there's plenty of ginger flavour in there, it's just a boring flavour!

 

[hts]

Here's the recipe that I brew. It is for 5 gallons though.

Ingredients:

1 &1/2 pounds ginger root (scrubbed of dirt chopped roughly/ about 3/8 to 1/2 inch cubes, skin on)
4 large lemons (sliced thinly, peel on, don't worry about the seeds)
2 limes (sliced like the lemons)
1 teaspoon cream of tartar (helps the sugar dissolve and God knows what else)
7-7.5 pounds of cane sugar (or a combo of cane sugar and brown sugar)
1 (5) gram pk Red Star champagne yeast or Red Star Montrochet yeast ( I prefer the Montrochet---)

Bring about 2 1/2 gallons of water to a boil. Take off heat and add your cream of tartar and sugar. Stir to dissolve the sugar, put back on heat. Add the ginger and citrus. Bring to a boil and boil for 20-30 minutes. At this point I use a kitchen stainer to strain out all of the spent sliced citrus and ginger from the boil and discard. Boil for a few more minutes and cool the wort. I just put the pot in ice water until it is around room temp. Pour into fermenter and top off to 5 gallons with cool water and pitch your yeast. Seal it up with an airlock. (You can actually use a 5 gallon glass carboy for this. It doesn't foam up at all like a malt beer does so you do not need that much headspace in your fermenter.)

Ferment at room temperature for about 7-10 days. At this point your beer will not be fully fermented (somewhere around 4-6% ABV), but that's what you want----to leave a good residual sweetness to your ginger ale/beer. You can leave it to ferment longer and it will get dry and still be good but w/ higher alcohol and less sweetness.

Now here is the trick to it. Siphon directly from your fermenter into sanitized 2L soda (PET) bottles. Seal them up and let carbonate (with what sugar is left in solution) at room temp. for a day or more. The beauty of these plastic bottles is that you can squeeze them to determine the degree of carbonation that has built up. (you can also crack the cap) When they "get hard" stick all of the bottles in the fridge. This actually makes most of the yeast drop out of suspension and ceases the carb process. If you leave them out of the fridge longer will they blow up? I have no clue, but those soda bottles are pretty tough. Drink when cold just like soda with a kick. It will not clear of the cloudiness from the yeast but this is how it has historically been served--in stoneware that you can't see how clear the liquid is. I like to put a fresh slice of lime in w/mine when I drink it with no ice to water it down. It is also excellent on ice mixed w/ Rum (a dark and stormy) or gin is great too.

Cheers.