Ginger beer not very lively

[alimacoz]

Hi guys,

I started a batch of ginger beer last night using a coopers ginger beer kit and 1kg of raw sugar.

I pitched my yeast at 24c and overnight it cooled and stabilized at 22c but it's been 24 hours now and there's very little going on in the fermenter as shown in the attached picture, should I be worried about this or is it normal?

 

[Fizzycist]

Don't start stressin' till you are a few days in. I sometimes see activity overnight, but not on every batch, and lots of people never see anything till the 2nd or 3rd day. RDWHAHB.

 

[alimacoz]

Thanks for that I'll just relax

Drinking a beer whilst writing this, looking forward to the day that I've got a big stash of well aged home brew to drink!

 

[Fizzycist]

I'd like to hear how this turns out, I've been thinking of trying ginger beer myself. Any idea what the ingredients of the kit are?

 

[kanddr]

I usually see active fermentation within a day but on my last batch it took 2 days before I saw any sort of foam on top. Give it a few days and I'm sure it will look totally different.

 

[alimacoz]

Hey guys, OK so it's coming up to nearly 48 hours in and it still looks the same however there are some small bubbles happening in the fermenter and i've taken a hydrometer reading and it has dropped from 1.020 to 1.017.

The temperature of the wort is at 18 degrees which could possibly explain why it is taking so long, do you think its worth heating it up a bit?

The good news is that now the weather has turned cooler here i'll be able to make some lager effectively, maybe i should have left the ginger until it gets warmer again.

Do you think i should let this run its course and ferment over a longer period of time or is it not going to happen at that temperature?

 

[bds3]

Hey guys, OK so it's coming up to nearly 48 hours in and it still looks the same however there are some small bubbles happening in the fermenter and i've taken a hydrometer reading and it has dropped from 1.020 to 1.017.

Is your OG 1.020?

 

[alimacoz]

Hi bds3

Yes the OG was 1.020 I thought it was very low but have since discovered from the coopers forum that that's about right

 

[kanddr]

18c should be fine for fermentation. I would give it more time and see what it does.
As long as your OG reading was temperature corrected to the current temperature then something is going on in there.

 

[shawnbou]

I'd like to hear how this turns out, I've been thinking of trying ginger beer myself. Any idea what the ingredients of the kit are?

If you're interested, Fizzy, I've got an AG recipe for a ginger wheat ale that turned out very well. PM me if you'd like details.

For fans of that "other" kind of ginger beer (no malt), I've also made a test batch for a recipe for alcoholic ginger beer/ginger ale intended to clone a drink called Crabbie's in the UK ... but it came out more like alcoholic Canada Dry (which wasn't bad at all).

 

[Shooter]

Yeast is strange sometimes. I did the Coopers Ginger Beer on a lark, need to bottle this weekend, I added about a pound of malt and pound of sugar. I thought about ditching the Coopers yeast, but the OG was so low I just went with it. I did rehydrate and add a touch of yeast nutrient. I almost didn't put a blow off tube on it, such a low gravity. Luckily I did use one, went out of town for a week and when I got back realized the thing had actually blown a small amount of foam into the blowoff.

 

[Fizzycist]

I think that most of the ginger beer recipes are intended to be more like soft drinks than alcoholic drinks. It seems like most of the ginger beers end up in the soda subforum. The 1.020 OG could only give you about 2.5% ABV tops. I think the "fermentation" is really just to give a little complexity of flavor and some C02. Shawnbou, I'm interested in both of the recipes you mentioned.

 

[alimacoz]

Hey guys,

Just a quick update to this, the ginger beer is fermenting as its down to 1.013 from 1.020, it's still bubbling away very slowly in fact this never went very crazy at all, this was about as lively as this got:

 

[shawnbou]

Here are the recipes I mentioned.

Ginger Wheat Ale (5 gallons)
---------------------------
-5 lb Belgian Pilsner malt
-4.5 lb White Wheat malt
-.5 lb Cara-Pils
-.25 lb Aromatic Malt

-1 oz Spalt @ 60 min
-1 oz Crystal @ 15 min
-1 oz Diced Ginger @ 7 min
-.5 oz Diced Ginger @ flameout
- WLP320 American Hefeweizen Yeast

OG: 1.040 FG: 1.011
Mashed at 152°F for 60 minutes. Steeped 1.6 oz diced ginger in the priming sugar solution and strained before bottling.

===

Tabbie's Alcoholic Ginger Beer (1st attempt, 1 gallon)
---------------------------------------------------
NOTE: I was shooting for a clone of Crabbie's, a popular alcoholic "ginger beer" in the UK, but what I got tasted more like alcoholic Canada Dry. It tasted great, but my 2nd attempt will include more fresh ginger and some crystallized ginger.

- 6 oz peeled, sliced ginger root
- 1 lb cane sugar
- zest of 1 lime
- 1 gallon water
- 3.33 g S-04 yeast (rehydrated)

OG: 1.043 FG: 0.996

Before bottling, backsweetened with:
- 1 cup water
- 1.15 oz diced ginger
- 1 cup bulk baking Splenda

 

[alimacoz]

Thanks for the recipes shawnbou, crabbies is exactly what I was trying to clone too, the current batch of ginger smells good but I think it'll turn out fairly sweet

 

[KPSquared]

This is great. I've been looking for a Crabbies clone. Apparently the factory is backed up and they are way behind on production. It's been sold out everywhere here for weeks.

I just started brewing but I think this Crabbies thing might be my next project.

 

[alimacoz]

Ok I bottled the coopers ginger last night and I was surprised to find that it smelt really good, it had lost all of its sweet smell and had developed a nice firey ginger smell to it so hopefully in a couple of weeks time I'll have a nice drop, I'll let you guys know when I crack a bottle how it turned out

 

[william_shakes_beer]

The temperature of the wort is at 18 degrees which could possibly explain why it is taking so long, do you think its worth heating it up a bit?

Please tell me that's 18C, and not 18 "real" degrees ipe: