Ginger "Beer" (with wine yeast)

[dinnerstick]

just a thought, but you could use a wine or ale yeast to ferment down to the sweetness/alcohol amounts that you want, cold crash the yeast, bottle, check carbonation regularly (should be enough yeast to carbonate after the crash but difficult to predict), and pasteurize the bottles when they are at the right level. this goes against your 'not a gambling man' theory since it's a bit dangerous, but it's a possibility.
i have done this with a gbp batch and it was ok, but lots of gloopy sediment.
the method for pasteurizing is here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/

 

[DIYSeattle]

The pasteurizing method seems like an option for storing it for longer than what youd want to keep it int he fridge. For me I cant fill the fridge up with bottles of stuff or I may get yelled at. I already have a second fridge in the basement for my plant tissue culture and I dont want to keep consumables in a chemical fridge. My only other option is to store them on a shelf somewhere until I can use them.

I will try the pasteurization with a small batch and see how that works.

I also want to try to ferment out completely and them prime and bottle like you do with beer and see how that goes. I imagine that you can control the taste a lot better with pasteurizing though.

Thanks

 

[dinnerstick]

I already have a second fridge in the basement for my plant tissue culture and I dont want to keep consumables in a chemical fridge.

orchids?

 

[DIYSeattle]

Whatever I feel like trying to tissue culture. I dont particularly care for orchids too much but I did think about trying hops in the near future.

 

[dinnerstick]

but hops can be propagated vegetatively from rhizomes!

 

[DIYSeattle]

That is true but how many can you get from one plant at a time? In one season? It may be beneficial but it may. I have yet to look into it but I will soon.

 

[gingerman]

I have been making ginger beers in small (1 gal) batches for a while now, using different amounts of fresh and powdered ginger, sugars, yeasts, and brewing schedules. I have just sampled the most recent iteration and it's damn tasty so I thought I'd share.

approx 4" thinly sliced ginger root
1lb brown sugar
1 tsp Cascade hop pellets
1 tsp ground ginger
Cote des Blancs yeast (gave a much better finish than the beer yeasts I have tried)

put ginger in a quart of water over low heat for 15-20 minutes (you are essentially making a ginger tea)
add sugar, stir to dissolve and bring to a boil
add hops and powdered ginger
boil 5 minutes
remove from heat, dilute to 1 gallon, pitch yeast when temp is appropriate.

I made this on 1/27. OG = 1.044, Today (2/17) FG = 1.004

This one has a great ginger taste, though without the direct heat of fresh ginger. Just enough sweetness left and slightly effervescent.

I will have to keg, chill, and tell you more, but this one is great so far! Maybe some ginger added to the keg (like a dry hopping) could raise the heat...

~M~

This seemed like the best thread to pull for this, but please mods feel free to break out if necessary into a separate thread.

I've been playing with a similar ginger beer recipe to the one above, with some slight variations. Here's my current (5 gallon) recipe for my organic, gluten free ginger beer with Champagne Yeast:
1. Mix 3 lbs high quality ginger into 2.5 gallons water
2. Add 10 cups turbinado sugar, or 8 turb, 2 brown sugar. Generally, 2 cups/gallon is mildly sweet.
3. Add 1 tsp cream of tartar, 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper, pinches of sea salt and other spices
4. Boil all that for 15 minutes, then cool for 120. Strain, transfer to fermenter, double the water, and add 1 cup each of lemon and lime juice. Add yeast when temp is right (I shoot for 101). Usually OG is around 1.044 here.
5. Ferment for 48 hours (stirring regularly) for "Ginger Ale" at around 1.3% ABV, or 96 hours for about 3.3%. I haven't yet tried to fully ferment and add priming sugar yet. Alcoholic potency isn't my primary goal. 3.3 sessionable is.
6. Bottle to carbonate, and refrigerate when plastic bottles are rock hard (24-48 hours, depending on temp and amount of yeast in bottles).

I'm at the point where I'm pretty happy with this baseline recipe, and want to start mixing it up with variations of yeasts and hops. Does anyone have experience or advice about which combos might work best with this type of brew? Sounds like cotes des blancs yeast and Cascade hops mentioned above worked well. I'm quite happy with it in its current form, but would like to see where else I can take this recipe. Those two sound like a good jumping off point.

Also, I'm happy to answer any questions someone else might have on ginger beer making. Doesn't seem like there is a vast wealth of knowledge out there about ginger beer, at least relative to the amount of knowledge out there about regular beers. I've had about 13 passes at getting to that idealized batch and have learned some good lessons along the way. Thanks!

 

[gingerman]

Just bottled a couple 3 gallon, hopped ginger beer test batches, following the same recipe as above, except for the cream of tartar. One batch used the Cote de Blanc yeast, and 1/2 oz Crystal hops boiled for 15 min, with 1/2 oz boiled for 5. The other batch used Champagne yeast, with an identical hop schedule. Bottled at 100 hours, each at about 5% ABV. Hoping to refrigerate in 2 days and sample this weekend. The intent of the hopping was just to add aromatics and complex notes to the basic recipe (hence the low bitterness hops), and to compare these two batches to earlier batches. I'm cautiously optimistic after sniffing the thief.

 

[gingerman]

Just in case anyone in the future is curious, the (Crystal) hops I used were not a good addition to the 5% ginger beer made with the above recipe. It wasn't awful, but nothing I wanted to drink 3 gallons of. I ended up throwing out all but a liter to keep for reference. Also, 5% really is too dry with the recipe above. In the future, if I plan to go to 5%, I'll up the OG from 1.04ish to 1.05ish. Live and learn, I guess.