Ginger Beer

[emmetkt]

So first of all hello!

Not sure if this is the right place to be asking this as its not a real beer that I'm brewing, but...

I recently started brewing my own ginger beer using a GBP I bought online. Everything is going fine with it the plant is multiplying nicely and the brew tastes great! I'm really enjoying the whole idea of making my own, and i've started messing around with recipes and adding fruits and spices etc.

However

One thing i'm not sure/happy about is the ABV. so maybe you guys can steer me.

On the 04.11.11 I made a 10L batch which consisted of 10L spring water, GBP, 2KG sugar, 1tbls Tartar, Juice & rind 2 lemons and a whole lot of fresh grated ginger. This had a starting weight of 1.062

on the 11.11.11 i tested it and it was only 1.044 does this seem a little slow for ginger beer? I'm going to test again later today to see if its the same, if fermentation has stopped do i just add more sugar to increase the alcohol? If I do add more sugar how do i read the hydrometer or adjust the readings to know what % i have?

Many thanks.

Emmet.

 

[HopSong]

I don't know anything about ginger beer.. but, I would say that in 7 days, the SG has droppe quite a bit. What temp are you at? I would leave it alone for another 7 days and take another sample to verify it is still dropping.. and again in another 7 days, etc until it becomes stable.

You won't know what your alcohol level will be until it hits it's final gravity. Again, I don't know about ginger beer.. but if you bottle it like an ale, for instance, you rack it into a bottling bucket that has some sugar dissolved in a cup or two of water to reactivate the yeast for bottling. That will up your alcohol a tiny bit.. but.. again.. be patient.. let the yeast eat up all the sugar in your wort.. you will know when the SG is stable over a period of a few days.

Side note.. Hello.. and Welcome to HBT. Cork is where my Irish ancestors came from.. I wish I could get my roots traced back to where, exactly, they arrived in the US and then maybe back to church records in Cork. Such a mystery.

Ciao, Bill Splaine

 

[verbarin01]

I like this kind if addition to hbt. Root beer would be an interesting one, too. I've been curious if there are any alcoholic ginger or root (originally sassafras root, I believe) beers, but it looks like this at least partially answers that question.