I got drunk from my ginger beer! (beer/brew/cider/wine?)

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keithbeats

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(No traction in the Beginners Beer Forum from this. What is this officially called? Beer?Cider?Wine?)

This ginger thing is delicious.

I made this recently and had my first bottle last week. I drank one 16oz bottle and it gave me a good buzz!
The taste was mildly sweet as the carbing sugars haven’t all been processed by the yeast, I liked that characteristic btw.
The flavor was slightly tangy from the lemon/lime
There was a nice caramel taste most likely from the brown sugar and a awesomely strong ginger bite at the finish. The carbonation at this point is mild, no head to be seen but certainly carbonation especially in mouth feel. To be honest there is also a little bitterness but the sugar is enough to mask it fairly well. I will do this again exactly the same. My French friends and I had a crepe party and we shared this together with the crepes and it was fantastic!
Sante!

Using a large kettle.
Ingredients:
1. 2.5 lb ginger (shredded in food processor)
2. 3 lb. sugar
3. 1.5 lb brown sugar
4. 1 lemon 1 lime
5. champagne yeast

Instructions:
1. boil 2 gallons water
2. add ginger
3. cut lemon/lime in half, squeeze into boil then add the halves into the boil
4. add 3lb white sugar and 1lb brown sugar. Stir.
5. boil 10 minutes then take off burner and add 1 gallon cool water
6. cool kettle in sink by adding ice and water into the sink.
7. when temperature reaches 100F, pour into 5 gallon carboy
8. add champagne yeast
9. top up with cool water just to the line where the carboy starts to curve.
10. after 1 week add .5lb brown sugar (mixed with 1 cup boiled water) to reactivate yeast.
11. at 2nd week fill 24 oz bottles (I used flip-tops) with 1.5oz sugar mixed with 1 oz boiled water
12. fill with ginger brew
13. wait one week for bottle to carbonate then refrigerate
14. drink when cold!

ENJOY!

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Is this a 3.5 gallon batch total volume? I see three gallons of water, but I know the sugar added makes the volume greater but I don't know how much.

Anyway, if it was a 3.5 gallon batch, it's likely to be about 7.5% ABV, more or less. That would put the shine in anybody's eyes after a few of those!
 
Hey Yooper! It's actually around 5 gallon which is the size of my carboy. I mentioned to top up with water in the recipe. 16 oz gave me a nice buzz and it also tastes really good. I wasn't sure how it would go but I was pleasantly surprised.
 
Hey Yooper! It's actually around 5 gallon which is the size of my carboy. I mentioned to top up with water in the recipe. 16 oz gave me a nice buzz and it also tastes really good. I wasn't sure how it would go but I was pleasantly surprised.

For a 5 gallon batch, the ABV would be about 6%. I'm glad this came out so good- I love ginger, and ginger ale (not hard ginger ale, but the soda) is a favorite of mine.
 
Thanks for the estimate on the ABV. Stronger than I imagined it. Do you have a recommendation for how much sugar I should add to carb a 24oz bottle? I just went for 1.5oz.
 
Flips tops are super cool, but I fought them for three batches before I figured out those bastards leak and make weakly carbonated beer. Started capping and not one issue. Brewers friend has a lot of free calculators including one that figures how much priming sugar to use. For 2 gallons I use a quarter cup of table sugar. That much sugar adds about .5 percent ABV and about .004 gravity points to my beer at bottling. Table sugar, and corn sugar are said to be fairly neutral in flavor after they do their job priming.
 
Ya, one of my bottles had a really weak flip top and the ginger beer never carbed. But the ones that did carb taste and look really nice.
 
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