Are there any signs of fermentation? Is there any chance you can get your hands on a hydrometer to check the gravity? If you have any signs of fermentation I would just leave it alone.. If you have no signs of fermentation after 72 hours you might consider re-pitching some yeast. It would be best if you could check gravity over a couple days, as this is the only way to tell if fermentation is taking place. I used balloons for my test batch also. Poke 4 holes in the sides of the ballon with a needle. Make sure you sanitize the balloon first (inside and out). Replace the ballon every couple of days with a freshly sanitized one. If you have the fermenting container capped off the gas build-up can hurt the yeast and ruin the taste, so use sanitized foil (it will let gas escape) till you get balloons. I hope these tips help. I'm no pro, but this is what I did with my prison hooch.. Good luck! Let us know how it works out...
I've just had a tentative peek at BIG bottle and yes! We have some bubbles, no hiss, but definite bubbles, and it does smell slightly alcoholic. I say slightly, as ginger has a kind of 'alcoholic' smell to it anyway. Or it could just be me ...
What happened was, this is a hybrid of the two previous recipes I made up. The first required just 1 desert spoon of yeast mixed up with a squeeze of lime and warm water before being pitched in to the warm mash and then make it all up to 22 liters. Turns out this particular recipe called for boiling the bejayzuz (3 times each with 1k sugar) out of the ginger, hence no 'ginger' taste. This was the six week recipe.
The second spat out recipe was 5 liters (smaller store bought water bottle) with 1k sugar only, together with small jar honey, just brought to boil and left to sit overnight, thus retaining the ginger flavour, which sounded more plausible, and THEN pitching in TWO desert spoons of yeast just chucked in to the now cold mash. Bubbled like fury but mate said it tasted like Nitromores lol. This recipe only
seven days.
I'd topped up one of the half empty small secondary bottles with plain cold water, 'fridged it, and was definitely more palatable, although still a tad sour. So hit on this idea of just upping the water content, doubling the sugar, and adding pineapple instead of the honey. I've heard the locals make pineapple hooch, but that it's too sweet.
Shall I just leave it as it is then? And hope for the best ... Cap firmly on - but obviously lets in some air anyway, as some liquid came out when I tried to 'wake it up a bit'. These are 10 baht water bottles the locals use and then exchange the bottles for refills. But after a while, having been knocked about a bit, not quite as watertight as should be it seems. Also, I'd reckoned on this being just a bigger version of the 5 liter 7 day recipe. Am I being impatient? (Need a drink haha).
Doesn't seem to be any point in investing in a balloon for this batch as any fermentation already as far as it's likely to go? Pitching more yeast into it after a week waste of time?
PS NO way of getting hold of a hydrometer out in the jungle. So I have to test the gravity by how pissed I get.
PPS Just so you get an idea of how bad things are boozewise here, there's a Scot has a bar up my soi who advertises cider. God knows what apples he uses (all pretty mild and tasteless here, soil not earth, it's sandy). He's really proud of this crap. Doubt it's even looked at an apple. But people buy it. Because it's NOT THAI 'BEER' LOL!
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