Ever tried Ginger Bug ?

[Aiseant]

Hello

For some reason, I ended up with a lot of ginger and no use for it.

As I've been bitten by some sort of homemade brewing bug and got infected really quickly, I've thought about making a wine with ginger, and find what they call "Ginger Bug" on the Internet : apparently, you can ferment ginger by itself with a bit of sugar then use it to start fermenting juices or other stuffs.

As anyone used it ? (they say it's a british thing :mrgreen: )

If so, do you think you can use it in a WOW ?

 

[HebridesRob]

Hello

For some reason, I ended up with a lot of ginger and no use for it.

As I've been bitten by some sort of homemade brewing bug and got infected really quickly, I've thought about making a wine with ginger, and find what they call "Ginger Bug" on the Internet : apparently, you can ferment ginger by itself with a bit of sugar then use it to start fermenting juices or other stuffs.

As anyone used it ? (they say it's a british thing :mrgreen: )

If so, do you think you can use it in a WOW ?

Ginger beer plant?
http://www.gingerbeerplant.net/

Ginger goes well with apples. Ginger wine is a thing, used as mixer with whisky (see crabbies).

 

[Chippy_Tea]

This will keep you busy for a while - http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3826&highlight=ginger+wine+beer


.

 

[Aiseant]

This will keep you busy for a while - http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3826&highlight=ginger+wine+beer.

1kg of ginger ?! Ok, I have too much on my hands, but how the hell buy a kilogram of ginger for real ?

My problem is that I don't have yeast. Shipping costs are killing me, I can only find it abroad on the web and in this case, I'll pay like twice the price of the product only for shipping. I would go to a shop (a real one, irl), but surprisingly, there's none on Paris. Shame.

There's one near my sister house, I'll go visit her and manage to do some shopping, but I don't know when. In the mean time, I'm looking for way to do fermentation with an alternate way, and this is how I found the ginger bug. I'll try to make a soda out of it, anyway

I'm harvesting the yeast from my last (and first one) brew, maybe I'll succeed :) It would solve my problem for now

 

[Chippy_Tea]

You can buy 1KG of ginger for around £7 which when making 5 gallon of ginger beer is not a lot.

 

[Aiseant]

Hum, slight typo, I meant "who" and not "how". Sounds like a 6th grade math wording : Jack is buying 18 watermelon, 5 pounds of cantaloupe and 1kg of ginger ...
I wasn't thinking about ground stuffs. Definitvely easier than grating 1kg of roots :mrgreen:

I'll give it a try with ground ginger with my collected yeast : sedimentation is going nicely and I think I'll have a successful harvest :thumb:

 

[Wardy]

I loved the Crabbies ginger wine at Christmas and wouldn't mind making a gallon batch of that to condition for 8 months ready for next Christmas. Don't know why I didn't think of it before seeing this thread.

 

[Aiseant]

Well, the ginger bug is ready (gently fizzing when I poke it) and I'm trying a small amount of ginger ale (around 1L5) with a recipe I found on a french hippie website
50gr sugar
1L boiled water
5gr fresh ginger root
5gr homemade gingerbug (maybe I put way more, I dunno, I have no way of measuring such a small amount)

I added a bit of molasse and half a lemon, put it in a 2L bottle and we'll see.

 

[Fil]

NO Molasses unless you want an overidding licorice flavour!! if you must use it limit it to a teaspoonful,

I added a 1lb jar to a 5gallon batch of ginger beer while perfecting my take on a dryish lme bassed ginger beer.
NOt a good result..

 

[Aiseant]

Aouch.
Seemed like a good idea at the time :-? It was between a teaspoon and a tablespoon, I hope it'll be okay ...
Anyway ... the main goal is experimentation anyway :)

 

[Fil]

a spoonful of molasses should be fine, as i said i dropped a 1lb jar in , that wasnt such a good idea..

My own trial n lots of error experiments have finalised with this simple recipe:


1) 500g-1kg fresh ginger washed and grated (ethnic shops will sell ginger root at a fraction of the cost of supermarkets.. circa £4-5 per kilo) the more shrivled the root the stronger the flavour w/w so us a kilo of really fresh and less if a lil dryer.. use a fine cheese grater

2) juice from 6 lemons rind from 2 x

3) strong mug of tea

4) and 2 tins of light lme

5) (optional 1/2 to 1 level teaspoon of chilli powder it adds a real kick, but go lightly) my 1st attempt with chili i added a table spoon Way too much, the result was painful to drink, but when mixed 50/50 with fruit juice made a wonderful summer thirst quencher

all boiled up for 40mins in as much water as you can (8litres +)

then strained thru a seive and squeezed out, made upto 23l (5gallons) with cold water in the fv, ( i add the cold water thru the sieve to rinse out as much flavour as possible..

Dont worry if a bit of matter from the boil ends up in the fv it will settle out with the other sediment ok..

should provide a OG circa 1044-1050 for 4.5%-5% finished beer.

once primary is compete back sweeten with an artificial sweetener or lactose. 500g of lactose should do it.. (lactose is about 1/2 as sweet as sugar w/w)

pitch with salsafe US-05 and ferment for a week @19c
the us-05 works well for light crisp ales imho.

 

[Aiseant]

I'm basically using the ginger bug as a yeast to make a soda right now (which is not bubbling yet, btw. Me sad.) Ginger beer may be the next step in this

About the yeast : I only have the yeast I collected from my brewferm pilsn kit (the bottom of the first fermentation is used in a test cider right now, the bottom of the second fermentation is waiting in the fridge). Maybe the Bug may be sufficient to start the process. Anyway, I'm out of bottles after the Bottling Incident, this puts further projects on hold

 

[IainM]

I've got a ginger beer on at the moment, but used 300g of fresh ginger and 1tsp Cayenne for 4.5L! Looking at your recipe Fil, seems I will have to dilute it! I also dipped in a muslin full of crushed coriander and curacao orange which I'd used to make a tea to top up the wheat beer I have in the fv. Smells lovely.

 

[Aiseant]

This morning I opened the bottle and started a race : zillions of very small bubbles trying to get to the top :thumb: (the same way a commercial soda does when you open it the first time)
I'll have a taste this afternoon :pray:

 

[Aiseant]

I think the right word is "bland". All the fizz was gone once poured in a glass, and the taste was ... quite uninteresting.

My understanding is : bubbles in the bottle and no bubbles in the glass ==> the co2 was present but not disolved in the liquid, so I have to wait a bit longer

For the taste : I'll let it consume more sugar and see how it turns. I intend to try some bottling : some before the end of fermentation with pasteurization and other with priming sugar like I would do for a beer. If the taste doesn't get better, I'll add the priming sugar by making a sirup with more ginger, maybe lime or just citric acid.

EDIT : well, no more bubbles in it, so it's time to try priming and bottling
As I apparently can't do maths, I ended up with overpriming : 10gr/L at best, 15gr/L in those I add raspberry sirup in. I guess I'll not capsulate those just yet ...

 

[Aiseant]

Ok, after some try&fail,it appears that if you use only white sugar, the result is not very tasty : acid and taste like yeast.
I have better results with those I used sirup for priming, and even better with the one I used sirup for initial fermentation (and white sugar for priming, just for co2). It makes a nice drink, almost like lemonade.
Next coming are :
- use the ginger bug with fruit juice, and pasteurizing (already done, on the fridge right now)
- make the initial fermentation with lemon sirup (and add more lemon juice) to make something even closer to lemonade

 

[AndysGray]

Just coming to the bottling stage of my first batch of GBP (Ginger Beer Plant) - got the starter culture from Lakeland123 in ireland on ebay, and the taste is much as I remember as a kid some 40 years ago. I used a recipe which was on the Guardian website,

Basically
2l of chlorine free water (I boiled mine),
a tablespoon of the GBP
250grams sugar (half and half) granulated / unrefined demerara
Juice of a Lemon, (some suggest the vit C in the lemon will kill chlorine so boil not needed?)
Pinch cream of tartar (acidity regulator) optional
2-3" (5-7cm) piece of ginger root, blanched, peeled and grated and tied in a muslin square with a little lemon zest.
Though the next batch will be going in demi johns and so will go in the blender and be strained as the muslin parcel wouldnt work

 

[AndysGray]

This is less about producing an alcoholic brew, than a refreshing soft drink.
I should add that the GBP (also known as a SCOBY - Yeast + Bacteria) basically doubles with each batch so can be donated to friends but is a bit like a pyramid scheme - doubles in 1 week so after 6 months there should in theory be enough cultures for pretty much everyone in the UK :lol: