First ginger. Beer

[jrwroberts]

Good afternoon​ does this look right for ginger beer?

 

[Fil]

if made from a 'plant' and dry ginger its a bit pale from what i recall, its pretty close to a coopers kit colour, and nothing like a real malt based brew.. give us a clue as to just what it is and perhaps more useful comments will flow..

 

[jrwroberts]

It's made from raw ginger and lemons

 

[Fil]

It's made from raw ginger and lemons

and some sugars too i hope...

then yes thats the sort of colour you could expect, there is little to provide any colour..

you may want to chill early to retain some sweetness and halt yeast activity otherwise it may ferment out very thin and dry needing a back sweeten.

whats the OG ? It could go all the way down to 1.000 left unchecked..
(bottle in pet not glass..)

next time perhaps consider LME or DME for at least 50% of the sugar mass it will add so much more than just colour providing the body and mouthfeel and probably just enough malty sweetness not to require any back sweetening.
and a level teaspoon of chilli powder will add an extra kick to a 5 gallon batch. .

 

[jrwroberts]

Yes and 1kg of brewing sugar. I didn't take a reading as i have been so worried about​ infection. (I am new to this) i was going to leave it 2 weeks to primary ferment then move to 500ml bottles with a carbonation tablet. So why not glass bottles?

 

[Drop]

Ginger beer has a reputation for causing bottle bombs so many people use plastic rather than glass, to limit the damage. I recall exploding bottles way back when my late gran taught me how to make (largely non-alcoholic) ginger beer but have had no such problems with the many batches of (decidedly alcoholic) ginger beer I've brewed recently.

All the same, I'd recommend plastic -- 2L PET bottles of mineral water from a supermarket, for example, are pretty good for the purpose. Don't forget to sterilise them.

How large a batch are you making? I use 2.5kg or so of sugar for 20 litres and, paired with a champagne yeast, it can take 3 weeks to ferment out completely, giving a dry result of about 7% ABV, fondly known around here as Knock Down Ginger. So depending on batch size, fermentation temperature and your chosen yeast it may take a bit less/more than 2 weeks.

 

[geigercntr]

I second the use of PET bottles. About ten years ago I made a batch in glass bottles. Thankfully they weren't capped, but (reasonably) loosely corked. Every single one of those corks hit the ceiling

 

[beatsalma]

I too Brewing ginger beer for the first time.

I've two 5l demijohns on the go.

basic recipe.

3 lemons per 5l
2 cups of ginger per 5l
champagne yeast
half packet of sugar (slightly less than pint)

so....

10 days in still fizzing, lemon sediment has come to top and ginger at bottom.

I siphoned out a glass to see how its going. So far very, very sweet and far too much lemon. It also has a very lemony taste not vinegary but a lil sour kind of?

Not sure if should decant remove sediment and add more fresh ginger?
or is this just part of fermentation?

 

[SteveWTBD]

I too have started a ginger beer. No idea how it will work out.

I'm making 10 litres.

This is what I have done....

350g root ginger, peeled and grated.
1/2 lime sliced and squeezed
2 small oranges - ditto
1/4 chilli - ditto
1 tsp cinnamon
3 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 nutmeg- grated

All the above in small bowl with about 75ml Lambs Navy Rum and about 50ml of cold strong tea covered with cling film and left over night.

Sugars
850mg brewing sugar
2 tbs black treacle
350mg lime marmalade

You are probably realising that I was making this up as I went along.

No Cream of Tartar so 1tbs white wine vinegar

Few sprigs fresh coriander.

Everything in 3.8l saucepan and brought to the boil. After about five minutes I whizzed everything up with a hand blender so everything was chopped up to about 3mm bits.

I simmered the mixture for about 45 minutes.

Next, poured the mixture/wort through a sieve and sparged the chopped ingredients with boiling water until the juice was running virtually clear.

This resulted in a brown liquor, which I put in the fermentation vessel and watered it down.

For yeast, I used the yeast cake from a DJ of ale I had just bottled.

So we'll see what happens now!!

Total cost, apart from stuff I had in the kitchen, £1.29 for the fresh root ginger, so not the end of the world if it is a disaster.

O.G 1.050

 

[Robin54]

I too have started a ginger beer. No idea how it will work out.

I'm making 10 litres.

This is what I have done....

350g root ginger, peeled and grated.
1/2 lime sliced and squeezed
2 small oranges - ditto
1/4 chilli - ditto
1 tsp cinnamon
3 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 nutmeg- grated

All the above in small bowl with about 75ml Lambs Navy Rum and about 50ml of cold strong tea covered with cling film and left over night.

Sugars
850mg brewing sugar
2 tbs black treacle
350mg lime marmalade

You are probably realising that I was making this up as I went along.

No Cream of Tartar so 1tbs white wine vinegar

Few sprigs fresh coriander.

Everything in 3.8l saucepan and brought to the boil. After about five minutes I whizzed everything up with a hand blender so everything was chopped up to about 3mm bits.

I simmered the mixture for about 45 minutes.

Next, poured the mixture/wort through a sieve and sparged the chopped ingredients with boiling water until the juice was running virtually clear.

This resulted in a brown liquor, which I put in the fermentation vessel and watered it down.

For yeast, I used the yeast cake from a DJ of ale I had just bottled.

So we'll see what happens now!!

Total cost, apart from stuff I had in the kitchen, �£1.29 for the fresh root ginger, so not the end of the world if it is a disaster.

O.G 1.050

I like it, I like it
tell us how it pans out!

 

[Fil]

for the olde world like you grandmother used to make ginger beer a ginger plant is the way to go imho but if your after something a tad more modern and akin to the crabbies commercial offering then brewing with a malt base will get you closer

in a batch of 5 gallons a teaspoon of chilli can give it a fiery kick too TEASPOON, ist time i misread and added 1 heaped tablespoon !! OMG it was too hot too drink, one sip and your mouth n lips started to tingle and then it got HOT!! however cutting 50/50 with grapefruit juice made a wonderful summer thirst quencher.

 

[Ken L]

I shall be doing a batch for the summer in the next few weeks. One FV with a Coopers kit and the other with ginger, lemons, cream of tartar etc and brewed to about 5% and dry.
The coopers is so sweet as to be undrinkable but mixed over ice, it's a fantastic drink.

 

[SteveWTBD]

How long do I need to leave ginger beer in the FV?

I am confused by all the recipes that skip the FV and brew in a 2 litre plastic bottle and drink within a week.

Does that mean you can bottle whenever you like? And does that mean the abv is much lower if you bottle sooner?

Still learning here😉

 

[Fil]

Traditional ginger beer is a sweet non/vlow alcoholic drink fermented under pressure IN THE BOTTLE to provide the fizz and not alcohol. its given a day or so in the warm and then chilled send the yeast dormant so they leave the sugar to sweeten the drink.

Generally alcoholic beers get fermented without containing the pressure until all the sugar is exhasted and get popped in a bottle with a level teaspoon or less sugar per pint to feed the yeast just enough to create the fizz or condition required.

traditional ginger beers are generally started with 80%+ of a ginger plant which is a huge population of yeast that have been fed both sugar and ginger over a few weeks which should result in large healthy ginger tollerant yeast population to provide the fizz quickly, the remaining 10-20% of the 'ginger plant' kept back to start the next batch off with.


to the best of my recollection to make a ginger plant get a 1 lb sanitised jam jar with a lid. 1/3-1/2 fill with off the boil water and let cool to room temps and then add 4 teaspoons of sugar and a teaspoon of dry ginger with a heaped teaspoon of bakers yeast. all you need monitor is that its in a warm enough spot which should be indicated by a lil bubbling.. next day check bubblings stopped if not leave it alone. Else feed it another spoon of sugar and ginger, after a week? or 2? you can stop adding ginger daily and add it weekly. but keep feeding sugar daily top up with more water if necessary and when the jar is almost full you can use it for a gallon of ginger beer, mix it up and leave it a day or perhaps 2 before chilling

to mix in sugar etc seal the lid shake and crack the lid again



if you want an alcoholic ginger beer then you have to meld the two somehow or otherwise you can take pot luck with bottle bombs and fountains that result from fermenting very sweet liquids in sealed bottles.


edit fwiw if after an alcoholic ginger beer i would brew an unhopped malt based beer with ginger and condition in the bottle with a priming charge that way the result will have shelf life.

trying to contain inactive yeast in a bottle with fridge temps isnt going to work chances are some yeast could still slowly metabolise at domestic fridge temps with regular door opening

 

[SteveWTBD]

Thanks, Fil,

Very educational!