Ginger Beer - or rather gingery beer

[calumscott]

So, has anyone done anything like Crabbies? Beer but gingery rather than a traditional ginger beer that I used to make as a kid.

I'm presuming that this would be the sort of thing you could knock up out of a kit with the addition of lots of ginger somehow.

I would love to get one of these ready in the new year so that it is good for slurping through the week and a half of summer we might get next year...

Anyone done this before? What did you do? What results did you get?

Cheers

C

 

[scott78]

i found this the other day

going to give this a go at some point.
[urlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLi8l_jXLas][/url]

 

[mogsie]

hey scott that link doesnt work but i believe this is the video you meant, yeah i watched this vid before i started mine, but also found some other online recipies, so i sort of cobbled them together into 1 recipie !

here is the link you wanted to post anyways :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLi8l_jXLas

 

[scott78]

thanks mogsie, didnt think it was going to work. will figure it out one day!!
did the brew turn out ok?

 

[RobWalker]

the stuff made of just ginger, sugar and a bit of lemon is awful, don't bother.

crabbies recipe is top secret, but it's fruit and spice based so maybe you could get a few bottles and maybe sort them out. You would definitely need to backsweeten AND carbonate though, so it might be a keg only job - or pasteurizing.

 

[shearclass]

the stuff made of just ginger, sugar and a bit of lemon is awful, don't bother.

No it isn't!

 

[calumscott]

Rob, are you suggesting that I should go and buy a few bottles of crabbies and drink them and try to figure out what the flavour notes are...?

...oh go on then!!

Seriously though, where would you start with it? Just brew something up with malt extract as the fermentibles for body and play around with the flavours in a ginger based soup?

I saw something about sweetening with splenda - presuming it's non-toxic to yeast but non fermentable? Could that be an avenue worth pursuing? (FWIW, I'm impressed by splenda, it actually tastes like sugar...)

C

 

[mogsie]

still a couple of weeks to go with mine, i used malt extract and honey also ! i thaught about using some other fruit to compliment but i thaught it would weaken the ginger ! didnt want to use dry ginger either, i will let you know how it turns out when it is done !

 

[calumscott]

thanks mogsie, Crabbies is OK but its well expensive for something that's "OK" so I want to do better.

I reckon that the Fiery recipe, with a light spraymalt/honey base, some "extra" spices - cinnamon, clove and nutmeg are topping the list, champers yeast for big fizz - maybe a touch more priming sugar for the bottles than is usually sensible and a dose of splenda for unformentable sweetness should just about do it...

what about hops or is ginger and hops a :nono: ?

 

[mogsie]

i wouldnt know on that one pal, this is my first time at trying to brew anything, yeah i was drinking more crabbies than the bank account approved of !! thats what spurred me into trying my own, really thinking about adding pear juice next time, and adding fresh ginger to the fermenting barrel, experimenting is all part of fun for me ! ive probably made a few mistakes with this batch, but i will see how it turns out, one of the users gave me a link to a recipe on this forum, similar to how i done it ! here it is....

viewtopic.php?f=39&t=5982

 

[calumscott]

yeah, that's the one I'm going to start from.

Damn funny thread in places too!! :lol:

 

[mogsie]

ive just bottled mine up, so i had a little glass to try, and to be honest it tastes like sweet gingery water !! will leave it in the bottles for 2 weeks see if it gets any better, but i think there will definatly be more malt and pears added to next batch, will start tomorow !

 

[RobWalker]

Rob, are you suggesting that I should go and buy a few bottles of crabbies and drink them and try to figure out what the flavour notes are...?

...oh go on then!!

Seriously though, where would you start with it? Just brew something up with malt extract as the fermentibles for body and play around with the flavours in a ginger based soup?

I saw something about sweetening with splenda - presuming it's non-toxic to yeast but non fermentable? Could that be an avenue worth pursuing? (FWIW, I'm impressed by splenda, it actually tastes like sugar...)

C

malt without hops could be good - you definitely need a bit more body than ginger and sugar will supply, plus it'll leave some unfermentables behind. as for splenda, it's really not very good, i sweetened a batch of mine and it tastes very artifical. xylitol tastes better but it's a laxative - hahah. flavours, i dunno. there's citrus in there for sure, spices for sure, but what remains a mystery. I reakon something tropical like passion fruit after fermentation would go down well too. honey dries it out but leaves a very nice aftertaste :)
if you're after a big batch and want to use fresh ginger, head down to an asian market, it's much cheaper than supermarkets.