# All Grain Ginger Beer



## MCHammo

I recently had a bit of a brainwave regarding ginger beers. I've been making a few over the last couple of years, and only just got into All Grain beer brewing. I've always done my gingers from scratch using fresh ingredients, to varying degrees of success. One of the big hurdles many people seem to be having is sweetening the final product, as we all seem to use highly fermentable sugars. As a result, I've noticed a lot of people experimenting with stevia, lactose, or mixing just prior to consumption.

The idea I've been toying with is thus; making an All Grain beer with a very light malt, mashing at higher temperatures to bring the fermentability down (to hopefully avoid the need for sweeteners), and replacing hop additions with ginger/spice additions.

In the reading that I've done, it would seem that gingerol (the active ingredient in raw ginger that gives it the zing) changes state when cooked, to give a more aroma, but less zing. I was contemplating then adding some ginger at the beginning of the boil, but most of it uncooked, similar to a dry hop - maybe after a few days of fermentation, and again after about a week.

Basically, I would expect my recipe to look something like this:

20L batch, BIAB method

*Mash:*
4kg Pilsner malt, mashed at 70 C for 90 mins

*Boil**:*
400g ginger pulp
juice & zest of 2 lemons/limes
1 cinamon quill
2 cloves
(20-30 mins, all additions at start of boil)

*Ferment:*
low AA yeast putting out plenty of spicy aromas. This I'm not too familiar with. I've used US-05 in the past for a more basic GB, but maybe something worth changing. Maybe WLP051 (California Ale V) or WLP 565 (Saison I)? Or maybe switch to a cider (WLP775) or sweet mead (WLP720) yeast? Stick to US-05? something else?
400g ginger pulp @ 3 days 
400g ginger pulp @ 7 days, or at about end of fermentation

Bulk prime & bottle at about 10-14 days, or later if a slow fermentation.

I'm after a light, refreshing ginger beer, delivering a whole bucket load of ginger zing. I like it relatively dry, but my last couple of batches (FG ~1.005) of 'simple' GB have been a little too dry for my liking. Also don't want to add too much malt, as I really want to ginger to be the dominant flavour.

Any thoughts? Criticisms? Have I just violated every single law of brewing? Has anyone done something like this before? (I've tried searching, but haven't found much like this. And nothing with any results). Also looking for advice on malt and mash. would I be better off with a different malt(s)? Different mash temp/time/quantity?


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## nifty

MCHammo said:


> I recently had a bit of a brainwave regarding ginger beers. I've been making a few over the last couple of years, and only just got into All Grain beer brewing. I've always done my gingers from scratch using fresh ingredients, to varying degrees of success. One of the big hurdles many people seem to be having is sweetening the final product, as we all seem to use highly fermentable sugars. As a result, I've noticed a lot of people experimenting with stevia, lactose, or mixing just prior to consumption.
> 
> The idea I've been toying with is thus; making an All Grain beer with a very light malt, mashing at higher temperatures to bring the fermentability down (to hopefully avoid the need for sweeteners), and replacing hop additions with ginger/spice additions.
> 
> In the reading that I've done, it would seem that gingerol (the active ingredient in raw ginger that gives it the zing) changes state when cooked, to give a more aroma, but less zing. I was contemplating then adding some ginger at the beginning of the boil, but most of it uncooked, similar to a dry hop - maybe after a few days of fermentation, and again after about a week.
> 
> Basically, I would expect my recipe to look something like this:
> 
> 20L batch, BIAB method
> 
> *Mash:*
> 4kg Pilsner malt, mashed at 70 C for 90 mins
> 
> *Boil**:*
> 400g ginger pulp
> juice & zest of 2 lemons/limes
> 1 cinamon quill
> 2 cloves
> (20-30 mins, all additions at start of boil)
> 
> *Ferment:*
> low AA yeast putting out plenty of spicy aromas. This I'm not too familiar with. I've used US-05 in the past for a more basic GB, but maybe something worth changing. Maybe WLP051 (California Ale V) or WLP 565 (Saison I)? Or maybe switch to a cider (WLP775) or sweet mead (WLP720) yeast? Stick to US-05? something else?
> 400g ginger pulp @ 3 days
> 400g ginger pulp @ 7 days, or at about end of fermentation
> 
> Bulk prime & bottle at about 10-14 days, or later if a slow fermentation.
> 
> I'm after a light, refreshing ginger beer, delivering a whole bucket load of ginger zing. I like it relatively dry, but my last couple of batches (FG ~1.005) of 'simple' GB have been a little too dry for my liking. Also don't want to add too much malt, as I really want to ginger to be the dominant flavour.
> 
> Any thoughts? Criticisms? Have I just violated every single law of brewing? Has anyone done something like this before? (I've tried searching, but haven't found much like this. And nothing with any results). Also looking for advice on malt and mash. would I be better off with a different malt(s)? Different mash temp/time/quantity?


Have a read through this thread - http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f76/ginger-ale-3rd-place-2009-hbt-bjcp-comp-141080/

I plan on giving this a go soon.

cheers

nifty


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## MCHammo

Thanks for the link! Looks like I've allowed for much more malt than they have, and that one still tastes like beer (but the hops could be aiding that). I might drop my malt down to 2kg and add 1 kg of sugar. That will bring me more or less in line with their fermentables. Close on temps too, which is nice to see. My previous experience with ginger beers tells me that I need much more ginger than they have allowed (but I like it very spicy, and for it to taste like ginger). That said, using raw ginger may significantly step up the ginger bite. I'll stick to my guns for now, but I'll taste it before the final addition.

Any other feedback?


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## MCHammo

Ok, I've picked up all the ingredients for this one. I'll have a go at it tomorrow. Ended up going for WLP530 (Belgian Abbey Ale) for the yeast. Attenuation should be slightly less than US-05, but it's marginal. It's supposed to be good for spiced flavours, and seems to be fairly versatile, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I'll also try a dubbel or wit on the gingery yeast cake. I'm sure the Belgians would have done something crazy like that.


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## pat_00

Updates? How did it go?


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## technobabble66

+1
Very keen to hear how this went - namely how the high mash affected the resulting GB.
I suspect the extensive "dry hopping" of the ginger might result in a fiery brew, but i'm also keen to hear how this worked.

I'm considering my next GB, and doing the dishwasher pasteurisation technique...


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## Airgead

technobabble66 said:


> I'm considering my next GB, and doing the dishwasher pasteurisation technique...


When did shoving stuff in a dishwasher become a legitimate technique? A dishwasher is not an autoclave or a pasturiser. They don't get hot enough to reliably pasturise things. They don't stay hot long enough to reliably pasturise things. Even if parts of them do get hot enough for long enough, they don't heat evenly enough to reliably pasturise everything.

Most run at 60C. Some new ones run at 55. The minimum temp required for pasturisation is 63 and must be held (at the center of the liquid, not just on the surface of the bottle) for at least 30 minutes. 60 is close to a pasturising temp but not quite there. You may get pasturisation at 60 but contact time would be exponentially longer.

Are you reliably getting 63C for 30 mins at the center of every bottle in the dishwasher? All it takes is one bottle with one live yeast cell...

Dumb as a box of hammers IMHO.

Cheers
Dave

BTW - 63C for 30 mins will significantly change the flavour of many foods. In industry they almost never do that. They will flash pasturise at 96C for around 1-2 seconds. Or ultra pasturise at 138C for 1 second. Shorter the time the less flavour changes.


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## MastersBrewery

I'd say considering your brew would be 90+% water @ 138c it would all be vapour, so that really ain't going to work either


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## Airgead

They use a flash pasturisation process under pressure (to raise the boiling point). The heat comes from steam under pressure at around 2-300C and is passed through a heat exchanger (like a plate chiller only backwards). The heat is passed to the fluid which is pumped again under pressure through the system. The contact time is low enough and the pressure high enough that it stays liquid.

Cheers
Dave


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## technobabble66

Airgead said:


> When did shoving stuff in a dishwasher become a legitimate technique? A dishwasher is not an autoclave or a pasturiser. They don't get hot enough to reliably pasturise things. They don't stay hot long enough to reliably pasturise things. Even if parts of them do get hot enough for long enough, they don't heat evenly enough to reliably pasturise everything.
> 
> Most run at 60C. Some new ones run at 55. The minimum temp required for pasturisation is 63 and must be held (at the center of the liquid, not just on the surface of the bottle) for at least 30 minutes. 60 is close to a pasturising temp but not quite there. You may get pasturisation at 60 but contact time would be exponentially longer.
> 
> Are you reliably getting 63C for 30 mins at the center of every bottle in the dishwasher? All it takes is one bottle with one live yeast cell...
> 
> Dumb as a box of hammers IMHO.
> 
> Cheers
> Dave
> 
> BTW - 63C for 30 mins will significantly change the flavour of many foods. In industry they almost never do that. They will flash pasturise at 96C for around 1-2 seconds. Or ultra pasturise at 138C for 1 second. Shorter the time the less flavour changes.


Some of my best friends are hammers.... 

I'm not 100% sold on the dishwasher idea, though i'm obviously tempted. It's based on a couple of anecdotal efforts by 1-2 guys who swear they've done it a several times & never had a bottle bomb. Not irrefutable obviously, but sounded somewhat viable & tested.

The temp/times you mention are v handy to determine the ability of my dishwasher to do the job.

My dishwasher apparently gets to the appropriate temps on really just 1 cycle: Pots&Pans
The P&P cycle is meant to get to 75°C for the main wash & 65°C for the final rinse. Time for the entire cycle is 2 hrs 29min.

That sounds like it might do the trick to me :lol:
What do you think, Airgead?

Option B is to try the Pot Pasteurizing technique:
Get big pot of water to simmer. Turn off heat. Place bottles in water. Leave bottles in for 1hr, preferably with the lid on. Remove bottles. Reheat water up to simmer. Repeat.
What do you think of that?

I'm pursuing this as i'm keen to avoid using artificial sweeteners or lactose, even though i found a light application of Stevia to be (kinda) OK.

However, i'm also keen to avoid bombing my study.


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## barls

mate if you want sweetness try upping the crystal malts to 20-25% and reducing your sugar content.
mash high and use a low attenuating yeast like windsor or similar.
as for pasteurising, you will have to let it carbonate first before attempting. dont even think of doing this in plastic as has been suggested in other threads on here.
the higher the temp you do it at the shorter the time you need. personally id go for somewhere around 70 slightly shorter time frame but as airgead has stated it will change the flavour slightly.
ive been playing with one of these myself but have had the time to do a new batch yet.
mine has about 600g of ginger that is made in to a syrup with dme the day before and added direct to the fermentor.


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## Airgead

OK.. 75 sounds hot enough but that's just a peak temp. It doesn't say how long that temp is held for. The cycle is 2hrs and whatever but no info as to the time/temp curve.

How long will it take to get a bottle of liquid from room temp to an even internal temp of 63C+? Its longer than you think. Particularly for glass. Then you need to hold it there for 30 mins. Without the time/temp curve for the dishwasher you will never know. If you have a temp probe you could somehow put one inside a bottle of water in the dishwasher and run it through a cycle logging the temp every minute or so. Then you would need to do that at multiple locations in the dishwasher to find any cool spots...

Pan pasturisation can work but again you need to make sure that you get the internal temp of the liquid (not just the surface temp) to 63C+ and hold it for 30 mins. if you look at the recipes for preserving fruit, they will tell you to boil the jars for around an hour to ensure that things pasturise properly. 

Regardless of the method, you then have to deal with flavour changes due to cooking.

Then there's the question of pressure. As you heat a presurised liquid (like a carbonated beverage), the pressure will increase. How much pressure can your bottles take before blowing? How much pressure is in the to start with? They do bottle pasturisation commercially with carbonated liquids but they know exactly the rated pressure of their bottles and exactly the pressure in each bottle and exactly the temperature (and therfore the pressure curve) inside the bottles. And they still have a failure rate.

In a domestic setting you are reusing bottles that you don't know the rating of, and don't know the condition of, and you don't really know the pressure inside, or what the internal temp is doing. 

I know people swear by it but I reckon its a great way to send fragments of glass and boiling liquid all over your kitchen. At least the dishwasher would keep things contained. People say they do it all the time but I could play russian roulette all afternoon and come out fine. Doesn't mean its not a stupid thing to do.

Cheers
Dave


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## spryzie

My dishwasher has a baby bottle sterilisation feature (80 degrees).

That's why I bought it.


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## Airgead

A baby bottle (thin plastic) heats up far quicker than a glass beer bottle...

Is it dry heat or wet heat? Dry heat you need 110C for 60 mins to properly sanitise (according to my jam making references) as dry heat is much less efficient. Moisture (ie: steam) speeds up the heat transfer (conductive as well as convective heating).

It may work. You'd need to measure the temp during a cycle to be sure.

For sanitising I reckon a bit of iodophor is much easier. We do the jam jars in the oven but thats mostly because you need to heat the jars before hot backing anyway or else they crack.

Cheers
Dave


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## MCHammo

Not a lot of feedback as yet. I tried one the other night, but it was still a bit green. From what I can remember, it was not really any sweeter, but had more body to it. This was discussed a bit more here. It was different from other ginger beers I've made before, probably due to the grain and the different yeast. As discussed in that other thread, my 90 minute mash probably worked against me a bit, despite the 72°C mash temp. Wort was a little more fermentable than I'd hoped, so finished lower (1.004 FG - about where my other gingers have always ended up). A 20-30 min mash might be more appropriate.

There was a lengthy discussion on another thread somewhere about my raw ginger idea. Pretty much, ginger root has a heap of lactic acid bacteria, which could possibly kill off the GB. After that, it was pretty much scrapped. I still used 400g or so of ginger in the boil, but then added another 600g or so to the fermenter after being boiled. I took a few litres out of the main fermenter and treated them with some nearly raw ginger (peeled root thrown into boiling water for about 30 seconds before being pulped, hopefully to retain more gingerols and less zingerones but also killing off the lacto bacteria. This assumes that they only live near the surface of the root, and I have no idea if they do or not, hence only trialling on a small batch).

I'll report back when I've tasted some more in about a week. I ended up grabbing some lactose and adding a bit to some of the bottles. Maybe I won't mind the taste of lactose in my GB.

Another thought... pear juice contains some non-fermentable sugars (sorbitol), right? One could always try substituting some sugar and water from a "Standard" ginger beer recipe with some pear juice as an experiment. Or - if you can buy it - some straight sorbitol.


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## pat_00

I had a 'hollows & fentiman' GB. I really like these, one of the better commercial GBs available.

Label on the back has pear juice listed as an ingredient.


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## j-dunn

I made this recipe a while ago and it was awesome.

I was at our local farmers market on the weekend and ginger was $10kg so I got a Kg and am going to make this again.

I kegged it and force carbed it as if it was a "beer" and was sensational. The wife loved it too!

OSB Lemgineric Ale (Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer)
Original Gravity (OG): 1.057 (°P): 14.0
Final Gravity (FG): 1.010 (°P): 2.6
Alcohol (ABV): 6.15 %
Colour (SRM): 14.6 (EBC): 28.8
Bitterness (IBU): 0.0 (Average)
75.47% Pale Malt
18.87% Brown Sugar, Dark
5.66% Caramunich II

21.7 g/L Ginger Root @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
13.0 g/L lemongrass root @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
8.7 g/L Turmeric Root @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
6.5 g/L Ginger Root @ 4 Days (Secondary)
6.5 g/L Ginger Root @ 0 Minutes ("dry hopped" in tea ball in keg)
Single step Infusion at 70°C for 60 Minutes. Boil for 40 Minutes
Fermented at 19°C with Safale US-05

Ginger, turmeric and Lemongrass were almost pureed in food processor.


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## MartinOC

Turmeric??

Interesting, but why?


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## Mardoo

I had a ginger beer with fresh turmeric the other day. Fantastic addition!


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## j-dunn

I added it at the request of the bride, she cited the health benefits! absolutely healthy at 6%!!

It just adds another dimension to the flavours.

I should add that I used a fermenter that I keep for these kind of beers as it does stain them a nice yellow colour!


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## j-dunn

Mardoo said:


> I had a ginger beer with fresh turmeric the other day. Fantastic addition!


how was the turmeric added Mardoo?


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## Mardoo

I don't know. A friend had one of his friend's that the friend had made, so I might be able to find out process but no guarantees. From the flavour I'd guess in the fermenter, as it retained some of the fresh turmeric notes.


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## j-dunn

I put this down on Monday and it smelled so good from mash to boil.
I tasted the wort and now I am as keen as mustard to have it on tap!!!
I pitched the yeast at 22degC And it sparked to life overnight with a good steady burble from the airlock at 19 degC


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## reardo

j-dunn said:


> I put this down on Monday and it smelled so good from mash to boil.
> I tasted the wort and now I am as keen as mustard to have it on tap!!!
> I pitched the yeast at 22degC And it sparked to life overnight with a good steady burble from the airlock at 19 degC


How did it end up j-dunn? I'm pretty keen on trying a recipe soon


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## Randai

I did a beer with ginger (not ginger beer), recently. Very low alcohol for the wife.

Basically

OG: 1.034
FG: 1.010
IBU: 21
EBC:12.2
Efficiency: 75%
Boil: 30 minutes
Fermenter Amount: 21L

Ingredients:
2kg BB Ale
1kg Wheat Malt
3% Dark Crystal 80-90L

Chinook at 30 to 21 IBU

300g Ginger pureed into cube, let sit over night.

Wyeast 1968 - Fermented at 17.7 C let rise up to 20 C. Crash when at FG.

Dissolved 300 grams of sugar in a litre of the beer on the stove, gently for a few minutes.


It was pretty delicious, though not a straight ginger beer. Next time I would add in more ginger root to up that flavour. But definitely a noticable ginger flavour to it. Just not a smack you in the face one.


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## Dickster86

I miss my uni days when i could just take everything to the lab and run it through the sterilising dishwasher (used to clean all the glassware and such). It got up to something like 120 degrees (so pure water vapour / steam) and would run for half an hour. Was massive too, so i could pretty much sterilise all my equipment and bottles in no time at all. The lab was also rather handy to ferment beer in too. Fume cupboards set to 20 degrees are a useful bit of kit.


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## Bones99

j-dunn said:


> I made this recipe a while ago and it was awesome.
> 
> I was at our local farmers market on the weekend and ginger was $10kg so I got a Kg and am going to make this again.
> 
> I kegged it and force carbed it as if it was a "beer" and was sensational. The wife loved it too!
> 
> OSB Lemgineric Ale (Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer)
> Original Gravity (OG): 1.057 (°P): 14.0
> Final Gravity (FG): 1.010 (°P): 2.6
> Alcohol (ABV): 6.15 %
> Colour (SRM): 14.6 (EBC): 28.8
> Bitterness (IBU): 0.0 (Average)
> 75.47% Pale Malt
> 18.87% Brown Sugar, Dark
> 5.66% Caramunich II
> 21.7 g/L Ginger Root @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
> 13.0 g/L lemongrass root @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
> 8.7 g/L Turmeric Root @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
> 6.5 g/L Ginger Root @ 4 Days (Secondary)
> 6.5 g/L Ginger Root @ 0 Minutes ("dry hopped" in tea ball in keg)
> Single step Infusion at 70°C for 60 Minutes. Boil for 40 Minutes
> Fermented at 19°C with Safale US-05
> 
> Ginger, turmeric and Lemongrass were almost pureed in food processor.


J-Dunn, what volume do you make this recipe up to?

Thanks,
Bones


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