# Maltodextrin in ginger beer



## philmud (4/11/13)

Hi guys,

I'm planning a small batch of ginger beer (around 10l). I want to use a box of "brew enhancer 1" that I have sitting around because it has maltodextrin in it and might stop it drying out too much. The problem I am having with the Beersmith app is that malto-dextrine (assuming it's the same thing) doesn't seem to affect the SG - therefore I have no idea what FG to expect. I don't want a bone dry ginger beer, but I want to drink it, not chew it too.

I'm planning on using:

300 g brown sugar
UP TO one box of BE1 (60:40 dextrose:maltodextrin)
500g raw ginger (grated)
1tsp of vanilla extract.
US05 for the yeast.

I'll probably throw in a couple of lemons and or limes, plus some cinnamon and possibly even star anise too.

Beersmith mobile gives me 1.035 SG and a projected FG of 0.992, but that doesn't change when I alter the malto-dextrine amounts. 

Any suggestions?

Edit: ingredients.


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## MartinOC (4/11/13)

Prince Imperial said:


> Any suggestions?


Yep! Try it, take notes & then try it again. 'Sounds interesting with what you're proposing.....
You've given me an idea for an AG version, 'though......


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## philmud (4/11/13)

I also punched in half a kilo of LDME I to beersmith - still says it'll be bone dry.


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## philmud (5/11/13)

Ok, I've gone with the brew enhancer, we'll see how it goes. Quick question - will the ginger bite become more pronounced as the ginger beer dries out? I bought 600g for a 10L batch but by the time I peeled it, it was about 460g.


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## MCHammo (6/11/13)

I've never bothered peeling my ginger. I give it a good wash, cut/peel any dried ends and flaky skin, and blitz the whole lot. The skin still adds flavour, and a bit of colour. As long as you have a method of filtering it out of the bottles, as the skin floats (I tie up my ginger pulp in a muslin bag to do this).

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Aussie Home Brewer mobile app


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## technobabble66 (6/11/13)

Prince Imperial said:


> Ok, I've gone with the brew enhancer, we'll see how it goes. Quick question - will the ginger bite become more pronounced as the ginger beer dries out? I bought 600g for a 10L batch but by the time I peeled it, it was about 460g.


Did my first GB last year, using a Beer Essential kit - basically had a ginger concentrate, 1kg Dex, 1 kg Brew Booster #15 (mainly LDME + bit of dex + maybe bit of maltodex). Made it up to 18L. Also added ~250g grated ginger. Came with stevia, however i added it to only a few bottles.

Mine turned out bone dry. The stevia helped balance this a bit, but i'm not a fan of artificial sweeteners & could taste it a bit in the bottles i put the full amount in (half seemed ~good, though).

The dryness reaaaally brought out the bite of the ginger. After ~4 days fermenting it was great: bit dry but the tiny residual sweetness balanced the amount of ginger i put in & the bite was present but contained. It went a little down hill from there.
Bottled it on day 9 and by then, the bite was rather ferocious for the first few mouthfuls.

Currently trying to determine if there are any normal ingredients that provide enough non-fermentables to result in a bit of sweetness in the finished GB (eg: Maltodex, High temp mash, crystal, etc).
http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/76389-experiment-on-sweetness-of-non-fermentables/

Let us know how you go with yours!


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## MCHammo (6/11/13)

Currently trying to determine if there are any normal ingredients that provide enough non-fermentables to result in a bit of sweetness in the finished GB (eg: Maltodex, High temp mash, crystal, etc).
http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/76389-experiment-on-sweetness-of-non-fermentables/

Let us know how you go with yours!


I can confirm that a high temp mash does NOT work. That's what I did last time, with a few kg of pils malt. It gave it a tiny bit of body, but that's it, no sweetness. My latest thinking is to try a bit of pear juice/sorbitol, as that's a sweet, unfermentable sugar.


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## philmud (6/11/13)

Yep, I was going to pop in a couple of tins of pear juice and I may still do this part way through the ferment. Any residual flavour would be pleasant IMO and should sweeten it up a bit. Will see how it's traveling with the maltodextrin first.

Oh, also as someone mentioned in a related topic, could try some crystal for residual sweetness instead of base malts.

Edit: added some stuff.


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## MCHammo (6/11/13)

I would suggest, if you can, split up the batch before making any additions. Try it with a few different quantities of pear juice, or whatever else you try. Label them, and note the quantities, so you know how much you prefer, etc. And report back if you have good results.


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## BeardedWonder (12/11/13)

There's some very interesting ideas here.
I've done one kit ginger beer and have one planned for later in the year and the dryness was something I wanted to address.

Please do post your results! (and maybe a graph of it too....because life is better with graphs....)


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## philmud (21/11/13)

Ok, so no graphs I'm afraid, because the whole brew was treated in the same way, but this appears to have fermented out at 1.005, dry, but less dry than beersmith's predicted 0.97. 
I've bottled it and see how the body is. Before bottling, it smelled like ginger bread, but didn't have much ginger kick to taste (the citrus was very dominant). I made a thick stock with about 200g of grated ginger and some cardamom & star anise and boiled this with the priming sugar & bottled it. I'll report back in a few weeks when I give it a go.


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## boonchu (29/11/13)

Next time you could swap the dex for Ldme for a sweeter finish


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## philmud (8/12/13)

Just an update, this GB is shite. It's too dry, a little tart and quite yeasty. I'm going to have a crack at a pimped up coopers kit next time. I might try mixing this with some Buderims ginger cordial, but I suspect it's no good


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## BeardedWonder (8/12/13)

Just in the interest of clarity, how dry would you say it is?
Chardonnay dry??

I want to alter my next GB so that it is more dry than the previous batch, so I'm hoping to capitalise on your experimentation (is that morally wrong?? I promise that my lurking is not connected to some sort of unsavory deviant behavior.......well.....not _DIRECTLY_ connected....).


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## MCHammo (9/12/13)

I've never found any need for modification to get a ginger beer to finish dry. All mine finish with an SG of about 1.004. If you want it any drier than that, fill the bottle with sand.


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## philmud (9/12/13)

BeardedWonder said:


> Just in the interest of clarity, how dry would you say it is?
> Chardonnay dry??
> 
> I want to alter my next GB so that it is more dry than the previous batch, so I'm hoping to capitalise on your experimentation (is that morally wrong?? I promise that my lurking is not connected to some sort of unsavory deviant behavior.......well.....not _DIRECTLY_ connected....).


Look, it's dry enough for ginger beer enemas if that's what you're skirting around!

No seriously, the maltodextrin added body but not sweetness, so it's not a pleasant crisp dryness, I wouldn't draw any parallels with Chardonnay at all. What yeast have you been using? If you want that dry-white crispness, could you use a champagne yeast?


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## manticle (9/12/13)

People often confuse the high FG that dextrins bring with the high FG of unfermented/underattenuated beer. Dextrins aren't particularly sweet but add body to beer. Unfermented maltose and some other sugars add the sweetness to underattenuated brews.

Thus your GB is thick but not sweet.


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## philmud (9/12/13)

Yep, exactly that. I had hoped vanilla would provide some perceived sweetness and while it does, it's not enough.


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## carniebrew (9/12/13)

If you're after sweetness, what about the trick I read about yonks ago with cider, where you sweeten your cider (GB in this case) with something significant at bottling time, bottling one bottle in plastic (e.g. a 330ml soft drink bottle). Wait a day or two (or however long it takes) for the soft drink bottle to get rock hard, meaning it's carbonated, then pasteurise all the rest of your bottles in hot water to kill the yeast, and prevent any further carbonation? Like this:

http://ciderpages.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/cider101-pasteurisation.html

Or the other way of course would be to fridge all your bottles once carbonation has occurred, which may be an option for a small batch of GB?


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## philmud (9/12/13)

Yeah, pasteurization might be an option, refrigerating a batch of GB till I drink it, not so much. I grabbed a can of GB goo at Big W yesterday, I'll do that up with some fresh ginger, sugar etc. and see how dry it ferments.


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## carniebrew (9/12/13)

I'm going to do the same with the Coopers GB goo soon. What I might do is bottle half the batch once fermentation is complete, then sweeten the other half of the batch, bottle then pasteurize it when carbed. Then let my GB drinking rellies decide which they prefer....


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## BeardedWonder (9/12/13)

Prince Imperial said:


> Look, it's dry enough for ginger beer enemas if that's what you're skirting around!
> 
> No seriously, the maltodextrin added body but not sweetness, so it's not a pleasant crisp dryness, I wouldn't draw any parallels with Chardonnay at all. What yeast have you been using? If you want that dry-white crispness, could you use a champagne yeast?


MMM!
Ginger beer enema!
How refreshing.

My last one was literally just the Coopers GB kit, a kilo of raw sugar and 200g fresh ginger and I kept feeling like it was TOO sweet. Hence why I was interested in attempts to dry it out.

I might explore some yeast options....


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## carniebrew (10/12/13)

BeardedWonder said:


> MMM!
> Ginger beer enema!
> How refreshing.
> 
> ...


Which yeast did you use, the kit stuff? Also, what was your final gravity on the batch you thought too sweet?


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## manticle (10/12/13)

Kit probably has aspartame or some other artificial sweetener in it.


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## sticksy (10/12/13)

has anyone tried lactose in tge ferment? 

I was thinking of a small batch cider, 
9l apple 4l pear juice
200g lactose
400g sugar
couple of sticks cinnamon
and just wash the yeast from the brew I have going ATM.

cheap n cheerful I hope.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk


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## Not For Horses (10/12/13)

I've used lactose in cider. It's not actually that sweet so it makes bugger all difference.


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## carniebrew (10/12/13)

manticle said:


> Kit probably has aspartame or some other artificial sweetener in it.


Yeah that would be my guess too, given the kit can be used with only water to make non-alcoholic ginger beer. Mix can with water, add yeast then bottle with priming solution/drops. I guess the 0.4% or so abv you get from the priming sugar qualifies as non-alcoholic.


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## BeardedWonder (11/12/13)

OG 1.023
FG 0.998

I don't have much in the way of notes for this brew, as it was my first brew and I'm lucky that I remembered to write down the OG and FG!

I wouldn't be surprised if the kit had aspartame or something either.

I think next time I'll use a mix of maltodextrine, dex and maybe some DME as the fermentables, as well as increase the amount of fermentables and see if that gets me closer to what I'm after.


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## BeardedWonder (11/12/13)

Oh, and I used the kit yeast.

Brew was fermented at room temps, during summer in a first floor apartment, sitting in a tub of water with a wet towel and fan directed at it on the hot days.

I committed the cardinal sin and followed the directions on the can....


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## philmud (11/12/13)

0.998 is pretty dry! Is it possible that aspartame adds sweetness, but no gravity points?


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## Not For Horses (11/12/13)

Prince Imperial said:


> Is it possible that aspartame adds sweetness, but no gravity points?


It is indeed the case.


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## BeardedWonder (11/12/13)

Prince Imperial said:


> 0.998 is pretty dry! Is it possible that aspartame adds sweetness, but no gravity points?


I should also point out that, being my first time at taking specific gravity readings, the hydrometer had not been calibrated (it's one of the Cooper's all plastic ones, with a bit of red plastic at the top that you're supposed to cut off to calibrate it properly), and the readings were done without paying mind to temperature. I hadn't even measured the temps of the sample, so I can't adjust them accordingly.
So those measurements might not be a true representation of how dry it was.

Hmmm....I suspect finding a kit that doesn't have aspartame or some other artificial sweetener in it may be a bit difficult.

My next GB will have the Mangrove Jack's kit as a base, so hopefully there it's not as sweet. Only time will tell.


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