# Great Simple (strong) Ginger Beer Recipe



## grinder

1. Grab a cheap Brigalow Ginger Beer kit.
2. Add 1.5 ltrs (2x750ml) of bundeburg ginger beer cordial + 1.5-2 kgms of brown sugar and mix according to instructions..
3. Add yeast that comes with kit once temp is down to about 25 degrees C
4. Allow to ferment for 5-7 days at 20-26 degrees C. Check FG it should be close to 1.000-1010
5. Once fermentation is complete, Keg and add another 750ml of Bundeburg GB cordial concentrate to brew once fermentation is complete (this will sweeten it up to the bundeburg GB standard), otherwise it will be a bit dry or watery.
Carbonate and drink after 1 to 2 weeks of lagering
I think this brew is about 6-8%


I am drinking it now and it is great!!

Cheers


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## Slurpdog

Always been hanging to try a good ginger beer and this one sounds the goods!
I'd need another keg though, and another tap, and some more...........!


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## Velophile

Mmm... Ginger Beer!

I've made a few batches & so far only used the Coopers kit as a base. 
I usually add 'a good amount' of fresh ginger & the last 2 batches had some dry ground ginger as well. I simmer the fresh & ground ginger with some raw sugar & stir in the kit at flame out. I've used up to 3kg of raw sugar so far & had FG's around 0.995.

The one problem I've had is with an all sugar batch the lag time till the yeast kicks off is rather long. Adding either some dry malt extract or yeast nutrinet helps a lot.

I find the artificial sweetner taste does fade with some age. I'd like to do a batch without a kit & just boil up the ginger etc. Maybe the next one.....


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## BrissyBrew

the artifical sweetner in the kits is the killer for me, it does not agree with me at all, I have been hunting for a great ginger beer all grain kit. I would love to know the bunderburg receipe


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## yardy

I just Kegged a GB today, the few i did try before my Pluto shit itself were very nice.

Morgans GB Kit
500ml Honey
.500 DME
.300 Brown Sugar
.300 Dex
.530 Fresh Grated Ginger

30min Boil
10gm Champagne Yeast

2 weeks to ferment and 2 weeks CC.

It's got a very good 'gingery' bite to it followed up by the honey, a bit girly maybe, if it was for me and not 'er indoors', I'd drop the honey addition by half.

cheers

yard


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## grinder

yardy said:


> I just Kegged a GB today, the few i did try before my Pluto shit itself were very nice.
> 
> Morgans GB Kit
> 500ml Honey
> .500 DME
> .300 Brown Sugar
> .300 Dex
> .530 Fresh Grated Ginger
> 
> 30min Boil
> 10gm Champagne Yeast
> 
> 2 weeks to ferment and 2 weeks CC.
> 
> It's got a very good 'gingery' bite to it followed up by the honey, a bit girly maybe, if it was for me and not 'er indoors', I'd drop the honey addition by half.
> 
> cheers
> 
> yard


I'm talkin simple dude. That seems like a bit too much effort


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## microbe

BrissyBrew said:


> the artifical sweetner in the kits is the killer for me, it does not agree with me at all, I have been hunting for a great ginger beer all grain kit. I would love to know the bunderburg receipe



I just cracked my first bottle from the last kit I put down. Tastes good at first but a strong aftertaste, definitely sweetener, making it almost undrinkable. - hopefully it'll fade with age - anyone know if this does fade? If so how long before it is likely to?

The Bundy recipe would be great - if anyone does know anything close to that!!! :chug: 

:beer: 

microbe


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## Uncle Fester

Grumpys market a naturally sweetened ginger beer.

Link

Never actuallty tried it - just eyed if off enviously.

Maybe net time work takes me to Adelaide I will take a trip out to Hahndorf.


No affiliation etc...

Festa.


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## drsmurto

BrissyBrew said:


> the artifical sweetner in the kits is the killer for me, it does not agree with me at all, I have been hunting for a great ginger beer all grain kit. I would love to know the bunderburg receipe



Not 'all grain' Brissybrew but it has no artificial sweetener and takes the same effort as a K&K.

750 g fresh ginger
1 cinnamon stick
8 cloves
1 lemon
2kg raw sugar
1 sachet champagne yeast (EC-1118)

Throw ginger in food processor and chop lemon. Boil everything up for 1 hour (not yeast) in 3-4 L water. Cool in ice water then filter into fermenter, top up to 15 L with cold water, pitch yeast.

Works out to be ~7%. Mixed 2:1 with lemonade to get the sweetness up.

When i do this again i will try an ale yeast instead of the fully attenuating champagne yeast.....

Cheers
DrSmurto


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## Uncle Fester

DrSmurto said:


> Not 'all grain' Brissybrew but it has no artificial sweetener and takes the same effort as a K&K.
> 
> 750 g fresh ginger
> 1 cinnamon stick
> 8 cloves
> 1 lemon
> 2kg raw sugar
> 1 sachet champagne yeast (EC-1118)
> 
> Throw ginger in food processor and chop lemon. Boil everything up for 1 hour (not yeast) in 3-4 L water. Cool in ice water then filter into fermenter, top up to 15 L with cold water, pitch yeast.
> 
> Works out to be ~7%. Mixed 2:1 with lemonade to get the sweetness up.
> 
> When i do this again i will try an ale yeast instead of the fully attenuating champagne yeast.....
> 
> Cheers
> DrSmurto



Looks like a good recipe. Do you mix the lemonade in the glass, or do you mix it prior to kegging?

Fess.


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## drsmurto

Mixed in the glass. Adds some sweetness to it as its very dry (due to champagne yeast) and also takes it down to a more manageable 5%! Am going to try and use an low attenuating ale yeast next time to see if some sweetness is left behind.... Very refreshing for summer :beer: 

Or i could keep it at 7% and keep mixing it so it goes further!

Cheers
DrSmurto


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## Uncle Fester

DrSmurto said:


> Mixed in the glass. Adds some sweetness to it as its very dry (due to champagne yeast) and also takes it down to a more manageable 5%! Am going to try and use an low attenuating ale yeast next time to see if some sweetness is left behind.... Very refreshing for summer :beer:
> 
> Or i could keep it at 7% and keep mixing it so it goes further!
> 
> Cheers
> DrSmurto



Maybe some unfermentable lactose would leave sweetness behind??

GMK sings the praises of a few speciality yeasts that leave some sweetness behind (Pinot Noir and mead from memory)

Fess.


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## drsmurto

Uncle Fester said:


> Maybe some unfermentable lactose would leave sweetness behind??
> 
> GMK sings the praises of a few speciality yeasts that leave some sweetness behind (Pinot Noir and mead from memory)
> 
> Fess.




Bottled another 2 batches the weekend before last, 40L in total varying the amount of lactose and lemon. Only added 200ish grams to each batch give or take and tests at bottling werent much sweeter......

Reckon a different yeast is definitely the go, even considering using bakers yeast :blink: since it has such a low attenuation?????


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## Adamt

Never really had ginger beer before... but is there any reason why you couldn't steep 250-500g of crystal?


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## FazerPete

BrissyBrew said:


> the artifical sweetner in the kits is the killer for me, it does not agree with me at all, I have been hunting for a great ginger beer all grain kit. I would love to know the bunderburg receipe



If you are kegging BrissyBrew, then there's an easy fix. What I do is throw the little pack of artificial sweetener away, and sweeten with sugar in the keg by making a sugar syrup of about 250g sugar with a little boiling water and add that to the keg just before filling from the fermenter. I then burp the keg and then swirl it around a bit to mix it and bob's your uncle.

Because the keg is going straight in the fridge, the added sugar doesn't ferment because of the low temps. I've done a couple of brews this way and they've turned out really well.


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## Rod

Been making this one for quite a while

Kit of your choose ie Morgans 
1kg of ultrabrew or sugar of your choose

Priming
140 g dextrose
300 ml buderim syrup
5g of freshly grated ginger per bottle , not unlike an aroma hops 

leave for at least 6 weeks , matures even better


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## gullyboy

Hi, I'm new around here (and will get to introducing myself shortly) but I have a question about finings in ginger beers...

My first ginger beer was a Brigalow can (which I've since discovered here are "crap") however, I got fairly good results from it... eventually.

From memory, I did the 900g can, plus 1 kg of sugar, making a only 12 or 13 litre "half"-wort. It tasted awful at the 6 week mark, and still fairly terrible after 12 weeks. I'm too much of a tight-ass to throw anything away, so it went back on the shelf until recently.

I tasted it again at 40 weeks & that bitter aftertaste has all but gone. I have to say it turned out to be a pretty fine ginger beer, except for a high amount of "chunky" brown pieces of sediment; first half of the bottle was pretty clear, bottom pour has these little floaties! (well, unless you pour carefully, of course).

Would finings help with this, or should I rack it off into another wort after a week or two?

Although I've brewed quite a few beers, I have no experience with either using finings or racking into another wort, so treat me like a bit of a newbie here please!

Thanks for any advice - I'm off to fill in my profile and intro myself now 

Justin.


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## drsmurto

G'day Justin

Welcome to the wonderful world of brewing. Ginger beer is my current fave summer brew - i have 40L in the shed! I dont use finings or rack my GBs but see no reason why you couldnt do either. Natrually conditioning in the bottle will always produce some sediment - different yeasts settle differently but i find that if the beer is in the fridge for a few days prior to drinking, the yeast is pretty well stuck to the bottom of the bottle. In saying that, most of my brews get at least a few month sin the bottle which also helps settling.

Tis a fun road ahead of you, much trial and hopefully, as i have found using this site, very few errors!

Cheers and beers
DrSmurto


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## Benniee

DrSmurto said:


> 750 g fresh ginger
> 1 cinnamon stick
> 8 cloves
> 1 lemon
> 2kg raw sugar
> 1 sachet champagne yeast (EC-1118)



I tried this recipe, with a few mods. I cut the sugar back to 1kg and added 500g DME. I also steeped 100g of crystal.

Perhaps I shouldn't have played around with it because at pitching the malt overpowered the cinnamon and other subtle flavours.

Anyway, the batch will be wasted as it appears to have been infected (my guess is from a small piece of dirt on the ginger somewhere). I'm a bit bummed out because I was really looking forward to tasting this one. 

One comment I will make is that by boiling the ginger for an hour I got a lot of ginger flavour, but not as much aroma as I would have liked. Perhaps split the ginger into two lots - one for a long boil and the second for a shorted boil. Does ginger work like this?

I'm going to give the cordial recipe a try and see how that one ends up.

Benniee


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## Keifer

When i did a GB i didn't boil it at all, i had about 100gm's of fresh ginger, peeled it, shredded it then added some boiling water out of the kettle for about 5 mins. Had a great fresh ginger taste.


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## Benniee

Keifer said:


> When i did a GB i didn't boil it at all, i had about 100gm's of fresh ginger, peeled it, shredded it then added some boiling water out of the kettle for about 5 mins. Had a great fresh ginger taste.



I didn't peel it and I think that's where I went wrong...


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## Benniee

Ok - well I made up a batch of Ginger Beer as per the original post in this forum

Used 
1 x Coopers Ginger Beer Kit
2 x 750mL Bundaberg Ginger Beer Cordial 
1.5kg Brown Sugar

Topped up to 23L and pitched 2x7g Coopers dry yeast packets.

Took a little while to ferment out - about 12 days.

SG 1.040
FG 0.094

Geeze, doing my rough calcs that makes this brew about 14% by volume (11% by weight). I hadn't planned on something with quiet so high an alcohol content, and without using specialised yeasts it may be a bit of a "hang-over beast" :blink: 

I skipped over the extra bottle of cordial at kegging time because I felt it was sweet enough for my tastes.

I will post back in a couple of weeks about how it tastes.

Benniee


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## Keifer

Yep let us know how it turs out and how many you need to get smashed!
I prefer GB to be low alc % so its nice and easy to drink, but each to their own


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## Benniee

Keifer said:


> Yep let us know how it turs out and how many you need to get smashed!
> I prefer GB to be low alc % so its nice and easy to drink, but each to their own



Yeah, I'd rather have a lower percentage as well. I'm thinking I may cut the brew 50/50 with lemonade or something to make it more drinkable.

I guess the brain should have twigged when I was adding the cordial as well as the sugars, but I didn't stop to think about the SG of 1.040 because it's around the number I get for a normal beer. What I didn't allow for was the lower FG.

Benniee


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## Stuster

Benniee said:


> SG 1.040
> FG 0.094
> 
> Geeze, doing my rough calcs that makes this brew about 14% by volume (11% by weight). I hadn't planned on something with quiet so high an alcohol content, and without using specialised yeasts it may be a bit of a "hang-over beast"



Don't worry. It won't really be 14%.  

Your final gravity must be 0.994 unless you have added some strange substance that will make this far lighter than water or alcohol.  

That should still give you a healthy 5.8% alcohol. Hopefully enough for the beast with two backs rather than the hang-over beast. :lol:


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## Benniee

Stuster said:


> Don't worry. It won't really be 14%.
> 
> Your final gravity must be 0.994 unless you have added some strange substance that will make this far lighter than water or alcohol.
> 
> That should still give you a healthy 5.8% alcohol. Hopefully enough for the beast with two backs rather than the hang-over beast. :lol:



AHHH Of course! I just drew up a little sketch of my hydrometer scale on my pad here at work and you're definitely right! PHEW! 

I haven't had a brew go below 1 before so that's why I was a little thrown reading the scale down there. Ahh good, I'm feeling excited about this brew again now.

Fingers crossed for the beast you describe as ginger beer is one of the wife's drinks of choice. :lol: 

Benniee


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## Benniee

Got to tasting the Ginger Beer and it's pretty sweet. Even after fermenting down below 1.000 it's still quite a sickly, sticky mouthfeel. I'm wondering if the cordial has some unfermentable sugars in there.

It's only realy a 1-glass beer anyway, but the sweetness has wiped out the subtle flavors of the spices. Ah well, keep tinkering I guess.

I'm thinking next time I might only add 1 bottle of cordial to the fermenter, and maybe boil up some extra cloves and cinnamon to give it some extra spice. I'm glad I didn't add the additional bottle of cordial to the keg.

Benniee


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## Flippo

Has anyone tried making ginger beer from scratch before? i.e. making a "plant", adding ginger and sugar to it each day for 7-10 days then mixing it all up? A mate and I did it about ten years ago from his gran's old old old recipe and it was soooo bloody nice, I tried to do it again last year and it came out dry as a nun's. 

Just wanted to see if anyone else does it this way so I can compare notes and recipes

Cheers


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## Benniee

Flippo said:


> Has anyone tried making ginger beer from scratch before? i.e. making a "plant", adding ginger and sugar to it each day for 7-10 days then mixing it all up? A mate and I did it about ten years ago from his gran's old old old recipe and it was soooo bloody nice, I tried to do it again last year and it came out dry as a nun's.
> 
> Just wanted to see if anyone else does it this way so I can compare notes and recipes



Back toward the start of this thread there was a recipe for a ginger beer from scratch. You should check it out.

Thought I'd also update the tasting notes. As the keg level is getting lower I'm noticing the sweetness is fading out. I'm wondering if some of the remaining sugars had settled out in the bottom of the keg and the first glasses were overly sweet because of this.

At a guess I'd say the keg is 2/3 full and now it's a bloody nice ginger beer. Heaps of ginger spice and just the right level of sweetness - although the artificial sweetener taste is still there, but that's a problem to solve in the next batch.

Benniee


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## Flippo

The way I was talking about was like this

http://www.abc.net.au/hobart/stories/s512188.htm

I looked at the start of the thread and couldn't see any that were made this way.


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## Keifer

I also remember my GB being very very sweet when i first poured one, had to mix with water and still tasted crap. After a week or so, it hit the not so sweet spot and was very very nice. The keg emptied quickly. That was with fresh ginger and no cordial. Am about to do a repeat recipe


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## FazerPete

I had the same problem with my Coopers GB. Way too sweet coming out of the fermenter so I put about 100ml of lemon juice into the keg with it. It helped quite a lot.


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## applecracle

what sort of alcohol content would you expext following the instructions on the GB kit i.e. just 1kg or brown sugar and whatever fermentables are in the kit) ? im guessing its pretty low (around 3.5%)

Applecracle


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## FazerPete

applecracle said:


> what sort of alcohol content would you expext following the instructions on the GB kit i.e. just 1kg or brown sugar and whatever fermentables are in the kit) ? im guessing its pretty low (around 3.5%)


I haven't tested it but it says 3.5% on the back of the can.


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## brettprevans

DrSmurto said:


> Not 'all grain' Brissybrew but it has no artificial sweetener and takes the same effort as a K&K.
> 
> 750 g fresh ginger
> 1 cinnamon stick
> 8 cloves
> 1 lemon
> 2kg raw sugar
> 1 sachet champagne yeast (EC-1118)
> 
> Throw ginger in food processor and chop lemon. Boil everything up for 1 hour (not yeast) in 3-4 L water. Cool in ice water then filter into fermenter, top up to 15 L with cold water, pitch yeast.
> 
> Works out to be ~7%. Mixed 2:1 with lemonade to get the sweetness up.
> 
> Cheers
> DrSmurto



Sumrto, as I dont drink ginger beer and have never brewed it, Im wondering, if your gonna mix the resulting brew with lemonade, could you just leave it in the fermentor (or cube) and take bits out when you want rather than bottling/kegging it? The lemonade should give it the carbonation? Thought I'd make a cube batch for for Grandmother and dont want to use 30 of my bottles for someone else.


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## TheWineBrewer

Hey I got a great video showing how to make a Brigalow Ginger Beer Kit:


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## Bribie G




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