Chillie/ginger Lager

[GrumpyPaul]

Hi all

I am still very new to home brewing but I am loving it. Still not confident enough to try the whole mash thing yet - so I have been playing with can/kit recipes I have found on various forums.

I did a batch of the Chillie Ginger beer and it was great.
And found a Honey Ginger Lager recipe that sound like it would be good

I was thinking of a hybrid of the two to make a chillie ginger lager. I still want it to taste like a beer but with a hint of Ginger and a subtle bite of the Chillie.

If I do the following will it work - just taste like crap.

Chillie Ginger Lager
Makes 23 Litres.

Ingredients:

o 1Can of Lager
o 4 fresh red chillies
o 100 g grated ginger.
o Saflager S-23 Yeast

Directions:

1. Cut up Chillies and grate the ginger. Boil in 1ltr water for 20mins
1. Make as you would a normal kit beer, adding the chillie and ginger mix directly to the wort.
3. Finish brew as a normal kit beer.


Any thoughts or ideas on if this will work or how I should modify this to make it work would be greatly appreciate

 

[bum]

A couple quick thoughts:

Seems very light on for fermentables - are you aiming for a light beer?
Depending on the tin I reckon 100g of ginger will come across as more of an off-flavour in the background rather than an actual flavour you find up-front.
Way too much chilli for the "subtle bite" you say you're after. I put 2 in my last ginger beer and you can feel it burn you lips a little. I once put 5 in and it was way too much to have a session on.
For the boil I'd up both the volume and time.
I made a straight GB with S23 once and now prefer an ale yeast but it was certainly not a terrible beer. Should work a bit better in a real beer with ginger though. Don't forget to pitch 2 packs.
Have you ever had one of those Bluetongue Ginger Lagers? Sounds a bit like what you are going for and I've never heard a good word about them. Might be worth looking for one before you put the batch down?

Be sure to let us know how it works out!

 

[superdave]

Chillie Ginger Lager
Makes 23 Litres.

Ingredients:

o 1Can of Lager
o 4 fresh red chillies
o 100 g grated ginger.
o Saflager S-23 Yeast

I'm still trying to find my prefered amount of ginger for a brew, working my way up in quantity. But you will be surprised at how much you need to get a strong ginger flavour, I'm with bum, I don't think you have enough ginger there. For example my last ginger beer (a ginger wheat) had 1.3kg of ginger and it is still only about 50% as ginger-y as Bundaberg Ginger beer. Next step is ginger essence as it's too expensive.
Since chillies are more a personal preference (I have 3 per tallie) I can't really comment on if there is not enough or too much.
Might need to add some sugar, or another tin of lager; unless you are aiming for a 2.5% or so beer.

 

[bum]

Since chillies are more a personal preference (I have 3 per tallie) I can't really comment on if there is not enough or too much.

Apologies to BNB for the OT but is that chillies just put in the bottle or you allow that much for each bottle in the boil? Because I think these are two very different things. For the boil method we'd be talking about +80 chillies for BNB's recipe which I'm sure you'll agree is ludicrous.

For the sake of clarity my sliced chillies and seeds get boiled for an hour (and sometimes then transferred to primary as well). If the chillies were not to be boiled there is no way the amounts I'm talking about would be noticable.

 

[superdave]

Apologies to BNB for the OT but is that chillies just put in the bottle or you allow that much for each bottle in the boil? Because I think these are two very different things. For the boil method we'd be talking about +80 chillies for BNB's recipe which I'm sure you'll agree is ludicrous.

For the sake of clarity my sliced chillies and seeds get boiled for an hour (and sometimes then transferred to primary as well). If the chillies were not to be boiled there is no way the amounts I'm talking about would be noticable.

My bad, didn't explain fully. Thats straight into the bottle, I just slice them open on one side to allow the beer to access the goodness easier.

 

[GrumpyPaul]

Thanks for the prompt response guys ...

I did mean to boil the chillies into the mix.

the reason I thought 4 was because I did a chillie ginger beer that called for 11. It was a beautiful drop but I didnt quite want that much chillie kick in this.

With regards to adding fermantables - bearing in mind I still have no real idea what I am doing (other than having fun experimenting)

what if I add

500g Dried Light Malt
1.1 ltr Can Coopers Liquid Wheat Malt

and up the ginger to 250g and 6 chillies?

Boiling the malts with the for an hour and adding the ginger and chillie in the last 15 mins or so?

 

[bum]

I'd go the other way around with those boil times personally. Get as much flavour out of the ginger as you can with a longer boil and without hops you really only boil the malt to sanitise. Having said that the tinned stuff should be good to go without a boil and it is up to you with the LDME.

With the chillies maybe don't get a number fixed in your head. Have a taste of them on the day. Supermarket chillies can vary wildly in heat and you don't want to put in more than you're aiming for - if that makes any sense at all.

 

[Scruffy]

Me boil? Nope - raw fresh grated. Boiling mutes the flavour somewhat - it's still ginger, but with all the fizz and bite removed

Chillies? Me? ermm...

...apparently you just throw them into the fermenter?

Bit of a waste if you ask me: however the recipe on the first page of this should help you along...

Make it yours!

 

[bum]

Why would that help him? He wants to make a lager with some ginger.

I agree with the last bit though.