Ginger Beer Enhancements

[Econwatson]

Hi all,
Helping a mate put down a kit of ginger beer using Morgans Ginger Beer and Dextrose

Anyway, she wants to put some honey and ginger in as well, but doesn't know about quantities to enhance the flavour. Any idea how much she would need to add to have these flavours come through in a 20 litre batch?

I thought about donating a sachet of US-05 to the cause as well, would this be a nicer, cleaner yeast to use?

 

[Judanero]

Hey mate,

I've used chilli,honey,brown sugar,raw sugar,lime juice,lemon juice and of course grated ginger in GB. (not all at once)

About 1kg fresh grated ginger, 1 or 2 kg sugar and it's good to go. I've used the ginger beer yeast and 05, both worked and can't really tell if there was a difference taste wise from my notes. I think getting any honey flavour is going to be difficult in that it will be competing with the ginger..

heaps of other threads already if you want more info do a quick searchy..

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/70900-ginger-beer-ideas-please/?hl=%2Bginger+%2Bbeer

Cheers

 

[bum]

Someone should make lots of threads about this.

 

[Econwatson]

Thanks Judanero, I'll recommend a couple of kilos of ginger and about 250g of honey!

 

[Josho]

What yeast is in the coopers GB Kits,

am i right to use it or should I upgrade?

 

[bum]

I don't know what yeast is in there but it doesn't seem to perform terribly differently to their bog-standard ale yeast (from memory, been a while since I did one of those ale kits). The real issue with the yeast in the lid (apart from the usual handling concerns) is that the sachets are very small - particularly if you beef up the fermentables at all.

Personally, I use the supplied yeast if I'm making a lower ABV version. If you're adding ginger, you'll probably be hard-pressed to notice any negative yeast characteristics - I can't anyway.

 

[Josho]

Can you up the yeasties and get more alc volume?

 

[bum]

You can use the supplied yeast as is with any alc% you like (within reason, anything under 10% sounds doable). It'll make beer. I just prefer not to underpitch. I don't get anal about it but do make improvements where I can. Possibly less of an issue if you're adding ginger as the heat can cover up flaws but I like to keep my yeasties happy where I can manage it.

 

[Josho]

I pet my yeasties and read them stories they are partial to a bit of rock music I have found,

so maybe just put a bit of extra sugar in and pitch it?

 

[bum]

You're going to anyway, so sure.

 

[saxonhall]

Just out together my first batch of Ginger beer using a Copper Tun ginger beer kit, added extras included;

-An extra .5kg of Raw Sugar on top of the sugested 1.5kg.
-Half a cup of fresh grated ginger boiled in 1ltr of water along with a handful of thyme chopped up.

Boiled mix was added after 6 days of fermentation with provided copper tun ginger flavour, followed by another 2 days of fermentation before bottling.

See how she goes.

 

[Crumpet]

Hope you used a hydrometer

 

[saxonhall]

Hope you used a hydrometer

Sure did, stayed stable for 2 days? So hopefully I'm on the right track :S

 

[bum]

Stable at what?

6 days sounds kinda fast for a GB with those fermentables.

 

[Airgead]

Its all simple sugars and we also don't know what temp. Whack a heat belt on it at 25+ and the yeast could chew through all that simple stuff in 6 days. Might turn it into a bunch of fusils and weird esters but it will chew through it.

 

[bum]

Temp for temp - my GBs take WAY longer than AG beers. At least a week.

[EDIT: a week longer, I mean.]