Ginger beer from scratch

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I bottled at 1.010 and believe me they needed burping daily. This is the problem in a nutshell.

I've had my fair share of drain feeding and I see no point in pretending it doesn't happen. I think it's important for newbies to understand that shit can go wrong. It isn't the end of the world and in my most recent case I've been able to actually still drink 120 bottles that would otherwise have been poured out. I was lucky as sometimes it is just rubbish and you need to cut your losses and go again.

I once had a fermenter that threw bad beer every time I used it no matter how much I tried to clean and sterilise it. Eventually had to just dispose of it. I'm sure many people will be aware of The Eumundi Brewery infection tale. I believe they shut the whole shebang down because they couldn't clean it up.
 
I did some fairly thorough research last night, following up on your question nick, about feeding and maintenance of a GBP. As it turns out, what is very commonly referred to as a GBP, actually isn't, and the "recipes" or instructions on how to create one are highly unlikely to succeed. What is actually created, unless you're extremely fortunate, is a ginger bug. I have most likely only created a bug and not a plant.

There are so many YouTube videos and online recipes that use the terms interchangeably, and they are 100% wrong. Apparently the chances of actually creating a culture containing the correct yeast and bacteria strains in a symbiotic colony from ginger is next to nil. The best chance of obtaining it is to buy it. What used to be very common was nearly wiped out due to food rationing in WWII.

The more I read up about actual ginger beer, the less I feel that this is an achievable outcome in a 23 litre batch scenario. The focus for me will be shifting towards a ginger flavoured beer type drink. I will now be looking further into recipe provided by Dino from NZ who makes a very lightly malted beer with ginger adjunct in the standard beer brewing fashion. I believe this holds the greatest chance of success.

I will however, still play around with ginger bug and quick ginger beer. You never know, I might get lucky and end up with a GBP scoby.
 
I'll try to write up the results of my latest tests soon. Some interesting things. I guess there is no way of knowing for certain if you have the 2 correct organisms to qualify as a ginger beer plant scoby without microscopic analysis, but the starter I created following the appropriate directions is certainly behaving like the real deal.
 
I bottled at 1.010 and believe me they needed burping daily. This is the problem in a nutshell.

I've had my fair share of drain feeding and I see no point in pretending it doesn't happen. I think it's important for newbies to understand that shit can go wrong. It isn't the end of the world and in my most recent case I've been able to actually still drink 120 bottles that would otherwise have been poured out. I was lucky as sometimes it is just rubbish and you need to cut your losses and go again.

I once had a fermenter that threw bad beer every time I used it no matter how much I tried to clean and sterilise it. Eventually had to just dispose of it. I'm sure many people will be aware of The Eumundi Brewery infection tale. I believe they shut the whole shebang down because they couldn't clean it up.
Ok - it might sound silly but I was just trying to understand, so I assume that you've essentially bottled it when you expect that it's still got further to go with the primary ferment? You've then added some extra sugar to ensure bottle carbonation and are 'burping' to keep this vaguely under control and not so you get froth monsters?

I understand - but I thought from your 'chronicle' you were fermenting it out down to a stable level. Then backsweetening with lactose, then adding enough sugar for bottle conditioning? Apologies if I've missed something.

Yes, thankfully I've never had a stubborn infection or any infection in either a bottle or fermenter. I always try and clean ASAP and change up what I use every now and then to keep the baddies off guard.

I did some fairly thorough research last night, following up on your question nick, about feeding and maintenance of a GBP. As it turns out, what is very commonly referred to as a GBP, actually isn't, and the "recipes" or instructions on how to create one are highly unlikely to succeed. What is actually created, unless you're extremely fortunate, is a ginger bug. I have most likely only created a bug and not a plant
Yes, I never really looked into the difference between the two myself - the Ginger Bug is essentially a scoby, similar to what is used for kombucha - as it's done by wild yeasts you might get lucky but you also might not - in terms of the end results it gives. From what I've read it very much struggles to do much more than low level sugar ferments.

A Ginger Beer Plant is a very specific combination of bacteria - and seems to be from the Water Kefir grain family. Its regarded as impossible to make yourself - and so you have to source from someone who has this.

Personal opinion only but for anything other than a very small trial brew - I'd go with the trusted, predictable results that a commercial brewing yeast brings over both of these - particularly with alcoholic GB. I'd feel to do otherwise would be an exercise in self flagellation.

There are so many YouTube videos and online recipes that use the terms interchangeably, and they are 100% wrong.
Agree, its confusing but once looked into they're very much completely different things. The other thing is once you go fermenting with these in your beer fermenter etc - you do run the risk of issues when you go back to using commercial yeasts from infections etc - so you'd either want to keep separate or ensure you clean very diligently.

The more I read up about actual ginger beer, the less I feel that this is an achievable outcome in a 23 litre batch scenario. The focus for me will be shifting towards a ginger flavoured beer type drink. I will now be looking further into recipe provided by Dino from NZ who makes a very lightly malted beer with ginger adjunct in the standard beer brewing fashion. I believe this holds the greatest chance of success.
Agree again, it's very hard to have a fully fermented alcoholic GB thats got a good level of residual sweetness and is bottle conditioned. I'd be interested to see what you get but a beer thats gingery, isn't a Ginger beer...but I am sure it could be fine. Haha when I come back to it - I'm going with the fully fermented GB that will be dry as a Nun's ^%#* and then bottle conditioned, a lil chilled sugar solution in the fridge, I pour that into a chilled glass, then the chilled dry GB - which is now lovely and sweet. Haha you know it just makes sense ;-)

I will however, still play around with ginger bug and quick ginger beer. You never know, I might get lucky and end up with a GBP scoby.
Oh you will - fresh veges have heaps of bacteria on them - particularly on their roots. I do lacto ferments of veges from our garden in salt solutions and these are delicious. In terms of getting a scoby that gives a decently fermented brew - thats going to be something of pot luck and will it tolerate fermenting much sugar? A few articles I read suggested the 'bug' struggles with this.

I'll try to write up the results of my latest tests soon. Some interesting things. I guess there is no way of knowing for certain if you have the 2 correct organisms to qualify as a ginger beer plant scoby without microscopic analysis, but the starter I created following the appropriate directions is certainly behaving like the real deal
I look forward to it - though I am certain if anything you have created the 'Bug' only - the 'Plant' as you allude is a very specific combination of bacteria and all sources state it is impossible to create at home.
 
A friend once brought a keg of his own chilli 'ginger beer' to a party and it was utterly fantastic. I shall pick his brains and report back.
 
A friend once brought a keg of his own chilli 'ginger beer' to a party and it was utterly fantastic. I shall pick his brains and report back.
Kegging it makes all the difference - as you can essentially stop the yeast activity by applying potassium sorbate, then sweeten it, then carbonate in the keg. Much simpler

Also as he possibly knew it'd all be drunk at the party he might have not even worried about the pot. sorbate and just backsweetened and primed - chilling right away would have meant next to no additional yeast activity.

Once it goes into glass bottles & isn't consumed pretty soon is where it gets tricky.
 
I did not add priming sugar to the first 2 tests. Only lactose, and I bottled at 1.010 assuming it was still high enough to ensure carbonation. It well and truly did and required burping for 3 days.

On the true GBP, there must be some chance of achieving it. It was achieved by natural means a long time ago and the same organisms still exist. I'm not sure how you'd tell the difference between it and a bug though.
 
On the true GBP, there must be some chance of achieving it.
Is there a 'chance' of out of all the millions of different combinations of bacteria & fungus you could get in a cultured sample you get EXACTLY the species required by the GBP? Well technically yes, but this sums it up quite well:
 
I hear you nick. You have to wonder though, if the entirety of Europe and the Americas' access to this phenomenon all stemmed from a shared single development of this chance combination sometime in the 17th or 18th century. If the 2 organisms are identifiable and still present, it shouldn't be too hard to recreate it in a lab. I notice that even online now it is difficult to obtain and there are warnings to only deal with reputable sellers. How do you know who is reputable? Does anybody here actually have a live genuine GBP culture? Or perhaps experience with a particular seller?

I haven't tried period dress Jon! I wonder if it would help.

Here is a brief update of the chronicles. New stuff starts halfway down page 6. I'll need to add a bit as my notes were in the shed.
 

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  • The Ginger Beer Chronicles.pdf
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'Interesting' that the guy in Ye Olde Video didn't mention GB bug 🤔
 
'Interesting' that the guy in Ye Olde Video didn't mention GB bug 🤔

Times were hard back then, people didn't have time to dink about making hokey, hit or miss concoctions.
They were far to preoccupied avoiding the plague and not contracting syphilis.

They probably already knew what I only discovered centurys later, that is, you leave a jar of sugary solution full of chopped up rhizome and dried grapes sitting around at room temp for long enough, its going to start bubbling and frothing.
Since microbiology hadn't been invented in America, they probably weren't willing to take the punt on whatever unknown culture was making the froth lest it produce a beverage of something akin to gingery ipecac syrup.
No, they did the smart thing and used actual yeast.

I've tried various methods keeping to the letter of the instructions and using fresh home grown ginger multiple times. Disappointment always ensues.
If not, I would still have zero confidence inoculating anything I planned to drink with it.

Ye olde timey historical reenactors know a think or two.
 
I haven't posted here for a few days. Been too busy. Anyhow, I've been having some success with the "straight to bottle method" of producing non-alcoholic (low alcohol) GB. Some of them anyway.

The ground ginger method (Margaret Fulton) is still bottle fermenting / carbonating very slowly. It used quite a bit of sugar to begin with and it is still sickly sweet and reading 1.036 at last test. I'm burping them every second day and it will clearly take a while to get down to a palatable level. I'm pretty sure if you used glass on this and just let them go, they would blow up. Other than affordability, there isn't a lot going for this, but I'll have to wait and see what it's like eventually.

The preserved ginger paste from the jar (Indian w/vegetable oil) did go ok but it was extremely dry. Again, affordable but I'll have to experiment further.

The big success is the Ginger Bug version with fresh ginger. I was so pleased with the result on the first go that I immediately made a 10 litre batch. I used 1 dozen glass bottles with 1 PET and a small 300 ml PET for testers. Again, I was burping these daily for 5 days after the first day or 2, before trying the first bottle. This recipe works really well. After 1 week in the bottle, it has good sweetness from unfermented sugar, good carbonation if you leave for 1 day before chilling in the fridge and a really pleasant ginger flavour. I shared some with a visiting relative (from Gympie) and she immediately asked me how I did it. I sent her the instructions by email yesterday and she is about to start making it herself. I've got 6 out of the dozen still warm and 2 more in the fridge. If they are good today, I'll put them all in to stop them using up any more sugar. You could do a batch a week and have 2 X 750 ml bottles per day.

After the other night, with the relative liking it so much, my wife wanted a low sugar batch, so I've now done a new one yesterday, 12 litres, with only half the sugar. This made 16 bottles, 14 glass and 2 PET. I'll only allow these to go for a few days until they firm up in the PET bottles then straight to the fridge. They should be OK, and this will prove that you don't need heaps of sugar to make instant GB. I've put a small amount of the Ginger Refresher cordial in this batch as well, so we'll see how that goes. Only 250 ml in 12 litres.

Now to the batches that I've allowed to ferment under airlock and then bottled to condition.

I've bottled the Brigalow kit, but it says to leave to condition for 3 weeks. It's only been 1 week so far.

The first small test batches I made under air lock were OK but needed work. I've now got the 4.5 litre test batch bottled using priming sugar. I allowed this to ferment right out, or as far as I think it was going to go. It got down to 1.007 and then slowed right down. This is in PET bottles and I'm watching the pressure in them and burping them only when they are really hard. I'm going to let them sit for a little while to see how they go.

I have a new 10 litre batch in a plastic bucket under airlock which has been down for 2 days. This is essentially the basic proportions I've been using along with a small amount of LDME and I added 10 g / litre of Lactose. I harvested the Brigalow yeast and used half of it in this ferment. It is bubbling away nicely, and I'll be interested to see how this goes when I just bottle prime it and leave it alone for a few weeks. PET bottles first time.

So that's it so far, but I'm fairly happy with the results at this point. Should only get better.
 
I haven't posted here for a few days. Been too busy. Anyhow, I've been having some success with the "straight to bottle method" of producing non-alcoholic (low alcohol) GB. Some of them anyway...
Great to hear of your success. But the alcohol Man... where's the alcohol?! :D
I've been distracted by buying a used wine fridge for fermenting in... and it won't cool... AT ALL! (A topic for a different thread I think).
 
I have some coming in the fully fermented bucket, and 4.5 litres in bottles that was fermented out as well, but I'll need to wait and see how it tastes. To be honest, alcohol content is not my primary concern at the moment. I'm working on ginger flavour and residual sweetness plus carbonation that won't explode glass bottles.

An interesting note to watch in future. I bottled 11.25 litres of instant GB today in clear recycled soft drink bottles. Prior to this I'd only used Amber coloured PET and glass. When I was nearing the end, I noticed that the later bottles were coming in clear while the early bottles were already dropping sediment to the bottom. I decided to pour them all back in and re-bottle with a good stir in between every bottle. This may explain why I've had uneven carbonation in the bigger batches.
 
I'm glad I've kept notes. I've got GB all over the place and I'm enjoying most of what I have made so far. I'll be testing a few different ones coming up in the next few days.

Possibly a bad thing going on though. I'm not sure. My main big jar of Ginger Bug has begun to develop a white growth on the surface. I have tried very hard to keep it sterile and followed advice to not stir in the daily feeding after the first batch. Just dropping the sugar and ginger in is meant to be safer than using utensils to stir. It doesn't appear to have any mould like structure, and it is just white powdery streaks and spots. I'm hoping it is just a yeast but I'm not sure. It smells and tastes fine and the batch I made using it 3 days ago has begun to carbonate in the bottles with no apparent problem, but I'll keep an eye on it. Luckily it is in clear bottles so I can see the surface in them.

I'm not sure if the Ginger Bug is meant to get a scoby pedicle or not and I've been unable to find anything much about infections of Ginger Bug. Any ideas or experience with this? If it's still present (I imagine it will be) this morning, I'll post a photo.
 
Being a stubborn idiot is not an easy trait to lose. Anyway, I've found that the use of Lactose at 10g / litre, as recommended by the HBS guy, does nought to dry finished Ginger Beer. I'll give it another go with double but I'm starting to think the Nick is 100% correct in saying that Lactose is not really an adequate sweetener for this application, and when back sweetened with a sugar syrup it was good. Hhmmm? back to the drawing board.

The low alcohol / no alcohol instant GB is delicious, but you can only really make as much as you can fit in the fridge when you want to stop it. Otherwise, it keeps on going and you end up with a dry bottle, plus you need to keep an eye on them to burp. Now I know why most of the videos are showing people making only 6 bottles at any one time.

My Brigalow bottles will be 3 weeks conditioned in a few days. It was interesting to see that my wife's little can of Kombucha the other day had Stevia and Erythritol and she said she couldn't taste any artificial sweetener flavour with it.
 
@livo
I'm loving your posts & honesty but heck fella you are a masochist!

Haha you are really walking a fine line with this low/no alcohol GB stuff - I can't believe you bothered with the Margaret Fulton recipe etc.

I admire your determination to find the magic bullet for this - but I think you're staring at the easiest, cheapest and more fool proof solution - but I am loving this chase for the holy grail - you must be putting away a boatload of so-so GB on route.You're a much better man than me sticking with it!
 
Stevia I can taste, thanks to mistakenly buying a bottle of Bundaberg Ginger Refresher - their lo-cal version. Erythritol I have yet to try.
 
The good thing is that I love a splash of GB with my beer so I'm getting through it. The Margaret Fulton bottles are still going but they are still super sweet and have only dropped from around 1.048 to 1.038. I had a little bottle of leftover, and it tasted OK (sweet) so it will be interesting to see how the 750s turn out when their done a bit more. I've got that bug in the fridge and I've been feeding it weekly. It may develop into something useful.

I made a batch of really low sugar for the wifey and it isn't too bad. She puts a slice of lemon in it and said she really likes it. I've put 12 bottles in the fridge today to stop them going any further.

I remember not liking the really dry Apple Cider years ago and if I recall correctly, the Lactose did the trick. I don't recall how much I used.
 
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