Ginger Beer - Golden Syrup?

[mkstalen]

Was going to put the following down as a Ginger Beer this weekend.
Ingredients for 20L:
1 Coopers kit ginger beer from the supermaket
750ml bottle ginger cordial
500g dextrose
250g LDME
250g dark brown sugar
350g honey
500g fresh ginger
50g powdered ginger
1 chilli sliced, seeds and all.
4 whole cloves (banged up in morter & pestle)
1/2tsp nutmeg
2 sticks of cinnamon
1 lemons juice & rind
2L of Apple juice

The thing is I've got 2 jars of Golden Syrup, so I figured rather than buying more honey I'd just use Golden Syrup.

Anyone done this? Good/Bad idea?

 

[BjornJ]

Sounds like quite a brew!

Honey and syrup are about the same level of fermentables I would think, so guessing in a strong-flavoured drink as Ginger ale with spices the difference will be minimal?

Brew it, then send a bottle for review

thanks
Bjorn

 

[bum]

Was going to put the following down as a Ginger Beer this weekend.
Ingredients for 20L:
1 Coopers kit ginger beer from the supermaket
750ml bottle ginger cordial
500g dextrose
250g LDME
250g dark brown sugar
350g honey
500g fresh ginger
50g powdered ginger
1 chilli sliced, seeds and all.
4 whole cloves (banged up in morter & pestle)
1/2tsp nutmeg
2 sticks of cinnamon
1 lemons juice & rind
2L of Apple juice

The thing is I've got 2 jars of Golden Syrup, so I figured rather than buying more honey I'd just use Golden Syrup.

Anyone done this? Good/Bad idea?

Never used either honey or golden syrup in a GB but I can't see why it wouldn't do the trick. Guessing from my own experience of dark brown sugar and my assumptions of what the golden syrup might do I think they might be ever so slightly OTT together but that might just be me. The apple juice is interesting - very interested to see what you reckon it adds when she's done.

That aside it looks like a strong recipe there, stienberg. Be sure to let us know how it goes.

 

[lanerigg]

750ml bottle ginger cordial

I would leave this out, you have enough ginger by using fresh and powdered. I think there are some preservitives in cordial as well!

forget.. good luck and post how it tastes!

 

[bum]

I would not leave it out. People keep saying it'll prevent fermentation - it will not. And you most certainly do not have too much ginger. Too much for some perhaps but not enough for me. If you reckon that'll give you the ginger you're after give it a crack.

 

[sipourit]

I haven't tried using golden syrup but I know there's been somebody tried this one and I don't hear any bad comments about it.

 

[mkstalen]

So I change the recipe a little on brew day.

Ingredients for 21L:
1 Coopers kit ginger beer
750mL bottle of Buderim Lime refresher with Ginger
270g Dextrose
250g LDME
500g Brown Sugar
~300g Golden Syrup
500g fresh ginger
50g ginger powder
4 small chillis
5 whole cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 sticks of cinnamon
1 lemon rind and juice
1 tsp of Vanilla Escense
2L Apple juice
US-05 yeast

Method:
Peel and grate ginger
Bash the cloves in a morter and pessle
Halve chillis
Into a pot put 3L water and add the Grated ginger, Golden syrup, Chillis (seeds and all), Cloves, Nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon, vanilla and Buderim refresher.
Bring to boil for 25 min.
Strain via my BIAB bag into a 2nd pot (that was mission in itself) and add the dextrose, LDME, and Coopers kit
Bring to boil for 5min.
Into the fermenter with the apple juice and top up to 21L.
Yeast pitched @ 24
Ferment @ 19deg

OG = 1.042

Was a little slow to start off but a few days in and the karusen was out the air lock and all over the top of the fermenter.

It's been down for about 10 days, just check the SG and it's at 1.010 will check it again in a couple of days to make sure it's finished, then I'll bulk prime and stick it into a bunch of 1.5-2L PET bottles.

In terms of taste, I'm stoked with what it tastes like out of the fermenter. I'm hoping it stays that good or gets better once it's in the bottles.
Much better than the Ginger beer I did at a U-Brew-It.

 

[bum]

I haven't seen the lime refresher before. Could be quite nice. Let us know how it goes. Still very interested to see what the apple juice does in there.

 

[beerbrewer76543]

so how is this one looking?

 

[mkstalen]

I've called this the "Ginger Ninja Beer" and will chuck it into the recipe DB shortly.
I took a couple of these to a mates place on Friday (handy that I bottled in 1.5L PET), and I'm mighty impressed. Even my mate who's not a big ginger beer fan was well impressed.

Good upfront ginger hit, but not over the top with a decent lingering tingle. I actually expected more bite with all the extra ginger and the chillis I put in, but I'm kind of happy that it's not over powering. Good residual sweetness, while some of that is from the artificial in the coopers tin, to my taste buds it didn't have that "Equal sweetner" kind of flavour to it which I've gotten off a straight GB K&K before.

It's also seems to have a much bigger alcohol hit that I expected. FG was 1.009, so alc% should be about 4.25% + maybe 0.5% for bottle conditioning, but it certainly seemed stronger than 4.75% after I'd had a few glasses.

In terms of what the apple juice added... I think there is a slight hint of the apple flavour in there, but only a little. You could probably bump it up to 4L apple juice if you wanted a bit more.

Overall, Very very happy.
:chug: