Ginger Beer (kit & Bits) - Too Sweet

[Nagaz]

Hi all,

Read through a number of posts and saw many people state that the Coopers GB kit was too sweet and left a bad after taste... Then I read that many people felt there was no after taste... So I thought the only way I will know is if I do it myself...

Recipe as follows:

Coopers GB Kit
15 mild cherry chillies
3 cinnamon sticks
10 whole cloves
150g Budrim ginger jam
100g Dry ginger powder
250g Dark brown sugar
1.5kg raw sugar
1 tub of 'Ginger Booster' from TWOC in Perth
US-05 yeast

Started: 17/03/2012
OG: 1.050
Current SG: 1.010

The 'Ginger Booster' as at the recommendation of Roy from TWOC.

Chillies and jam boiled for 15 mins, cinnamon, cloves and dark brown sugar added and boiled for a further 15.
Added kit and cooled, then added to fermenter and filled to 22 ltrs. Pitched rehydrated US05 at 20C.

Ferment went off like crazy. I have had to add extra glad wrap due to immense pressure in fermenter. (Cleaned all spillages with sanitiser). Ferment is still going crazy....

Have tasted the hydrometer sample, and although it has a ginger type aroma, slight ginger taste, it is extremely sweet and has a real 'chemical' after taste that I can only put down as being the artificial sweetener in either the GB kit or the 'Booster'.

Wondering if there is any way to 'cover' the artificial sweetener taste and perhaps give it a bit more ginger kick?
Next time I will just grab a kilo or two of fresh ginger and go that way, but would like to try and salvage this sweet disaster....

Nagaz

 

[bum]

A kilo of ginger and a bottle of ginger refresher (in combination with the dark brown sugar you already have) will go a long way towards toning it down. I've never been able to get rid of it completely but still find it preferable to the one-dimensional flavour of the dry scratch GBs. YMMV.

 

[crd0902]

Hey I've done about four or five coopers ginger beer with just the kilo of brown sugar and kit yeast. They have all tasted great. Not too sweet. Very thin but bloody refreshing on a hot day. I think the best one I have done was a brew with a yeast the lhbs told me to get, I think it was a champagne yeast he said. I always try try to keep some ginger beer bottled and cold. It's great for cooking a barbie