Ginger beer low alcohol

[joel0395]

Hey guys, just made my first alcoholic ginger beer using a coopers kit, i used a kilo of raw sugar, but my brew only worked out to be about 2.8%

I am going to attempt another one, just wondering how i go about boosting the alcohol content?!

Cheers

 

[SergeMarx]

I don't think there's heaps of fermentables in the can - it's meant to be low abv. I make ginger beer using a plant and its dead easy... Grate ginger, steep in boiling water, filter to demijohn, repeat, add sugar to second batch, cool, add plant, wait. Can't see why you couldn't boost your sugar, follow the steeped ginger method and make sure you pitch a healthy amount of yeast. The sugar should ferment out giving you good booze, the ginger will save the flavour and the non fermentables in the can should retain sweetness.

 

[carniebrew]

Actually I believe there are NO fermentables in the ginger beer cans, they're made with non-fermentable fake sugar so that they can be made into non-alcoholic ginger beer for the kids. Which is technically incorrect, given the use of priming sugar in the bottles to carbonate the GB makes it 0.4% abv, but apparently that's considered non-alcoholic....

Mixing up 1kg of sugar with the Coopers kit can into 20 litres in the fermenter is supposed to make the Coopers kit into 3.5% (after bottling), so not sure how you got 2.8%? But there's a couple of things to try next time. Don't add more sugar, try adding 500gm of light DME into the fermenter (along with the can and 1kg raw sugar). Every 500gm of DME you add should get you another .5% abv. Just remember to only add enough water to get you to 20 litres....if you're adding more fermentables, you will need less water than the can suggests.

If you find that adding a lot of fermentables to get the abv up is diluting the ginger kick you like, instead just drop your volume back. For example, the kit tin, 1kg raw sugar and 500gm of light DME will give you 4.6% abv if you only top up to 17 litres instead of 20...

Have a look at this thread for more info: http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/76907-pimp-a-coopers-ginger-beer-kit/