Ginger Beer Recipe - Scratch Brew No Kit

[chappo1970]

Ok so i finally got around to making version 2 of the Father & Son Special Ginger Beer.

Version 1 was lacking in a few areas so I have tweaked it a little and changed a few things to see if I can improve it.

Recipe

1.5kg Fresh Ginger
2.0kg Brown Sugar
1.0kg Iron Bark Honey
4 Cinnamon Sticks
5 Large Bush Lemons
5 Limes

Yeast Safale S-05

Steps

1. Wash the ginger thoroughly
2. Cut Ginger into 2cm long pieces
3. Add 500ml of cold water to blender as well as the ginger. I found it's best to add a couple of pieces at a time. If you don't have a blender grating is fine but you may want to consider freezing overnight to break up the cell structure as the ginger root is very fiberous.
4. Set Ginger pulp aside in the fridge for an hour to set up a little. Makes it easier to get out of the blender.
5. Juice the lemons and limes. Set aside two lemons and limes for zesting.
6. Zest the lemons and limes taking care not to have any white pith. I used a fish filleting knife. Then cut into thin strips.
7. Crush cinnamon. I put the cinnamon sticks in a zip lock bag and used my palm to crush them. Less mess that way.
8. Add all the sugar and honey to the boiler with 22lt of hot water. You will need a further 500ml of water to rinse the hoey from the pot. Stir to disolve. Boil size should now be 24lts.
9. Bring up to the boil. Gentle at this stage. Boil time is 60mins.
10. Add ginger pulp, zest and cinnamon to hops bag and drop it the boiler.
11. Boil gently for 50mins. Scoop ginger scum from top of boil. Dunk the bag like a tea bag every so often to get as much ginger flavour to impart to the boil.
12. Boil vigorously last 10mins. Keep a vigil as it will try to boil over!
13. Flame out 60mins.
14. Remove bag from boiler, just the remaining water seep out, don't squeeze. Scoop any scub from the top of the boil.
15. Rehydrate yeast in starter.
16. Cool it to pitching temp 18-20C.
17. Pitch yeast.
18. Ferment till steady readings.

SG - 1057
FG - 1012

I put it into the fermenter yeasterday. It was happily bubbling away this morning. I want to make mine a little less alcoholic so I will rack to a secondary vessle and crash chill before bottling.

I hope you enjoy it!

 

[rupal]

Sounds like it will be a good GB, What would you say your first one was like compared to Bundaberg Ginger Beer ? Does it have a strong gingery punch to it ? Ps, what are bush lemons ?

 

[chappo1970]

Sounds like it will be a good GB, What would you say your first one was like compared to Bundaberg Ginger Beer ? Does it have a strong gingery punch to it ? Ps, what are bush lemons ?

Yep bottled this one friday night. I would tweek up the ginger to 1.25kg if you like extra bite otherwise leave it as is. Doesn't compare to Bundy GB IMO cinnamon overtone yada yada but I'm bias huh? :lol:

Bush lemons are lemons with a gnarly rough skin. I have a tree so I have an advantage but normal old lemons from the green grocer would do.

Also need to add yeast nutrient as there isn't much for the yeast to be healthy with.

Hope this helps?

 

[lczaban]

Probbly the only thing I would add to this GB would be a red chilli, thinly sliced up (seeds and all) added into the fermenter. I used one (which was about 10cm long) in my GB and while it doesn't add alter the mid-palate flavour at all, it does help to lengthen the finish quite nicely and leaves a nice ginger tingle on your tongue after each mouthful. I'll have to go through and search up the recipe I used and post it here as a supercharged K&B GB. The few people I have shown this to have commented on it's gingeryness...

 

[lczaban]

It didn't take me too long to find the recipe in my notes, so here goes...

GG's GB Recipe 11/1/2009

• 1 x Morgans Ginger Beer Kit
• 1 x 500g Fresh ginger
• 1 x 250g DARK Brown Sugar
• 1 x 1kg dextrose
• 1 x 750ml Buderum Ginger Refresher Cordial
• 1 x fresh chilli (sliced thinly with the seeds in)
• ~600ml Sweet Vermouth
• ~600ml Sweet Sherry
• ~30ml Lochan Ora

Grated the ginger and soaked in a bowl with equal parts of Sweet Sherry, Sweet Vermouth & Lochan Ora for 24 hours. Combined the GB kit, brown sugar, dex and refresher cordial in 3L boiling water in the fermenter and stirred, then added the grated ginger soak (alcohol & all), added the sliced chilli and topped up to 23L. SG 1.048. Let the fermenter stand overnight while the yeast starter worked its treat, and pitched the following morning. FG 22/1/2008 0.996 Alc/Vol : 7.0%


I like this because it is overloaded with ginger bite. It had a real fortified complexity when I tried the first bottle of this brew two weeks after bottling, which has since faded into the background more progressively as the brew has aged. It still has a real kick to it though. I drank 2 1/2 longnecks of this GB with Vietnamese on Thursday night, and while it started to get heavy going towards the end it was a good accompaniment to the noodle soups we had. It would also go a treat with a sweet chilli stirfry IMHO.

I used the following recipe as the basis for my GB. It was posted in another thread, and I didn't make a note of who put this on AHB, but it also seems like a tops recipe...

My Ginger Beer recipe has taken me a while to get good and i love gingery bite!!
Its a K&K tho so i hope its ok to post it here...

1 x Coopers Ginger Beer (or morgans but i cant taste the difference just the price)
1 x 500g Fresh ginger
1 x 250g DARK Brown Sugar
1 x 800g Raw Sugar (or dex or brewing sugar)
1 x 250g Buderum Ginger Honey
1 x 50g powdered ginger
2 x Whole cloves
4 x birds eye chillies (sliced thinly, i personally keep the seeds in)

Boil up around 3litres of water
Add in the honey, chillies
boil for 15minutes
then add the fresh and powdered ginger
boil for 15minutes
about now its smelling really tastey
add the brown sugar and the cloves
boil for 15minutes
remove from heat (i usally cover the pot with clingwrap to prevent anything unwanted getting in) let cool while preparing the fermenter
I guess the order i add things in is abit random... but it seems to work

Make the kit up as normal from here
usually ferment for around 2 weeks, bottle for around 6 weeks, but do taste one bottle at 3 weeks the ginger kick is sooooo strong! it mellows out to a nice hit at 6 weeks, by 3 months its lost most its taste imho.

 

[chappo1970]

Another Hot Head GG? Excellent! :lol:

Chilli what an awesome idea. I'm gunna give that a crack on the next GB brew for sure. Might have to do a double batch one for me and one for the hordes. My GB a bit of a house brew here kids and the father in law consume 30 bottles in a matter of weeks.

Great recipe BTW GG thanks for sharing!

 

[InCider]

What a great idea Gravity - chilli in GB. I'm not much one for chilli in beer, but the flavours will compliment exceptionally well.

instead of birds eyes, I'd go for a jalapeno from the garden, or even on habanero. Yum!

InCider.

 

[head]

I have not tried this myself but I am tempted to try Galangal in a ginger beer. Have tried it raw before and it has a very hot bite for a ginger. Should be able to pick it up in woolies fresh these days.

 

[chappo1970]

• 1 x Morgans Ginger Beer Kit
• 1 x 500g Fresh ginger
• 1 x 250g DARK Brown Sugar
• 1 x 1kg dextrose
• 1 x 750ml Buderum Ginger Refresher Cordial
• 1 x fresh chilli (sliced thinly with the seeds in)
• ~600ml Sweet Vermouth
• ~600ml Sweet Sherry
• ~30ml Lochan Ora

OK GG you win mate! That was an awesome drop I tried today very very good. For those not privvy or lucky enough to try it there is just the slightest hint of chilli in the background that well balances the GB IMO.

I WON"T ADMIT DEFEAT YET GG!

:icon_cheers:

EDIT: Whoopsy for those uneducated bogans (like me ) Loch an bloody norah is a liquor scotch!

 

[Tiny_Tim]

Hi there chappo. Just have a couple of quick questions about this recipe.
The original recipe called for 1.5kg fresh ginger, and you said if you want an extra ginger kick you could up the dosage to 1.25kg. Did you mean 1.75kg? Would 2 kg be way too much?
Also is Safale S-05 definitely the best yeast for ginger beer? Anyone else have opinions on this?

Cheers!

 

[chappo1970]

Hi there chappo. Just have a couple of quick questions about this recipe.
The original recipe called for 1.5kg fresh ginger, and you said if you want an extra ginger kick you could up the dosage to 1.25kg. Did you mean 1.75kg? Would 2 kg be way too much?
Also is Safale S-05 definitely the best yeast for ginger beer? Anyone else have opinions on this?

Cheers!

Hey there Tiny_Tim,

Stick with 1.25kg Tiny_Tim IMO to start with unless you like your ginger beer to bite you back. Sorry for the confusion but from memory I was going to go 1.25kg but upped it to 1.5kg on the day which is my usual style of doing things. I also wound it back a little because other forum members might not like their GB to have as much bite as I do. I'm down to the last 3 or 4 bottles of the last batch (of this particular recipe) and have decided not to change a thing except I'm going to make a double batch so I can ferment one for the kids and one for me with about 500gr of chilli and let it ferment out. BTW my kids will eat mild curries and chilli's so they have a pretty tolerant palate to these kind of flavours. If your kids don't then wind it back say to 1kg or less. But the amount of ginger does depend on how bitey the fresh ginger is you intend to use. I suggest you cut up one of the ginger roots and have a chew. If your eyes pop out of your head, stay lower, if you can gnore the whole thing with having to spit it out, then up the weight.

S-05 loves it but needs to have a yeast neutrient. CB's do sell a ginger beer yeast but I'm not certain of what it is, how it goes etc as I have never used it.

 

[rupal]

Does anyone know how Bundy Ginger Beer is made ? They use yeast, but it is alcohol free.

 

[Tiny_Tim]

The vaporisation point of alcohol is lower than that of water, so you can boil the alcohol off beer once it's been fermented. I don't know how Bundaberg do it, but I'd imagine it would be similar to the production of alcohol free wines, they place the brew in a vacuum so that the alcohol vaporises at an even lower temp than normal.

 

[chappo1970]

The vaporisation point of alcohol is lower than that of water, so you can boil the alcohol off beer once it's been fermented. I don't know how Bundaberg do it, but I'd imagine it would be similar to the production of alcohol free wines, they place the brew in a vacuum so that the alcohol vaporises at an even lower temp than normal.

+1 Tiny Tim

Alcohol starts to vaporise at a balmy +70C so your not really boiling the balls off it more a simmer. Not that I know these kind of things, merely read it somewhere in my travels. h34r:

Now I must admit I have only read about yeasts that have alcohol as their by product, funnily enough being a beer brewer and all, so I am not sure if there is such a strain of yeast that exist's that doesn't. Maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in with advice on that one?

I use S05 because it is a clean yeast and doesn't throw a heap of diectyl in the first stages of ferment IMO as I tend to rack to a second fermenter after 2(+/- subject to ish) days, fine and crash chill for 7 or more days then bottle condition for 3 weeks or so. I add no sugar to the bottles they don't need it plus I had very bad experience in my earlier days with GB bottle bombs on steriods! Usually comes in around 1-2% ABV. Retains alot of the honey characteristics I like in my GB.

I also do a double batch so I have the no-chill cube ready to go straight onto the yeast cake of the first batch add yeast neutrients then let that ferment out for the full blown alcoholic version which is around 7% ABV.

 

[Supra-Jim]

Alcohol starts to vaporise at a balmy +70C so your not really boiling the balls off it more a simmer. Not that I know these kind of things, merely read it somewhere in my travels. h34r:

I believe you are correct, however this vapourisation temp can be lowered by applying a vacuum (or a pressure lower than atmosphere) to the surface of the liquid. Therefore you need less heat to acheive your goals.

Simple idea to post, a little more tricky to put into use!

:icon_cheers: SJ

 

[Tiny_Tim]

So no priming sugar at all Chappo? Even with the fully fermented version? I'm currently trying this one out, with a few additions. So far so good.

 

[chappo1970]

On the alcoholic version bulk prime with the normal amount of sugar but on the lean ish side, even 3/4 is good. But taste test first to see how dry it is that will give you an indication of where to go bottle priming wise. There is a whack of fermentables in there and you don't want bottle bombs trust me.

 

[Mikey!!!]

I'm trying out that GB recipe - it sounds great.

Say, a friend of mine said that doing GB, there's a greater chance of the bottles exploding. Is that right? He reckons I should bottle this in plastic but I really don't like pouring beer out of plastic bottles.

I don't know what the reason could be that he has in mind. Maybe all that ginger and stuff increases the risk of infection...

What do you guys reckon?

 

[chappo1970]

I'm trying out that GB recipe - it sounds great.

Say, a friend of mine said that doing GB, there's a greater chance of the bottles exploding. Is that right? He reckons I should bottle this in plastic but I really don't like pouring beer out of plastic bottles.

I don't know what the reason could be that he has in mind. Maybe all that ginger and stuff increases the risk of infection...

What do you guys reckon?

I bottle mine in screw top Bundaburg GB bottles 700mls (i think? Not completely sure about that one). I haven't had a problem thus far except for a much much earlier batch that went into some Tooheys New tallies.

Let us know how you get on with this one.

Cheers

Chappo

 

[Mikey!!!]

I bottle mine in screw top Bundaburg GB bottles 700mls (i think? Not completely sure about that one). I haven't had a problem thus far except for a much much earlier batch that went into some Tooheys New tallies.

Let us know how you get on with this one.

Cheers

Chappo

Will do - thanks! I'll go with the glass then.

Sorry for the dumb questions, but... When you bottle this, do you filter it to avoid getting chunks of ginger in the bottles?