Ginger Beer Recipe - Scratch Brew No Kit

[Gormand]

Made mine up yesterday, sitting in the cube right now, I didnt put enough water in the pot so ended up a bit light.

1Kg Ginger
3 small hot chillis
2 cinammon sticks
Zest of 2.5 limes and 2.5 lemons
1kg Aussie Rainforest honey
1kg brown sugar
Juice of 5 limes
Flesh of 5 lemons cut up and thrown in the boil.

Used my BIAB setup to boil the lot for an hour. Im planning on "dry hopping" 250g of ginger thinly sliced and boiled for 5 min in tiny amount of water (Adding that to fermenter as well) after 4-5 days in the fermenter. I will also aim to prime either half or all the bottles with honey.

The small sample I took (Leftovers in the pipette from refracto sample) showed a decent amount of ginger but not overpowering (hopefully the 250g later will kick things up) chilli came through, hoping that dies down a bit otherwise the bite might be too much.

All in all excited about this. OG was only 1.030 but not sure if thats accurate, will getting better reading tonight when I put in the fermenter tonight.

 

[bluejay]

Ended up doing the brew as described in my last post.

After 3 days the sg has gone from 1.050 to 1.040. Very slow. This doesn't seem too unusual reading posts here though. Should I be worried?


How long does it usually take for it to finish?

I would have thought using such pure sugars would have been heaven for yeasts; dont understand why it slows the process. I guess pure sugar lacks proteins and stuff that might be essential for yeast growth? Probably should have added some yeast nutrients?

 

[unrealeous]

I would have thought using such pure sugars would have been heaven for yeasts; dont understand why it slows the process. I guess pure sugar lacks proteins and stuff that might be essential for yeast growth? Probably should have added some yeast nutrients?

Could also be that you didn't aerate it enough once you cooled the batch down- yeast growth need oxygen, and after boiling a liquid, most of the oxygen is expelled.

 

[bluejay]

Could also be that you didn't aerate it enough once you cooled the batch down- yeast growth need oxygen, and after boiling a liquid, most of the oxygen is expelled.

hmm well I did intentionally pour the liquid from a height so as to aerate it a bit. Is this not sufficient? how do others aerate it?

And if it does lack oxygen is there much I can do about it now?

 

[Gormand]

hmm well I did intentionally pour the liquid from a height so as to aerate it a bit. Is this not sufficient? how do others aerate it?

And if it does lack oxygen is there much I can do about it now?

Mine is going even slower then that. Ive gone from 1.030 (I had less sugar though) to 1.023 in over a week. Its still moving though so all good on that front, but damn its going to take a while.

 

[Yeastie Beastie]

As I have just given up alcohol I am in search of a good ginger beer and this one strikes me as one that is both good in ingredients and made by someone with a firm brewing background.
Is it as simple as removing the yeast to make it non alcoholic and obviously removing the fermenting process.
There are many recipies for non alc. ginger beer that still have yeast but is bottled after 3 hours etc.
Do I need the yeast for the carbonation process still?
Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Endo]

So I've read through the thread and think im right to give it a go.. but..

I'm going to be bottling....

So if I've read things correctly.. Throw in some lactose, and ferment it till she stops..

Based on 20l, 500grams of lactose should do the trick? Or too much?

 

[brettprevans]

So I've read through the thread and think im right to give it a go.. but..

I'm going to be bottling....

So if I've read things correctly.. Throw in some lactose, and ferment it till she stops..

Based on 20l, 500grams of lactose should do the trick? Or too much?

Depends on how sweet u want it. I don't use lactose really so I'm not a font of knowledge of it. I've used 200g in a tart arse cider I was tryi g to sweeten for the missus and it did bugger all. I'd gp 400g and see if u want a sweeter ginger beer. Or wait for someone else to chime in

 

[Endo]

Depends on how sweet u want it. I don't use lactose really so I'm not a font of knowledge of it. I've used 200g in a tart arse cider I was tryi g to sweeten for the missus and it did bugger all. I'd gp 400g and see if u want a sweeter ginger beer. Or wait for someone else to chime in

I want some sweetness, I'm not huge on dry ginger beers.

Thanks for the suggestion

 

[Baulko Brewer]

Stupid Question but can't find definative answer.

I want to make this for summer, but want to make the half the batch non Alcoholic for the kids and alcoholic for me & swmbo.

is there a simple process to do this or is it easier to make two batches??


thanks in advance

 

[Bongchitis]

I want some sweetness, I'm not huge on dry ginger beers.

Thanks for the suggestion

Lactose never worked for me. I use 20g Splenda (20L batch) or Stevia extract to sweeten my GB, Cider and Lemonade. Works a treat. No artificial flavour whatsoever.

 

[chug!chug!]

Happy with my results of my first two Ginger Beers.

First is too sweet after under pitching yeast but has a big ginger flavour with nice heat pushed by the chilli. Although the cinnamon smelt great
for the first few days fermentation I cannot detect it in the finished product which is dissapointing, must be dominated by the stronger flavours.

Second finished bone dry so drinking with lemonade. Will try mixing the two brews to find the right sweetness.
Has a strong kick and got bit pissed on a pint while bottling :lol:
Only added ginger and chilli to this one resulting in a more one dimensional flavour.

Plans for the third are to retry the cinnamon and experiment with pasteurisation.

 

[KudaPucat]

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!

OK, this FG of 1012, this is not residual sugars? I need to crash chill and stabilise?
If so, I trust this is not meant to be carbonated? I had hoped to carbonate it, but don't have my kegging system yet.
Any ideas?

 

[chug!chug!]

I primed and pasteurised my last batch. Carbonation was good sweetness OK but would have liked it a bit sweeter. Getting the sweetness + carbonation combo is what
I am working on.

I bottled after 4 days and added 12g of sugar to 1.5 pet bottles. After a few days the bottles felt full of pressure deforming slightly. I put these into water just off the boil for
10 minutes which killed the yeast and warped the feet of the bottles a little but no catastrophes.

 

[KudaPucat]

I primed and pasteurised my last batch. Carbonation was good sweetness OK but would have liked it a bit sweeter. Getting the sweetness + carbonation combo is what
I am working on.

I bottled after 4 days and added 12g of sugar to 1.5 pet bottles. After a few days the bottles felt full of pressure deforming slightly. I put these into water just off the boil for
10 minutes which killed the yeast and warped the feet of the bottles a little but no catastrophes.

What was the SG after pasteurisation?

 

[Tanga]

I've pasteurised glass bottles before. 70 degrees was enough. Perhaps put some cloth in the bottom so the hot metal doesn't warp the bottles?

 

[chug!chug!]

What was the SG after pasteurisation?

Im in Bali and have no measuring equipment till I get home so just guessing on taste at the moment.

I've pasteurised glass bottles before. 70 degrees was enough. Perhaps put some cloth in the bottom so the hot metal doesn't warp the bottles?

Thanks Tanga will do next time.

 

[Tanga]

No worries. I've done the same, I was worried about the quick temp change cracking the glass. When I did it at Mum's I borrowed her cake rack and dropped it in the pot before adding the bottles. Not sure if that'll work with PET though.

P.S. If you want a sweet ginger beer I recommend my alcowater and Bunderim's Ginger Refresher.

 

[kymba]

anyone tried OP recipe with s-04 or T-58? I have a 1/4 batch ready to chill and have both of these. if only i had the foresight to do a 1/2 batch and split it between the 2 yeasts - oh well

 

[C-MOR]

Last saturday i put down a version of the original post. MAGIC. I would call it dry ginger ale. I will be doing a lot more of this.

7L

600g Brown sugar
300g honey
100g golden syrips

440g gringer
2 lemon rind
some cinnamon

wyeast 1056
1g wine yeast nutrient

Cheers Chappo 5 stars