Ginger Beer Recipe - Scratch Brew No Kit

[ploto]

Ginger was about $11/kg at woolies so I got a handful or four. It is young ginger which may not be as strong as the older rhizomes, but a moot point for me as being my first real GB I have nothing to go on, other than the horribly sweet kit ones a mate does. This is what I've got on hand and was toying with for a 23l batch.

1.5kg ginger. It's in the freezer now and I thought I would just give it a wash then chop it up and pound it, skin and all.

500g light dry extract
600g dextrose - from an unused pack of BE1
400g maltrose - again from the BE1
500g dark brown sugar
500g honey - It's a mild one but I have a 500g tub to spare.

3 lemongrass stalks
2 cinamon sticks
2 vanilla pods
1 lemon - zest + juice
1 lime - zest + juice
1 hot chilli

I've seen conflicting opinions on adding the dry extract but I don't want the result to be too thin or dry. If you think it is a bad idea please tell me, and why.

I do also have a bottle of the Buderim ginger refresher cordial, but was hoping to avoid using it given all the fresh ginger on hand.

Plan to bottle, not sure what carb levels might suit it.

 

[ploto]

I decided to drop the dry extract, went with the following:

1.5kg ginger
1kg dark brown sugar
600g dextrose (BE1)
400g maltrose (BE1)
500g honey

4 lemongrass stalks
1 cinamon stick
1 lemon - zest + juice
1 lime - zest + juice
1 kafir lime leave, sliced
1 hot chilli, sliced seeds and all
1 clove

Chopping and pounding the frozen ginger was easy and also most of the skin came off when I scrubbed it with a potato brush, although I think this was partly because it was young ginger and not the old woody stuff that is usually available.

I'm going to ferment with K-97 dry yeast as I have a couple of expired packs I don't know what else to do with. Will re-hydrate soon and if it doesn't kick off I will use S04 or Nottingham.

 

[brettprevans]

young fresh ginger gives better results.

dont wory too much about some skin. it will drop out in fermentation anyways.

@ Ploto. if you were going to drop something, why not the BE1? you may as well have dropped all the 'non scratch' ingrediants and made it from scratch. your almost there. no real extra effort needed.

see what you think of your recipe once its made then consider makign it from scratch. you wont be disappointed

 

[ploto]

I decided to keep the BE1 partly for the dextrose to make up fermentables, but also because I thought the maltrose would add a bit of body without affecting the flavour. Anyway it's been sitting in the cupboard since I got the coopers fermenter kit over a year ago and can't think of anything else to use it for.

I dropped the LDM I though might start to take the end result further away from being a straight ginger beer, and have read more negative references to it being used in GB than positive ones.

I also added a pack of kit yeast to the boil as nutrient.

Anyway thanks for the tips CM2 and I am sure I will be making more GBs down the track.

btw I saw galangal in the grocer for $10 a kilo, cheaper than ginger! I would like to make a galangal beer with it one day and at that price it is quite feasible, although it was shrink-wrapped in 100g lots and they all seemed to be about 1/3 stalk and the rhizomes were rather shrivelled. Maybe that's why it was cheap.

 

[bum]

young fresh ginger gives better results.

Young ginger is juicier, sweeter and probably easier to work with. Mature is much more intense in flavour. I like to use a mix of the two when I'm able - supply down here tends to be either one or the other..

Just a quick note on young vs mature. It is sometimes mentioned around here that you should buy it in advance and let it "age". This is not the difference - that is fresh vs old and shit. Young ginger is picked sooner than mature. Regardless of the type you want to use fresh is always best.

 

[brettprevans]

Finally ginger is at a reasonable price at the ubermarket, down to just over $10 a kilo... So my version of this will be made this week. Hmmmm dark chili ginger beer

 

[brettprevans]

Finaly got this years GB down. my usual recipe (same as chappos but use half dark brown sugar and zest of all lemons limes). I froze ginger this time. Never again will I not do this. It blended up so much easier and the skin just wipes off after its thawed.

All went into pot as I strained thru hop bag into fermentor.
12L boil then added water
Half zest juice goes in at 60min
Rest goes in at 10min

1075og

Pitched 2 cups of US05 slurry at 25C. Tenp wont be an issue as its fkn cold in melb amd the temp dropped significantly overnight.

 

[brettprevans]

Finaly got this years GB down. my usual recipe (same as chappos but use half dark brown sugar and zest of all lemons limes). I froze ginger this time. Never again will I not do this. It blended up so much easier and the skin just wipes off after its thawed.

All went into pot as I strained thru hop bag into fermentor.
12L boil then added water
Half zest juice goes in at 60min
Rest goes in at 10min

1075og

Pitched 2 cups of US05 slurry at 25C. Tenp wont be an issue as its fkn cold in melb amd the temp dropped significantly overnight.

well its only been a couple of week in the keg but I gave it a try. nice and dry but not overattenuated. very floral. more so than I would liek for a winter ginger beer. Obviously the usage of all the zest/peel and splitting the additons has had a big effect on the flavour. it would be a cracker of a summer ginger beer. not bad for winter either.

massive ginger kick, but then again I added almost 1/2kg more than I needed to.

 

[Shep14]

As this is my first post on AHB I have to say this is a wicked forum, I have been lurking around here for a while now and I am amazed at the amount of knowledge that can be found here. After some successful extract brews im excited to move into all grain, having picked up my 40L crown urn yesterday, again the level of expertise regarding BIAB completely swayed me to this method.

Now on topic. I bottled my ginger beer last night following Chappo's recipe. The main difference is that as I didn't have a pot large enough at the time and brewed this in 4 small batches, chilled each batch and put into the fermenter to give me 22L. I did not add yeast nutrient which I now regret and with US-05 the GB took 4weeks to finish fermenting at 18C!!! I guess GB is not the best environment for yeast...

My main concern is this brew turned out to be really dry, the FG is 1000 at 15C (vs Chappo's recipe 1012). The SG was 1052, so its going to be rocket fuel. Is the dryness a result of the fermentables being brown sugar and honey which are both highly fermentable and leaving minimal unfermented sugars behind? I read earlier in this discussion that someone else has had the same experience. Is this resolved by using a larger quantity of unfermentable sugars, a different yeast or did I stuff something up?

I found this by doing a google search, maybe I should have pasteurised the honey instead of boil to retain some flavour. Would be intersted to know peoples thoughts.

Cheers,
Shep

 

[kymba]

As this is my first post on AHB I have to say this is a wicked forum, I have been lurking around here for a while now and I am amazed at the amount of knowledge that can be found here. After some successful extract brews im excited to move into all grain, having picked up my 40L crown urn yesterday, again the level of expertise regarding BIAB completely swayed me to this method.

Now on topic. I bottled my ginger beer last night following Chappo's recipe. The main difference is that as I didn't have a pot large enough at the time and brewed this in 4 small batches, chilled each batch and put into the fermenter to give me 22L. I did not add yeast nutrient which I now regret and with US-05 the GB took 4weeks to finish fermenting at 18C!!! I guess GB is not the best environment for yeast...

My main concern is this brew turned out to be really dry, the FG is 1000 at 15C (vs Chappo's recipe 1012). The SG was 1052, so its going to be rocket fuel. Is the dryness a result of the fermentables being brown sugar and honey which are both highly fermentable and leaving minimal unfermented sugars behind? I read earlier in this discussion that someone else has had the same experience. Is this resolved by using a larger quantity of unfermentable sugars, a different yeast or did I stuff something up?

I found this by doing a google search, maybe I should have pasteurised the honey instead of boil to retain some flavour. Would be intersted to know peoples thoughts.

Cheers,
Shep

welcome aboard shep

i had the same thing happen to me - it is from all the simple sugars that the yeast can metabolise. i've heard of people backsweetening with lactose but that is for others to comment on

the way to do it is to stop the yeast at the desired gravity using heat, chemicals, or even lack of heat (fridge) if you are just kegging it - keep in mind though that if you reintroduce yeast for carbonating it will keep chewing on the sugars so you will have to kill them again when you have reached your desired carbonation level

my plan was to ferment to 1.014, transfer into keg, leave fermenting under pressure (to carbonate) to 1.010 then heat the keg in my kettle up to about 60 degrees and hold it there for a while then crash chill. however life got in the way & i was too late - it finished at about 0.990ish

if you are bottling you need to ensure there are no yeasts left alive that can continue fermenting or you'll have the bottle bombs. i think i remember reading that incider boiled up his bottles in a 44 gallon drum once the carb level was reached?

 

[Shep14]

Forgot to put this link into previous post.
http://www.honey.com/images/downloads/home_brew.pdf

Thanks kymba has left me with this idea, as I dont have the ability to keg yet.

Can I bottle at a higher gravity say 1015, then fermentation will continue in the bottle to a more desirable gravity, say 1010, then put all the bottles in the fridge and store them there until they have been drunk? Would not have to add any priming sugar and the bottles would carbonate over that final drop to desired gravity.

As I pulled the above numbers out of my arse, my questions are:

what would be the ideal bottling gravity, is there a formula for calculating the level of carbonation from a change in gravity? I assume you would have to open a bottle or two to check when a good level of carbination is achieved.

Also, will there be any problems not associated with carbonation levels (bottle bombs) by bottling before fermentation is finished?

 

[bigcroc64]

Ok this is my second GINGERBEER RECIPE atempt and im after some help please.

take 2 ive called it spicy jerk gingerbeer.
The other one was strong aswell to taste but 50% ice and 3 tea of disolved sugar and its not bad .

1kg of raw ginger peeled and washed
4 whole lemons
2cups of sultanas
1 med cayene chilli
BELND THE LOT .
4 tea ginger powder

4 ltrs of filtered water
1kg honey 2kg of raw sugar
500g rich brown sugar.
bring to a heat to melt the sugars,stirling consantly.
2 good teaspoons of jamaican jerk seasoning
1 tea of allspice
5 star annice
5 tea of good vanilla
4 tea of cinnamin

i THEN SIMMERED THE LOT FOR NEARLY AN HOUR THEN PUT THE LOT INTO A HOPS BAG

SG 1050

7 DAYS LATER FG1000
MY QUESTION IS when i first tasted the brew it was sweet with a nice bite , every day i tasted the brew it seemed to get sourer and stronger ,is this because the sugars are fermenting and being used by the yeast, should i remove the bag of ingredients now and let it sit for another week or 2 .Or should i wait until another 2 or 3 days with the fg at 1000 to make sure its stable.
Cheers Rob

 

[LiquidGold]

Hey all i'm about to put on my first ginger beer recipe and it will go something like this:

1 Morgans GB kit
250g fresh ginger
1kg raw sugar
250g brown sugar
200g bush honey (tea tree (Melaleuca quinquernervia))
juice and zest of 2 lemons
a handfull of reasonably fresh lemon myrtle leaves
2 whole cloves
1 habanero chilli (seeds and membrane chopped out)
2 satchets of coopers lid yeast

• Blend the ginger, lemon juice and chilli with some water and add to pot
• add hot water to around 3 litres then bring to boil
• boil for 15 min
• add brown sugar, cloves, lemon myrtle leaves and lemon zest and boil another 15 min
• turn off the heat and add honey to dissolve
• pour into fermenter along with the Morgans tin and add the raw sugar
• stir thoroughly to dissolve sugars
• top up with water to 20L at 20 degrees
• take hydrometer reading then pitch yeast

Any suggestions, improvements or critiques would be greatly appreciated. Cheers

 

[LiquidGold]

I went ahead with this recipe but used 4 cloves and left the seeds in the chilli. before turning the heat off i also strained out the cloves and lemon myrtle leaves then put the honey in and poured everything unstrained into the fermenter. Only thing bugging me is that the 2 yeast satchets i used were from different kits - one was the Thomas Cooper's IPA kit and the other the Heritage Lager - and i noticed when putting the second one in that it appeared to be a different yeast (one was lighter in colour and finer). Will this affect the outcome?

OG was 1042 and i pitched at 22-23 degrees celcius.

 

[Judanero]

I don't think so, imo kit yeasts are fine for GB, mixing two different ones? No biggie.

Really interested to hear the taste report on this recipe, you've got some crazy flavour additions happening in there!

A whole habanero (seeds and all) just curious whether you've used chilli in beer before? Not having a go, just think that is going to be one extremely hot beer! I've only used the little red ones from the supermarket (most was three de-seeded in a batch)
But I couldn't imagine throwing one of my habs in, I think it'd move from enhancing the spice of the the ginger to becoming just a chilli beer.

In saying that, trying new things can produce some unexpected great results :beerbang:

Cheers

 

[LiquidGold]

Glad to hear mixing two yeasts isn't a big deal. Taste sample when getting SG reading was actually very nice and not too hot. I've been a passionate chilli grower for a couple of years now but never properly used any in a homebrew. I did put one red chilli in a bottle when bottling my first ever batch and it was so incredibly hot after 6 weeks i couldn't even finish it. The ginger i used for this recipe was dug up form the garden today by the way and in doing so i got to separate and re-plant heaps more for next time. Can't wait to try it again after fermentation :drinks:

 

[Judanero]

Good fresh ginger is the ducks! I've never put chillies in the bottle, only ever fv for at most~3 weeks...

I have put one of my Hungarian blacks in a bottle of vodka once though, trying my hand at dragons breath sort of thing.. drinkable for a month, after that waay too hot to be enjoyable. Guess the amount of time the alcohol sits on the chilli makes a difference as to the amount of capsaicin that ends up in the solution.

Definitely post back your results mate! :beer:


Cheers

 

[LiquidGold]

Yeah too right about the capsaicin i did the same with a bottle of tequila and my first ever Bhut jolokia. For some reason i decided to wait 4 weeks before unleashing it (just after the chilli began to sink) and it was just crossing the line of still being enjoyable. Should have been tasting it weekly to see the difference.

The GB is sitting on 20-22 now and i'm trying to work out what to do to keep it a bit sweet since i'm bottling. I'm pretty inexperienced with crash chilling or using heat to slow down the yeast and stuff so was hoping for an easy fix. maybe adding an unfermentable sweetener when i bottle? nothing artificial would be nice since it's pretty organic so far. Also i'd rather not make bottle bombs :unsure:

Will keep you posted

Cheers

 

[LiquidGold]

Can I bottle at a higher gravity say 1015, then fermentation will continue in the bottle to a more desirable gravity, say 1010, then put all the bottles in the fridge and store them there until they have been drunk? Would not have to add any priming sugar and the bottles would carbonate over that final drop to desired gravity.

As I pulled the above numbers out of my arse, my questions are:

what would be the ideal bottling gravity, is there a formula for calculating the level of carbonation from a change in gravity? I assume you would have to open a bottle or two to check when a good level of carbination is achieved.

Really interested to hear a reply to this as I'm in the same boat. Just checked SG and it's on 1026 so still a while to go which is no surprise as it's only been 5 days. Basically wanted to have another taste and it went down a treat. Less sweet than first sample with a lot more ginger kick and a very light hint of chilli but not much at all considering. Hard to taste much of the other ingredients but they will probably come through at a later stage I hope.

Cheers

 

[Jabba1701]

Hi guys!

I've skimmed through this thread looking for ideas. I used Chappo's recipe from the first post, but added a bit more ginger. Also, I only used normal brown sugar (I'd never seen or heard of dark brown sugar until a few days ago when I saw some in Woolies). It has been in the fermenter doing it's thing for 7 days. I'm a shift worker so I kinda loose track of how many days have passed, so I have only just gotten around to doing a gravity reading and a bit of a taste. According to my maths it is at 3.6% It is unfortunately not very sweet at all. I am guessing this is because I left it for too long. Question is, is there any way of sweetening it up again? Do i just dump some more brown sugar in there or have I ballsed it up completely?