Ginger Beer Recipe - Scratch Brew No Kit

[MCHammo]

Just wondering if it is possible to make the original ~20l recipe doing a 5-10L boil on a stove top and topping up with water after as I don't want to fill my 40L urn with ginger and sticky sugar/honey?

I'm hoping it would be similar to making a high OG beer and watering down to desired OG.

That's what I used to do when I made ginger beer - I had a 4L boil, then diluted down to 22L or so with tap water in the fermenter. Some would advise against that (unboiled water, etc), but I never had a problem with it.

 

[ellchaddo]

Yea mate this is alcoholic and it's an awesome drink.

G'day Kingy, I'm about to start brewing this tomorrow. I'm not sure if I have the right yeast though as the pack just says premium brewing yeast 5g. The bloke at the brew shop gave me this as well as 4g yeast nutrient. Is this ok to use for this recipe? or should I go back and see if he has the specifics.

Cheers

Also, I only have 1 kg of ginger. Do you think that is enough? I like the ginger level of a typical GB from the bottle-o. I was thinking if this wasnt enough I could leave the hopps bag in the brew for a day or so to get more flavour? Please let me know your thoughts.

Ellchaddo

 

[ellchaddo]

Alrighty put the brew on last night. tweaked the recipe to 2kg honey 1 kg sugar. was only able to boil about 8 litres of it though as i only had a pot that big soi topped the tub up with water. I also left the ginger in the mix for 24 hours, hopefully that didnt ruin things. I only used a kg of ginger.

So has anyone got advice on how much to prime the bottles if I do so at all?

Ell

 

[Kingy]

Im not sure about leaving the ginger in there, it probly won't be a problem. 1 kg should still be enough anyways.
You could've done with more yeast but it should finish off tho maybe take a little longer,
Priming bottles for a ginger beer is no different to any other beer except if wait for a stable reading off 4 days. It helps for all the floaters to settle out aswell.

 

[Kingy]

Oh,1 kg of honey is plenty. And brown sugar is the go. Helps with colour.
Chappos original recipe is pretty forgiving and it's great to play around with. I love the chilli in it and crash chill in the low gravitys of 1000's and keg to have very slight sweetness.

 

[ellchaddo]

Oh,1 kg of honey is plenty. And brown sugar is the go. Helps with colour.
Chappos original recipe is pretty forgiving and it's great to play around with. I love the chilli in it and crash chill in the low gravitys of 1000's and keg to have very slight sweetness.

Cheers Beer God,

I don't think I have the gear available to crash chill. I only have a brew tub and empty bottles in a fridge. I might try some sweeteners ORI might just drink it how it is

 

[ellchaddo]

P.S. Beer God do you know of any home brew case swap or similar types of events in Newcastle?

 

[Kingy]

You can only crash chill if your kegging to stop the yeast from eating the sugars and retain some sweetness. If you crash chilled and then bottled, once it warmed up it would start fermenting again and boom. (Bottle bombs).
Having said that my last brew I added a bottle of buderim ginger Cordial (750mls) to the boil and it retained some sweetness through to the bottles.
Also saying that I do like my gingers dry Lol.
All my variations have been good except when I crash chilled to early and it was to sweet.
I fixed that, but that's another story lol.

Not sure of any case swaps, but there's a home brew club that meets at Hamilton once a month, can't rdmember when tho.

 

[ellchaddo]

You can only crash chill if your kegging to stop the yeast from eating the sugars and retain some sweetness. If you crash chilled and then bottled, once it warmed up it would start fermenting again and boom. (Bottle bombs).
Having said that my last brew I added a bottle of buderim ginger Cordial (750mls) to the boil and it retained some sweetness through to the bottles.
Also saying that I do like my gingers dry Lol.
All my variations have been good except when I crash chilled to early and it was to sweet.
I fixed that, but that's another story lol.

Not sure of any case swaps, but there's a home brew club that meets at Hamilton once a month, can't rdmember when tho.

Cheers Kingy,

One more question. I have my brew in the fridge at 18 degrees at the moment. I wont have a fridge in two weeks as the owner of it is moving out of my place, do the bottled beers need to stay at a constant temp? or can I just leave them out after I've bottled them?


Ellchaddo

 

[Kingy]

Just leave them out of the fridge. All good.

 

[All.Hopped.Up]

I brewed this on Monday with a few slight changes inspired by this 15 page conversation.

2kg fresh ginger
4 cinnamon sticks
3 fresh chillies (diced with seeds in)
1kg dark brown sugar
1kg brown sugar
1kg local ironbark honey
The juice and zest of 5 limes
The juice and zest of 5 lemons
Yeast nutrient (added last 10 mins of boil)
1 hour boil
US05 pitched @ 18 degrees

I put it into the fermenting fridge on Monday and it has only dropped from 1.046 to 1.042 today, I am wondering if I should pitch more yeast or if it is just being lazy and needs more time to kick in?

I know a few people have said they had a few issues with the yeast kicking in to gear, but I am not sure how long I should leave it before taking action?

It is really frustrating as I brewed a witbier two days ago and it is going off like a rocket, I was hoping it might inspire the ginger beer to get busy as the are cuddled up in the fermenting fridge.

Any advice?

 

[All.Hopped.Up]

I brewed this on Monday with a few slight changes inspired by this 15 page conversation.

2kg fresh ginger
4 cinnamon sticks
3 fresh chillies (diced with seeds in)
1kg dark brown sugar
1kg brown sugar
1kg local ironbark honey
The juice and zest of 5 limes
The juice and zest of 5 lemons
Yeast nutrient (added last 10 mins of boil)
1 hour boil
US05 pitched @ 18 degrees

I put it into the fermenting fridge on Monday and it has only dropped from 1.046 to 1.042 today, I am wondering if I should pitch more yeast or if it is just being lazy and needs more time to kick in?

I know a few people have said they had a few issues with the yeast kicking in to gear, but I am not sure how long I should leave it before taking action?

It is really frustrating as I brewed a witbier two days ago and it is going off like a rocket, I was hoping it might inspire the ginger beer to get busy as the are cuddled up in the fermenting fridge.

Any advice?

Anyone?

 

[All.Hopped.Up]

So this has stalled out at 1.022 after 11 days. Would it be ok to re-pitch some more US-05 on top to bring it down further, or should I just cut my losses and put it in to the keg at 3%? I was really hoping for something a little stronger.

 

[Kingy]

Definately not finished, this beer should get down to around the 1.000 mark. I generally crash chill mine when it gets around 1.006-1.004 then keg so it retains some sweetness. Give a gentle stir and or add a pinch of yeast. What temperature do you have it at? Maybe raise it a little.

 

[peterl1981]

Anyone?

Any word on this one yet??

 

[All.Hopped.Up]

Definately not finished, this beer should get down to around the 1.000 mark. I generally crash chill mine when it gets around 1.006-1.004 then keg so it retains some sweetness. Give a gentle stir and or add a pinch of yeast. What temperature do you have it at? Maybe raise it a little.

I was sitting at 18 but I have bumped it up to 21 to try and get it firing again with no love. I also gave it a little stir and 24 hours later still no movement. I dumped another packet of US-05 on it this afternoon and I am hoping that I might have some luck with that.

 

[All.Hopped.Up]

Any word on this one yet??

Still no movement.

 

[mattyg8]

looking to do my first ever ginger beer soon and ive only recently started drinking it...there are a few recipes floating around in these posts and was wondering which one is more preferred?

cheers

 

[beenabeer]

Heya, anyone tried prunes etc in their ginger beer brewing? Jake

 

[MetalDan]

I tried Chappo's original recipe a few years back it was delicious, no changes to the recipe except some birdseye chilli's in the boil.

Did anyone have suggestions for how I could make a midstrength version of this recipe (say 3.5%) and keep some sweetness in it (I bottle carb and don't get)? I was thinking drop the sugar and honey by 50% (1kg sugar, .5kg honey) and then also add some stevia, would this work?

Recipe

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