Ginger Beer Recipe - Scratch Brew No Kit

[brettprevans]

well best i can make it my batch has finished.
OG 1065, FG 1024.

i still recon this is high but yeast seems to have carked it. the GB on taste test isnt dry either, still plenty of sweetness. heaps of chilli bite also.

got to decide whether to keg or not.

 

[brettprevans]

pulled out all thr tricks in the book and got it to drop another 5 points, but she wont budge now. so kegged it last night.
damn that chilli has some bite. I recon the drop in the 5 points will helpas it has dried it out a little more but still has a nice little bit of sweetness.

did up a label for it (ignore the cyser description next to it, that's obviously for a cyser ive done)

View attachment Beer_Card_ginger.pdf

now to wait for it to carb up and enjoy

 

[jiesu]

Ok I am about to put a batch of this down but I have a question re fermenting.

I want the final beer to have a slight/residual sweetness to it and I also want to carb it. No keg so it has to be naturally bottle carbed. And it would be great
if I could keep it to about 2 - 2.5 %
Any ideas on how to achieve this without using a keg or killing the yeast?

Could I reduce the brown sugar until I get the alc% i want in beersmith or will this change the taste a little to much chapo?

What would you say would be an adequate amount of birds eye chilli just to get a slight twang from it? 10 -12? I would usually use 2 or 3 in a stir fry for 3 people.
mind you this I woudl consider to strong a dilution for a beverage.




Cheers!

O BTW found Ginger for $7 a KG at the market down here.

 

[Wolfy]

O BTW found Ginger for $7 a KG at the market down here.

I was happy to find it for $12.99 at the local fruit shop today. :icon_cheers:

 

[brettprevans]

I used 3 Birdseye chilli in 23L and I was plenty. That was sliced and in went seeds membrane everything.

The only way to decrease the alc is to cut down the fermentables. So decrease the honey and sugar but decrease sugar more. There more sugar in there than needed for taste. U could get rid of 1kg easily I recon. Ask chappo though or have a look at the other low alc Ginger beer recipes in the others threads for some ideas.

Coles has Ginger back at $12.99 a kilo. So the great Ginger shortage of 2010 seems to be easing

 

[jiesu]

Well my GB has finished fermenting out and finished about 1.001 Damn dry. I wish all my fermentations attenuated this well. However I would like to add a little sweetness back into it as it is a ginger beer after all and I think it benefits from a middle level of sweetness to conteract some of the bite. What would you guys say about adding Lactose in post ferment? I Imagine I will add it to my priming sugar solution and mix it in the bottling bucket. I will probably leave 4 bottles dry as a comparison. What would be a good amount of lactose to add to a 20Litre Ginger beer? would 500grams be too little?

 

[bum]

I wouldn't go any higher than 500g of lactose personally. Not because it is too sweet exactly but lactose gives a funny mouthfeel for me. Haven't seen anyone else report this so I am probably a bit of a princess.

CM2, I can see you tried your damnedest but there's no way that GB is done. But since you're kegging you've probably stopped at a nice sweet-spot (if you'll pardon the pun) if you don't like them dry.

When I copied bum`s recipe, it took 3-4 days for the cling wrap to move.

Make sure you let us know how it came out and how any variations you might have made turned out.

 

[brettprevans]

CM2, I can see you tried your damnedest but there's no way that GB is done. But since you're kegging you've probably stopped at a nice sweet-spot (if you'll pardon the pun) if you don't like them dry.

Its def not dry. so yeah there's a bit of sweetness and the chilli really bites, although its eased off some with a little cold conditioning. great little drop. would definitely need it dryer for the summer months, but for winter i recon its good.

Im taking a bottle up to QLd for Chappo to test. He can report back on his thoughts about it.

 

[wakkatoo]

Parents came back from Noosa recently and brought with them 2 x 1kg packets of the ginger pulp from Yandina.
Gonna give Chappo's recipe a go but will only use 1 packet. Depending on how it turns out, I'll probably up the ginger on the next one.

 

[brettprevans]

I think this recipe is definitely the base recipe to work from.

The Qld boys seemed to like my variation of the GB (or perhaps they were getting pretty happy by that stage of the day). I gave a bottle to a work colleague who is a amatuer distiller and he loved it. my mates loved it (bit much chilli for them though)

so Im calling this a winner.


Wakkatoo. let us know how the ginger pulp goes.

 

[spots]

Hi citymorgue2

What recipe did you end up using?

You also mentioned in a post that you might cut down on the sugar, so how would you change the recipe in the future.

Cheers,
Jason.

I think this recipe is definitely the base recipe to work from.

The Qld boys seemed to like my variation of the GB (or perhaps they were getting pretty happy by that stage of the day). I gave a bottle to a work colleague who is a amatuer distiller and he loved it. my mates loved it (bit much chilli for them though)

so Im calling this a winner.


Wakkatoo. let us know how the ginger pulp goes.

 

[chappo1970]

I can testify that CM2's version was bloody awesome. I loved the chilli hit BTW.

 

[brettprevans]

Hi citymorgue2

What recipe did you end up using?

You also mentioned in a post that you might cut down on the sugar, so how would you change the recipe in the future.

Cheers,
Jason.

I used chappos recipe on page 1 but added an extra 0.5kg Ginger, used zest from all the lemons and limes. 50/50 split brown sugar and dark brown suga. And increased honey about 0.5kg. Increased fermentables for bigger alc%. Oh and 2 or 3 supermarket Birdseye chillies sliced and into the primary fermentor.

 

[gregie57]

I expect two reasons: extract as much gingery/cinnamony (that's a word now, get used to it) goodness as you can and, even when washed really well, ginger is a bit of a dirty bugger (I don't trust it anyway).

Chappo may have other reasons - he's operating on a whole different plain.

Hi. I've brewed and bottled a Ginger Beer similar to what's been posted on this thread. The one thing I didn't do was read all of this information and did not peel the ginger. I whacked it in the blender with some water until it was reasonably fine and then boiled it with the rest of the ingredients. How badly have I stuffed up or may it be OK. It didn't taste bad when I bottled it and has only been a week since then so I have not tasted it since.

 

[bum]

I whacked it in the blender with some water until it was reasonably fine and then boiled it with the rest of the ingredients. How badly have I stuffed up or may it be OK.

If your boil was over, say, 10 minutes you'll most likely have nothing to worry about. I was talking more about my preferences (superstition) rather than actual knowledge (science). If you're liking it now you'll probably love it with a little time under its belt.

 

[smilinggilroy]

Hi. I've brewed and bottled a Ginger Beer similar to what's been posted on this thread. The one thing I didn't do was read all of this information and did not peel the ginger. I whacked it in the blender with some water until it was reasonably fine and then boiled it with the rest of the ingredients. How badly have I stuffed up or may it be OK. It didn't taste bad when I bottled it and has only been a week since then so I have not tasted it since.

Hi Stumblingin,
I've got a ginger beer in the fermenter now based on Chappos' first post which he washed the ginger only and didn't peel it.
I did the same as I used over 2kg. of ginger and about 400g. of galangal which I treated the same.
I also added a few extra flavours to the recipe (spices, herbs, chilli, hops etc.) and the tastings so far have been fantastic.
If you did the full boil as Chappos' recipe instructed I can't see any problems at all.
Cheers.

 

[brettprevans]

in the interests of letting people know how my version tasted I post some info re its entry into vicbrew 2010.
in the specialty category - ranked 18 out of 37 with a score of 97.5. now there were some issues. the bottle submitted seems to have restarted fermentation and gone dry as a nuns proverbial and was way overcarbed. in saying that it still scored well so I guess you can take from that what you will.

 

[gregie57]

Hi Stumblingin,
I've got a ginger beer in the fermenter now based on Chappos' first post which he washed the ginger only and didn't peel it.
I did the same as I used over 2kg. of ginger and about 400g. of galangal which I treated the same.
I also added a few extra flavours to the recipe (spices, herbs, chilli, hops etc.) and the tastings so far have been fantastic.
If you did the full boil as Chappos' recipe instructed I can't see any problems at all.
Cheers.

Yea, I boiled it but not as long as Chappo said. It's still not off. I tasted one last night. You get a bite and then and empty sentation (I presume that's the dry wine sensation) then you get the ginger flavour and not as sweet as I thought, but it is early days, and my recipe was slightly different. It started at 1046 and ended at 1006. Maybe a bit too efficient?

 

[Macca81]

well, having used some of the recipes in this thread as inspiration for making a GB, i put my first home brew GB down tonight for the first time since i was about 12... (non alcoholic plant, with lots of bottle bombs lol)

i figure i should post up what i did.

Ingredients:
1x coopers GB kit as base.
800g fresh ginger, grated.
1x Chillie, sliced, seeds in.
1 cup of lemon juice, plus the pulp and zest of one whole lemon.
3x cloves, whole.
1x stick of cinnamon, sorta broken up.
500g Leatherwood honey.
500g Brown Sugar.
500g Raw Sugar.
1x 750ml bottle Ginger Refresher.

Firstly, started peeling the ginger, decided it was a PITA and gave up on that idea. then i grated it... dont ever grate it. buy a blender. grating that much ginger sucks. a lot!

anyway, chucked all the ingredients except the kit and the refresher cordial into the pot and boiled it for a min or so. then chucked all ingredients into the fermenter with 18l of water all up. this bought it to roughly 20-21l total.
yeast pitched at 26deg. OG was 1.040 i aim to have an FG of 1.005ish.

having an initial taste of what i drew off to take the SG reading, i would say that i wouldnt mind a bit more chilli next time, but i suspect that it will draw out a fair bit more as it ferments, so we shall see

 

[beer-bub]

I'm looking at attempting Chappo's original recipe on page one. Just a quick question though, I don't have a kettle,l so does anyone see any issue with using a 3 litre pot and working in batches?