Ginger Beer?

[GMK]

GMK started your ginger beer double batch today..... only did 23l but still looked smelt and tasted great..... i also added some honey and left out the lemon (only because i couldn't get 1) now i have to wait unfortunately.... looks like a great drop.... i just added a champage yeast called LALVIN EC-118.... just wondering if that will be okay...it says selected in champage regions so i assume all will be okay....anyways thanks for the recipie now wanna start a merry berry..... how has that batch come of age...???? :chug:

Hi Juan,

Update on Merry Beery.

Well, it is extreemly nice. It has some tartiness due to the logan berries and raspberries and nice pick colour.
Very refreshing on a hot day.
However, no idea what the alcohol % is.
It took a marathon..brewed over 4 weeks. This is the story.

After first initial racking, 10 days in primary, tasted beer. Not enough fruit colour or flavour. Boiled/lanced another 250 gms approx of berries, added to secondary fermenter. Started bubbling ferociously again. Left 10 days. Racked again. Still not enough fruit flavour. By then i had run out of home grown fruit.

What do i do now.

Off to the supermarket and bought 2 x 250gm jars of four berry fruit spread - 95 % fruit - blackberries, blue berries, black & red raspberries.
Added this to the wort. Again started bubbling...left a week racked again.
Tasted wort...now it was nice. Added some Gypsum...soften tartiness and 1/2 hand full of cascade hops....Left for another week.

Bottled into stubbies....it is not the sort of beer you would do a session on..but different and nice.
Next time i will use more fruit initially and wait for the logan berries to go black instead of picking them red....might do a black loganberry stout????

 

[Trev]

Now I've just put down my first Ginger Beer as well, albeit a very simple one. I just used one of the JADS kits with 1kg of liquid light malt instead of sugar.

What surprised me though was the very small volume of the kit. It's just a few hundred ml, very strong ginger tast and all but obviously not a lot of fermentables.

I then had a close look at the packaging and realised that it is artificially sweetened.

The SG reading was only 1014 and the kit say that it finishes at about 1005. I guess that will be a few points higher because I used LME rather than sugar yielding say 1007. All up I'll only have an alcohol content of maybe 1.5% including the priming!

This is supposed to be an Alcoholic Ginger Beer?

Am I missing something (other than my regular AA meeting)?

Trev

 

[Doc]

Sounds right.
That is what happened to me too. With my first batch I had actually added more than they suggest and only got 2.9%. That is why my second one I changed the makeup a bit but overshot and got 6.5%.
Although the more alcoholic one is smoother and the missus likes its better.
I was hoping that by making is stronger it would last longer, but that theory has already been blown

Doc

 

[PMyers]

It's official! Jads ginger beer is no longer in production and will dissapear entirely from the shelves VERY shortly.

As for the artificial sweetener used in ginger beer it is important to remember something. Ginger has by nature a very sour/bitter taste and it must be sweetened somehow to make it more palatable to drink. Remember that most of the ginger beers on the market are dual purpose. That is they are intended to make either an alcoholic or a non-alcoholic drink. If the concentrate were sweetened with sugar, then it would no longer make a non-alcoholic drink. If it were sweetened with lactose, then all the lactose intolerant people out there would not be able to enjoy it (That is to say, they might enjoy DRINKING it, but they certainly wouldn't enjoy the rest of the evening). Therefore the only option left is to use an artificial sweetener in order to make the beverage more palatable.

The reason behind the label stating it is "Low Joule" is a simple marketing tactic. The product falls under the low joule category, and since low joule is a commercial gold mine, any company worth its salt would leap at the chance to advertise this fact on their product.

Cheers,
Pete

:chug:

 

[Trev]

Thanks Pete, I realise why now.

Never mind, next time I'll use more LME to raise the Alchohol %. And I now see exactly what you mean about 'Marketing' the Low Joule aspect :angry:

Trev

 

[Snow]

Actually Doc, the ginger beer boosters are no longer produced IIRC.

However, most people treat ginger beer exactly like they would normal beer, which is a mistake. Whenever I brew ginger beer I give the fermenter a slight rock just before bottling to get some of the sediment back into suspension. Then before I open each bottle, I invert them several times to mix the bottle sediment through the brew. If you don't do this, and pour the ginger beer like you would your other beer, then you will end up with a rather tasteless fizz-water the colour of commercial lemonade. In ginger beer, it is the sediment that gives it the flavour and zing.

Cheers,
Pete

:chug:

Pete,

does your answer here mean you don't rack ginger beer to secondary, and just bottle straight from primary, so you can get more sediment in your bottles? I just put down GMK's recipe last night and it smelled and tasted great as it was going into the fermenter - I wouldn't want to turn it into "tasteless fizz-water"!

Cheers - Snow.

 

[Doc]

I don't rack my ginger beers and they come out great.

Cheers,
Doc

 

[Snow]

I don't rack my ginger beers and they come out great.

Cheers,
Doc

How long do you ferment them for, Doc? I assume 2 weeks is the go?

- S.

 

[Doc]

Here are the details on my last batch of Ginger Beer which is fantastic.

Here is my Super Appeasement Ginger Beer recipe.

Beer Makers Ginger Beer kit
1kg Dextrose
200g Corn Syrup
300g Powdered Light Malt
200g Powdered Dark Malt
400g CSR Dark Brown Sugar

19.7 litres water

Rehydrated the kit yeast with the kit nutrient.
Pitched at 26deg and fermented at 20 deg.

Primary fermentation only (16 days).
OG 1052
FG 1008
6.5% alcohol.

It is a nice brown colour and nice and smooth. Funnily enough there isn't the hint of alcohol you would expect either. The corn syrup gives just enough sweetness too.

Cheers,
Doc

PS: Tonight I crack the 7.3% cider that was tasting fantastic when I bottled it.

 

[disconnected]

Here is my Super Appeasement Ginger Beer recipe.

Beer Makers Ginger Beer kit
1kg Dextrose
200g Corn Syrup
300g Powdered Light Malt
200g Powdered Dark Malt
400g CSR Dark Brown Sugar

this sounds like a good and fiarly simple recipe for a newbie like me to try....

i might give this a go for my next batch, thanks!

 

[Snow]

GMK,

I just tasted my first batch of ginger beer, made exactly to your first recipe. Bloody marvelous! It tastes great and has a well balanced aroma, sweetness and ginger bite. A little tip: it's a great mixer for Wild Turkey

I think next time, might add a bit more LME and maybe a little crystal for colour, just to see what happens! Or would crystal malt make it too sweet?

Cheers - Snow.

 

[therook]

Was this Doc's recipe Snow.

Rook

 

[GMK]

snow...

Next time add some light Xtal....250gms....

And do some Dry Gingering in the secondary...

150gms of freshly grated dry Ginger added to the secondary ....

Thanks for the feedback.

You are the fourth person who has made and liked my recipee...
Did you add the spices ?

 

[GSRman]

GMK: do you add the cans? or just leave them out? reading your recipe it doesn't say where it goes?

 

[Snow]

Yeah, I added the spices, GMK, and they sure made a difference. Not overpowering, but they add complexity to the brew.

- Snow

 

[GMK]

GSR Man

I added the cans Beer Makers Ginger Beer to the fermenter....

 

[GSRman]

i thought it might have been a subtle witty joke...

 

[GMK]

GSRMan..

Must have been way too subtle and not that witty........

 

[Doc]

I heard a rumour today that the Beer Makers Ginger Beer kits were about to be dis-continued.
I know that Pete was saying the Jads one were as well.
I also heard a rumor that Morgans were going to start producing a Ginger Beer kit.

Do you Country Brewer boys have any firm info?

Cheers,
Doc

 

[GMK]

Ginger Beer Recipee

I have some requests to make some BGB - Barossa Ginger Beer.
I will be using the recipee i posted earlier in this thread and "Dry Gingering" in the secondary...

Any tips/feedback/enhancements from the guys who have made Ginger Beer based on my initial recipee...