Horrible Newbie Question

[Septimus]

This is my first brew and I am attempting to make Alcoholic Ginger Beer as per the recipe on the liquorcraft website:

"
Ingredients:
2kg glucose/dextrose *
500g malt extract *
500g lactose *
100g to 200g crushed or grated fresh ginger (vary to suit your own taste)
Up to 4 lemons, sliced or chopped fine including peel (optional)
5g yeast nutrient *
1 sachet SAFale yeast *
Water to make up 22 litres of wort *
* available from Liquorcraft


Method
Heat 5 litres of water then add glucose, malt, lemons & ginger & simmer for 20 minutes.

Sterilize your fermenter according to directions on the sterilizing compound.

Add about 12 litres of cold water into your fermenter. Pour the hot mixture through a straining bag (available at homebrew suppliers) into the fermenter.

Top up with cold water to the 22 litre mark add the yeast nutrient & stir well.

Make sure the temperature is 30C or less & add the yeast, fit a fermentation lock in the lid of the fermenter & half fill it with water.

The fermentation should start within 24 hours although it usually only takes a couple of hours to start. When it starts, bubbles should be rising through the ginger beer & stream through the water in the airlock.

Allow the ginger beer to ferment until it stops then allow it to settle & clear for 48 hours.

Use a priming scoop (available from homebrew suppliers) to add a measure of sugar to each bottle.


Fill the bottle to about 50mm from the top then seal it firmly with a crown seal or screw cap.

Store these bottles in a warm place for a week or 2 to allow them to condition (become fizzy). They will now be ready to drink."




I have followed the recipe to the letter, even panicing when I couldn't find a saucepan that could hold 5L so ended up dividing everything between 2 saucepans. Although I did use far more Ginger, about 20 ounces which is about, what 550g (I have an old pair of scales ozs only).




Anyway, I pitched the yeast once it got below 30 degrees, which was quite an undertaking given the temperature today, but only until the thermometer read 28 which was the lowest it seemed to be going. I fitted the airlock half filled it with water. Screwed the lid tighter than a duck's butt, it has now been 10 hours and there have been no bubbles through the air lock (I have been checking regularly).

Having read through the forums and seeing people pitching yeast in the low 20s I think I can see where I may have gone wrong, but the recipe didn't say this.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers

 

[buttersd70]

Whilst the temperature was warmer than optimum at the time of pitching, I'ts not a major concern. At the moment, you should be wrapping cold wet towels around the fermenter (or taking some similar strategy) to attempt to get the temperature down a bit.

10 hours is not a long time. Yeast will take time to hydrate after pitching, then it goes into an initial feeding and reproduction stage. Once that is complete, it then moves into the fermentation stage, and it is at this point that it starts producing CO2, which is what will cause the airlock to bubble. The initial stage is often referred to as lag time, and can be anything from a few hours to a day. 10 hours is not particularly excessive.

Further, the airlock may not bubble at all....if there is any leak in the lid seal, or the gromet that the airlock goes through, any co2 produced will leave from there, instead of going through the water in the airlock. It will take the path of least resistance....

So ignore airlock activity, and look for other signs of fermentation....condensation build up inside the lid, foaming yeast krausen on top, and dropping specific gravity. At this point, relax.

 

[Tony]

WIll back up butters comments.

Cool it down...... try and keep it around 20 deg.

And also relax.......... it will be fine.

I have had yeasts sit for 48 hrs before showing activity.

Pre hydrating them can speed thigs up a bit

cheers

 

[Septimus]

It turns out it started at some point overnight, that damn recipe mislead me.

Thanks a bunch for the advice, I see I have a lot more to learn.

Cheers fellas.

And a quick P.S. while I'm here, how long is an appropriate time to keep it in the fermenter, or is it simply a matter of taste?

 

[buttersd70]

And a quick P.S. while I'm here, how long is an appropriate time to keep it in the fermenter, or is it simply a matter of taste?

Until it's done.
Probably in about 5 to 7 days (ish), take a hydrometer reading, then another 24 hrs later. If it's still dropping, leave it for another couple of days. If it's stable, confirm it with a 3rd reading after another 24hrs. If its stable on the 3rd reading, she's done.
At that point, it would be good if you are able to crash chill it, drop the temp to close to 0, as that will help drop some of the yeast out. If you can't do that, there are several options...

leave it for another couple of days to allow the yeast to start to drop on it's own.;
rack it out to another container, and leave it for another couple of days to a week to allow some of the yeast to drop out;
or bottle it.

If leaving it more than a few days after finishing, I wouldn't leave it in the primary fermenter, personally. But others may have differing opinions on that.

 

[Septimus]

Thanks a tonne mate, seriously, very helpful.

 

[Septimus]

Umm, minor occurence, I think I was supposed to put the lactose in with the wort, blasted recipe fails to mention it, but it's my fault I guess. Although I'm assuming the only difference it will make is that it won't be as sweet as the recipe intended.

Am I able to add lactose while priming or would that end in tears?

 

[buttersd70]

Umm, minor occurence, I think I was supposed to put the lactose in with the wort, blasted recipe fails to mention it, but it's my fault I guess. Although I'm assuming the only difference it will make is that it won't be as sweet as the recipe intended.

Am I able to add lactose while priming or would that end in tears?

I haven't used lactose that often, however having read through various cider sites where use of lactose is very common, it would appear to me that some put it in at the start, having judged how much they need; some put it in at the end, so they can fine tune the sweetness level. Given that it is non-fermentable, it shouldn't make too much difference either way.

Add just add enough water to disolve it, then bring it to the simmer for a couple of minutes to sanatise it, then cool it by putting the pan in a sink of cold water. Get it to the same (ish) temp as the brew. Then, either a) put it in a second vessel and rack onto it. If you are bulk priming, you can also add the priming sugar at this point. or b ) put it in the primary fermenter when sg is achieved, avoid splashing, and gently stir with a sanatised spoon. Just enough so that it will mix, not enough to kick up the trub. If you are not going to rack or bulk prime, I would then give it another couple of days for the yeast to start to drop, anyway.

 

[Septimus]

I haven't used lactose that often, however having read through various cider sites where use of lactose is very common, it would appear to me that some put it in at the start, having judged how much they need; some put it in at the end, so they can fine tune the sweetness level. Given that it is non-fermentable, it shouldn't make too much difference either way.

Add just add enough water to disolve it, then bring it to the simmer for a couple of minutes to sanatise it, then cool it by putting the pan in a sink of cold water. Get it to the same (ish) temp as the brew. Then, either a) put it in a second vessel and rack onto it. If you are bulk priming, you can also add the priming sugar at this point. or b ) put it in the primary fermenter when sg is achieved, avoid splashing, and gently stir with a sanatised spoon. Just enough so that it will mix, not enough to kick up the trub. If you are not going to rack or bulk prime, I would then give it another couple of days for the yeast to start to drop, anyway.

Wow, my saviour, again you come to the rescue. Again, thanks a lot, it's so great having a whole community here without having to send off an email to some toffy liquorcraft bureaucrat.

 

[Septimus]

Ok so i waited for the hydrometer to go down to 3 days of the same reading, primed and it's now come to the end of 2 weeks of conditioning. Everything is fine, except for the fact that it tastes like garbage and I think it's due to nothing more than a poor recipe.

It doesn't really taste like ginger at all, it's really just a brief taste of something, then you taste the carbonation and then there is a hit of alcohol that is hidden behind nothing.

I bought ginger refresher which does make it taste like some of the commercial alcoholic ginger beers, sort of like Stones I guess.

My question is, is it possible to sort of, bulk flavour a batch while it's in the fermenter, even if it replaces the Dextrose?

Barring that, are there any suggestions as to how to get a bigger ginger hit.

I did mention above that i had put over twice as much ginger as the recipe suggested.

 

[pint of lager]

So, how much grated ginger did you use?

The recipe says 100-200 gms. I would have thought 200-400 would have been a decent boot.

Next time you can double whatever you used. Some recipes call for the grated ginger to be simmered for 10 minutes in a litre or two of water and strained into the fermenter.

If the ginger boot is lacking, you can try adding some Buderim Ginger cordial to each glass as to taste, or maybe splits of commercial ginger beer and your ginger beer. It is all about experimenting.

If your next batch is too dry and alcoholic, you can mix with plain lemonade in the glass.

 

[Septimus]

So, how much grated ginger did you use?

The recipe says 100-200 gms. I would have thought 200-400 would have been a decent boot.

Next time you can double whatever you used. Some recipes call for the grated ginger to be simmered for 10 minutes in a litre or two of water and strained into the fermenter.

If the ginger boot is lacking, you can try adding some Buderim Ginger cordial to each glass as to taste, or maybe splits of commercial ginger beer and your ginger beer. It is all about experimenting.

If your next batch is too dry and alcoholic, you can mix with plain lemonade in the glass.

That's exactly what I did do, i used about 500 grams of grated fresh ginger and there is just no taste, it's horrible, at the moment I am using the Buderim ginger refresher and that makes it taste quite nice, I was just wondering if it would be possible to sort of, bulk flavour it.

 

[pint of lager]

I don't know of anything to bulk flavour it with.

You can try just bottling it now and mixing in the glass with ginger beer, ginger ale, lemonade and Buderim.

 

[caleb]

I assume by "garbage taste" you simply mean it has no ginger taste, rather than meaning there is some awful foul flavor lurking in there.

So, why not just boil up some more ginger into a concentated ginger "tea" then add this to the mix before bottling?

Or, bottle using a shot of Buderim instead of priming sugar... if you calculate how much sugar is in each hit of Buderim you'll know whether it's on the mark or you need to supplement with more. As a guide, you don't want to prime with more than about 6 grams of sugar per 750ml bottle.

 

[Septimus]

Sweet as, cheers for that, and to the previous poster, by garbage taste, it just tastes of nothing, and it's really watery, next time i might try priming with the refresher.

 

[crundle]

Try a search on the forum in the google section for ginger beer recipes, from memory there are some great recipes on the forum (haven't tried them myself yet though). I seem to recall that there is a difference in the flavour you get from the ginger from how long it has been boiled, but could be wrong on that last bit.

Crundle

Edit: found this link - Ginger Beer recipe and discussion

 

[Septimus]

Cheers man, will check it out.