How to brew the best alcoholic ginger beer!

[KegLand-com-au]

This thread is how to brew the best ginger beer irrespective of how you get the job done. So making ginger beer from kits, raw ingredients or pretty much any way you can think of. The main kits in Australia are the Morgans, Magrove Jacks, Hoppy Days, Mad Millie and we are keen to get your feedback in which one of these is best.

We are also keen to hear about other recipes you might want to share to get even better results.

There is another thread here about how to make ginger beer from scratch but this is limited to just making ginger beer from raw ingredients.

 

[Codemunk3y]

There is also Colony West, which I personally prefer. It's a very clean tasting ginger beer, I'm not partial to the flavors that come across from the extract kits.

Swapping out some of the dextrose for raw sugar and adding a bit extra gives some extra sweetness with the unfermentables.

 

[cedric]

i've got a corny keg full half-full of Powderkeg, which is my 2nd attempt at this recipe.
i like the medium dry, ginger and chilli levels, but there is some background taste i would like to reduce.
it's like a saccharine/sweetener aftertaste, is this the dextrose?
i would really like to get near to the clean taste of a Matso's, without the $90 a case price.
so i don't want it any sweeter, codemunk3y has suggested swapping the dextrose out.
here is the recipe for reference...........
Powderkeg GB

- 1 x Morgans Ginger Beer Kit
- 1 x 500g Fresh ginger
- 1 x 250g DARK Brown Sugar
- 1 x 1kg dextrose
- 1 x 750ml Buderum Ginger Refresher Cordial
- 1 x fresh chilli (sliced thinly with the seeds in)
- ~600ml Sweet Vermouth (I used Cinzano Bianco)
- ~600ml Sweet Sherry (only the good stuff, $5.99 a bottle)
- ~30ml Lochan Ora (used 30ml of whiskey and 1 tsp honey instead)

 

[Codemunk3y]

I think the Morgans kit has some form of sweetener, I'm sensitive to a couple of them and I could taste it in the end product

 

[KegLand-com-au]

I have been told by a flavor technologist that Buderim have been generally moving towards growing fresh ginger and what is called "new ginger"

The old ginger generally has a more spicy/earthy flavor that is something that I really personally like but it must have been growing under the ground for some time to develop this more complex flavor. Adding chilly can simulate this to some degree as the spice you get from the chilly can makeup for any spice that is missing from the ginger kit or Buderim ginger juice. With that said the new ginger does have a nice aroma but it's very volatile and a lot of the new ginger aroma blows off in the fermentation process.

Is this the Buderim ginger cordial that you are talking about? If you think this is a good product let me know and I will also try and do some experiments with this.

 

[NeilW]

Working on a ginger farm for more than ten years.
New ginger is just young ginger.
The flavour increases with age, as does fibre content.
Now fresh ginger is available later in year as mature ginger.
Some stored ginger can be mixed in with the fresh ginger.
The silvering on the old is oxidation of the skin.

Buderim wants young ginger as it has more juice and less fibre

If you use a blender, you can get a strong flavour; the variety and age are not that important.
One trick is to blend it and freeze it. Tthe ice crystals break the cells open, getting all the flavour.
No loss of taste and can be stored for a couple of years.

 

[Eddy Monsoon]

One trick is to blend it and freeze it. The ice crystals break the cells open. getting all the flavour.
No loss of taste and can be stored for a couple of years.

This I will try,

I can sometimes get bulk lots dead cheap