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

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Hey guys. We are looking for some feedback on this new ginger beer recipe:
https://kegland.com.au/products/hard-blunderburg-ginger-beer-kit

As you can see this is a "no ferment" product. The alcohol comes from a new neutral alcohol base that we are also selling on the website called "VINKA". The word VINKA (VIN-KA) has been chosen as this is basically like wine (VIN) vodka (KA). As this is technically wine it comes under the WET tax so it's exceptionally good value and therefor it's an economical way to make ginger beer without the need for any fermentation at all. Literally you pour into the keg and carbonate and you can pretty much be drinking instantly.

This will come into a new range under our "Ready to Keg" recipes. For this ginger beer it includes three main ingredients:

1. The VINKA Base
- You can think of this as a vodka but with a slightly fruity taste which is similar to the type of fruity esters that you might get from Rum or Pisco but not as bold. We do pass this product through our proprietary filtration process. We also have several different sweetness levels depending on what you want to use the product for. If however you did not want this alcoholic base you can ferment your own sugar wash to make the alcohol if you prefer.
2. The Ginger Impressence Flavour
- All the Ginger in this is derived from real ginger so there is nothing artificial about the ginger but what we have done is very efficiently extracted the Ginger Oleoresins, Gingerine, Ginger Aromatics and Terpenes from ginger root. This product is then stabilized, solubilized and homogenized so that the oils are properly suspended in solution. This process is important as it will result in a stable ginger beer at the end whereby you don't get the tasty ginger oils separate from the liquid. It also ensures that the product has the correctly level of cloudiness. The suspension of these ginger oils and gingerine is important as when you drink the ginger beer these are emulsified components need to hit your tongue to deliver that "burn" which give you that "spicy" ginger taste. This is also how commercial ginger beer is produced.
3. Sweetener
In most instances we recommend sugar as the sweetness from the "VINKA Medium Base" is not sweet enough on it's own. You can experiment this and add more/less of the sugar products if you like. We are also going to start to pack down artificial sweeter that you can purchase separately but to be honest this is a controversial subject. Some customers like the artificial sweeteners or are watching their weight and other customers (like myself) can't stand the taste of artificial sweeteners in ginger beer. As a result we have left this out of the kit and you can either buy your own sugar from the supermarket or purchase artificial sweetener separately.
4. Fermentation Stopper
As you would be aware any product that contains sugar really needs some way to prevent it from continuing to ferment. We sell a small sachet that you chuck in at the end. If you are going to finish the whole keg in a few days and keep the product refrigerated then perhaps you can leave this preservative out. With that said we highly recommend it as it has no flavor impact and will prevent yeast growing when you don't want it to.

I personally have tried using real ginger many times and achieving the same result is extremely difficult to be honest. You can certainly end up with a good product sometimes but real ginger root produces components that separate from the substrate solution too easily. As a result you can end up with some of the principle parts of the ginger separating, dropping out of solution with the yeast or alternatively not efficiently extracting it from the ginger in the first place. In some instances I have added several kg of ginger to the fermenter only to be disappointed that I did not extract enough strong ginger intensity and then had huge fermenter losses as I had a fermenter that was 1/4 full of chopped up ginger. Even if you purchase the ginger really cheap you may find the the losses and cost still to be higher than our Ginger Impressence Flavour. When we make the Ginger Impressence Flavour shot we use Steam Extraction, Solvent Extraction and also a centrifuge so we get almost 100% extraction of the flavour out of the root so even though you are paying for us to do this for you it's probably still cheaper due to the extraction efficiencies we have.

At the end of the day this is a very new product and we are not sure if we are onto a winner or not. If you like the enjoyment of making a product from scratch from raw ingredients this product is certainly not for you at all as it's literally pour into the keg and you are done.

With this kit but we have spent quite a lot of money and time researching this particular topic. We are really keen to get your feedback on this kit in particular. Do any of you guys want to try this out and report back to the forum? A comparison between this kit and the other kits you have tried would really be great and helpful for other forum members.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

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.

Yes I believe that is correct. To my understanding Buderim specializes in Australian grown ginger that is mostly young ginger that has more juice and has good ginger aroma but for the spicy notes that you get from the gingerine and oleo-resins you need to use the "Old Ginger" that gives you that hotter ginger burn. You can "trick" your taste buds to some degree by adding chili as a substitute for the old ginger but ultimately it doesn't taste as good in my opinion especially if you do this too much. A lot of the old ginger we get in Australia is produced in India, Sri Lanka and other parts of Asia so if you do want that "hotter" and intense ginger taste you should be looking for products derived from these countries that specialize in "Old Ginger".

I would agree that blending and freezing does help to extract more of the ginger principal from the root. With that said it's equally important to ensure that the ginger you extract stays in suspension. A hazy type of yeast will help this too as trying to suspend ginger oils is not dissimilar to trying to suspend hop oils in a hazy NEIPA beer.

 

[sp0rk]

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)

In nearly 20 years of brewing, this is honestly the best GB I've ever tried
I've tried old mate Kingsley's recipe a bunch of times with a few variations and it pales in comparison to Powderkeg GB

 

[Eddy Monsoon]

but there is some background taste i would like to reduce.
it's like a saccharine/sweetener aftertaste, is this the dextrose?
.
Powderkeg GB

- 1 x Morgans Ginger Beer Kit

That Morgans kit has Sucralose in it

 

[KegLand-com-au]

That Morgans kit has Sucralose in it

Yes I am not a massive fan of the sucralose. If you are kegging then you really do not need it as you can force carbonate and add FermStop to prevent the beverage from continuing to ferment.

On the other hand if you are going to bottle condition you need some way to prevent the sugars from continuing to ferment in the bottle and artificial sweeteners are the only way that home brewers can easily do this. Another option for home brewers that want to "bottle" ginger beer is simply use a pressure rated fermenter like the all rounder, carbonate in the fermenter and then back sweeten and add FermStop into the fermenter. Then whey they have the finished carbonated product in the fermenter chill the whole fermenter down and transfer to bottles and cap them.

One thing that you do not need to worry about is oxidation as this makes the bottling process much easier and faster. When filling carbonated products into bottles just make sure you cool the fermenter down as much as possible as this will reduce the CO2 coming out of solution when you fill the bottles and the colder it is then the faster you can fill into the bottles.

 

[Eddy Monsoon]

artificial sweeteners are the only way that home brewers can easily do this.

I did a batch with Xylotol once

 

[livo]

I would be willing to give this a try but I can't see the option to purchase without the Vinka.

I have written previously that I'm not tolerant to artificial sweeteners, generally, and the Morgan's kit to me is tainted. I used to be quite happy with the Brigalow tins, but they are no longer available.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

I did a batch with Xylotol once

View attachment 124627

Xylotol is not a bad option. To be honest all the artificial sweeteners have their pro's and cons. Some of them have a bitter taste when used in higher concentrations and others have a short bitterness that doesn't contribute the mouth feel. If you really want to mimic sugar I think it's necessary to use a combination of artificial sweeteners. I have never tasted a good solution using one singular artificial sweetener so I am convinced the best solution is in a combination of a few of them or at least a couple of different types.

For instance using a mix of Xylotol, Aspartame and Sucralose is not bad. I personally prefer normal sugar but the issue is that we have a large number of home brewers that are still bottle conditioning and this is where we really need to find a good solution for this particular group of customers.