How To Brew Using Ginger Root?

[SJW]

I have got myself a tin of the lowest IBU beer I could find, its a Polar Beer Lager, and am going to use 750mls of that Ginger beer mixup cordial stuff from Coles and I want to use about 100g of Ginger also. Just wondering should I grate the whole root, unpeeled, and boil in some water prior to adding to the primary or what? Thats the best I can come up with.

STEPHEN

 

[pint of lager]

Sounds like a good plan.

Watch that the cordial has no preservative in it. If the contents are listed, try and decode the ingredients. One way to test would be to scale the batch to 1 litre, use a bit of DME, add a bit of yeast and airlock it.

 

[warrenlw63]

Stephen.

If it's the Buderim Coridal it will be fine. I've used a bottle to prime/supplement/sweeten a keg of ginger beer and it seemed to carbonate OK. You may have to be more careful if you're bottling though to avoid bombs. With the keg I was just able to bleed off the excess gas. That said a highly carbed ginger beer is nice. :beerbang:

Grated ginger root in the boil is good. If you want a more intense flavour the ground stuff you see on the spice rack works well to supplement the flavour. Maybe a couple of tablespoons in a 23 litre batch. You'll get a good ginger hit then.

Warren -

 

[SJW]

Thanks Warren, I was not going to prime with the Cordial just add 750mls to a light beer kit. I will just prime with 180 or 200 grams of dex.

 

[Rod]

I have made many batches of Ginger beer

I use the Morgans or Coopers mix ( I think they are the same ) as normal

I then prime with dextrose ( reduced to take into account the sugar in the syrup ) and about 250 ml of the Buderim cordial ( from memory , I lost my brew records in a computer crash )

I then add 5 grams of finely grated fresh ginger to each long neck and bottle . the grated ginger gives a fresh floral note to the beer .

 

[SpaceMonkey]

I just put down a partial recipe using a ginger beer kit with a few extra bits including root ginger, I peeled the ginger then blended it into a paste with a stick blender, then added it to boiling water for 10min along with some other ingredients, before straining it into the wort. this got rid of all of the little fibres from the ginger.