My First Ginger Beer

[Dubes]

1 x Coopers Ginger Beer
500g Fresh ginger (1/2 grated and 1/2 sliced)
3 tsp of dry ginger
125g Buderum ginger marmalade
11 sliced up long red chillies
3 whole cloves
150g brown sugar
1 whole lemon squeezed

Boil up some water
Add in the lemon juice,honey, chilli and fresh ginger.
After 15-20 minutes add in the brown sugar,cloves and dry ginger.
Boil another 10-15 minutes.

Strain into fermenter (or don't strain, I didn't)
Add extract.
1.5kg of raw sugar.

Bottle after 2 weeks
Do not drink for 6weeks minimum.

I put this one down on Sunday. It's my first ginger beer. Hope it turns out ok. Will let you know.

 

[bum]

Bottle after 2 weeks

No. Hydrometer. Please.

11 chillies is a LOT.

Looks good otherwise. Let us know how she goes.

 

[troopa]

bum i like your thinking
Though sometimes you should just throw the hydrometer over your shoulder and and live on the edge....
Honey and marmalade with brown sugar i would have to agree with bum on this ... its gonna need more then 2 weeks to ferment out if your bottling
Otherwise its a bloody interesting recipe except the high number of chillies

 

[Dubes]

Is still brewing away nicely. I am going to check it with a hydrometer before bottling as I am new to this and I don't want to leave anything to chance. As for the chilli I only used 5 as this is my first ever batch. Thanks for the input. Will let you know how it turns out.

 

[carpedaym]

Will let you know how it turns out.

Just planning my first ginger beer. I like the look of your recipe and am keen to hear how it tasted!

 

[joelea]

500 gm of fresh ginger to me sounds a lot
i only use 300gm (after peeling) with a larger beer kit and it taste awesome :chug:

 

[cyrrus]

Wow sounds spicy! I tend to find that real ginger goes a long way. What yeast are you using?

 

[4feathers]

Hey Dubes, i have used this recipe a few times now, one bubbleing away in the shed at the moment and it makes great Ginger Beer.
Initially i thought the same thing with the chilli and i also reduced the amount on the first batch but each batch since i have pushed the amount up till this time , its the full amount for the recipe.
Last two batches i did not boil it up either but i do run the ginger and chilli through my mincer to really break it up.
I grow my own ginger and chillies. This time i used a mix of Chillies [hotish,hot and HOT] all very tasty though and as well as the Ginger i have added about 100 gr of Galangal [Homegrown], its a Ginger relative but a more spicy taste. Have tried it before just added a bit more this time round. I tend to enjoy spicey flavours in most things i brew.
This recipe does take its time in finishing and dropping any solids but its the only one i use now for Ginger beer.
Even my lovely wife says it is good and she is not overly attracted to chilli but i am working on that. Peter

 

[bigcroc64]

Gday Dudes i dont mean to hijack your thread but i hope you might be able to help me . sounds like a nice mix i tried this one i saw on the tube and added some extra,It said to use 3 kg of sugar but i slipped when pooring it in and ended up with more like 4 kg,i used 6 lemons chopped,500 g of fresh ginger ,4 tlb of jamaican jerk season,This stuff is awesome and is a blend of chillies and cinnamin and heaps of other spices.Oh its great on steak or chicken to. .4 big sppons of honey,6 star anise,4 cimanin sticks.2 tbl spoons of dry ginger.i choped the whole lot up small as the blender died,added 56 ltr of water and simmered for 1 hr removed from the heat and sit to cool.I then added another 5 ltr of water to the brown sugar and slow simmered till it disolved.I then added the sugar syrup to the ginger mix let cool to room temp.I added 1 satchet of bread yeast .I HOPE I HAVNT STUFFED IT .i DID A HYDROMETER TEST TODAY AS THE FERMENTATION HAS SLOWED ALOT AFTER 7 DAYS.still hissing a bit.The taste was nice but still needs to be a bit sweeter .Any help please how i can make my brew sweeter ,should i let it sit for longer,or can i add more sugar .im using a keg so any help will be great as this is only my third brew,ist was a larger dummies kit oh i also added 1 kg of mangoes to the second fermet stage ,tasted dam good,next was a dummy cider kit that was good to.I hope some one can help Cheers Rob

 

[carpedaym]

I'm a novice brewer, but I'll answer what I can. The recipe does sound interesting - good interesting!

Did you really mean 56L water boil? Seems like a lot - was that a typo?

Generally extra sugar would just mean higher alcohol content for the beer, but only up to about 8 to 9% depending on the strain of yeast. (I've read bakers yeast tolerates a bit higher, like 10-14%). At this point the yeast will deactivate. 4kg is a lot for a normal 23L batch, so let me know what size you are actually doing.

In regards to making it sweeter, usually yeast will ferment all (most) sugars in your wort. If your yeast have deactivated due to high alochol, I'm not sure what that means - perhaps any extra sugar will be left. Perhaps somebody with more knowledge could answer this.

Aside from this, a few recipes I've read shoot for a higher alcohol content and then mix their ginger beer with lemonade in a glass before the drink it. For brewing solutions, a lot of people add lactose as this is a natural sweetness that yeast can't ferment. Other options are artificial sweeteners, but these are pretty expensive. There may be a way to do it with kegging and force pressurising, but I'm not up to that level yet!!

The breast yeast is scientifically the same organism as brewers yeast, but using a good yeast is one of the key factors of quality beer as far as flavor is concerned. Since it is an easy factor to control, I will definitely always use a brewers yeast from a home brew store next time. A quote from the internet: "I've made ginger beer with both bread yeast an champagne yeast and I gotta say I'd hunt down the latter as the flavor is cleaner and the carbonation is better." If cost is a factor, read up on re-pitching onto existing yeast cakes. You'll get 4-5 brews out of the same quality packet of yeast.

Champagne yeast seems fairly common for ginger beers, craftbrewer.com.au have a "ginger beer" yeast.

Stuck fermentation. Have a quick read of this stuck fermentation guide and see if anything there rings a bell.

Could you post your Original Gravity / hydrometer reading, and the hydrometer reading as it is now?

 

[bigcroc64]

Gday Carpedaym woops yes it was a typo total water is 22ltr.Oh thanks for your help thats just what im after i was thinking of lemonade.and the lactose sounds like a great option,maybe ill filter it then add lactose to taste and then keg it. Its day 13 now since i started the wort.i started with a hydrometer reading of 1020 i think ,my eyes arent as good as they use to be. its now at1002 and been stable for 2 days now .
Thanks gain you have given me alot of great info .Ill keep you posted on how it goes as i recon ill keg it in a day or so.
Cheers Rob

 

[bigcroc64]

Ok this is my second GINGERBEER RECIPE atempt and im after some help please.

take 2 ive called it spicy jerk gingerbeer.
The other one was strong aswell to taste but 50% ice and 3 tea of disolved sugar and its not bad .

1kg of raw ginger peeled and washed
4 whole lemons
2cups of sultanas
1 med cayene chilli
BELND THE LOT .
4 tea ginger powder

4 ltrs of filtered water
1kg honey 2kg of raw sugar
500g rich brown sugar.
bring to a heat to melt the sugars,stirling consantly.
2 good teaspoons of jamaican jerk seasoning
1 tea of allspice
5 star annice
5 tea of good vanilla
4 tea of cinnamin

i THEN SIMMERED THE LOT FOR NEARLY AN HOUR THEN PUT THE LOT INTO A HOPS BAG

SG 1050

7 DAYS LATER FG1000
MY QUESTION IS when i first tasted the brew it was sweet with a nice bite , every day i tasted the brew it seemed to get sourer and stronger ,is this because the sugars are fermenting and being used by the yeast, should i remove the bag of ingredients now and let it sit for another week or 2 .Or should i wait until another 2 or 3 days with the fg at 1000 to make sure its stable.
Cheers Rob

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[bigcroc64]

Well this sucks i was hoping for at least 1 reply lol ,to help me with my sour brew,i removed the bag of ingredients 2 days after the fermeting had stabilised at 1000, Its still in the fermenter now and coming up to 9 days ,any help please do you think it might get better in taste with age or have i stuffed it up and need to add lots of sweetner.
Cheers Rob

 

[carpedaym]

Hi, I find I've gotten more responses when starting a new thread when I have specific questions, like about a particular recipe.

Anyway, I've just made a (dud*) batch of ginger beer myself. I only used the juice of two lemons in mine, and left the grated ginger in the fermenter, unbagged. Obviously it will lose its sweetness due to the yeast, but I didn't find mine got that much more sour over time. Since your first batch had 6 lemons and this batch only had 4, it is odd that it is more sour than the first. Sour-ness can be a sign of an infection, but perhaps the lemons you used were more sour or you extracted more sourness because you blended it.

If I were you I'd bottle it anyway and hope the flavours mingle/subside a little.

Unless you use lactose or glucose, or pasturise the brew (killing the yeast) before fermentation is complete, you're never going to get a sweet GB out of the bottle. It sounds like it's a real challenge to brew something that stands up to the store-bought stuff.

(*mine was dud because I oxidised it. The 'wet cardboard' flavour really stands up to its namesake.)

 

[bum]

I'm fairly confident that if the sourness was lemon derrived you'd be saying it tasted too lemony/wouldn't need to be asking what was causing the sourness.

Either way, if it is sour then taking the bag out now won't do anything to help.

A you already seem to know - time will reveal all. Good luck with it.

 

[bigcroc64]

carpeaym thanks heaps for your reply,thats great info ill be sure to start a new thread next time.
Im thinking the same thing as you about the lemons ,the youtube video i got part of the recipe from used all the lemon ,maybe that nasty pith was the problem. so ill just keg it and add sweetner as i go ,what could be the worst thing to happen ,if it was infected .Would i get a guts ache or the runs ,is it like food poisoning..
Hi bum nah its not lemony ,its more like a tangy strong taste ,its not like my first one that im drinking now,i thought it was strong as well but i added some more filtered water in the keg mixed it up and now just add 2 t spoons of disloved sugar ,so ill just do that i guess.Thanks anyway

 

[carpedaym]

Re infections: I've had a look around and I read of anybody who has gotten terribly sick from them. Consensus seems to be that pathogens cannot survive in alcoholic solutions, but other nasties will taste bad and to trust your taste buds. No point in wincing at every gulp.

Of course some beer styles intentionally are infected - e.g. lambics - so some types of bacterial infections pose no harm. If it just tastes tangy and not overly sickening, I'd drink it if I didn't mind it.

Besides, sounds like it might be the taste of the lemon rind or the seeds, if they were in there.

 

[bigcroc64]

Yep to true i recon thats the problem as i put seeds and all , nothing a couple of sweetner tabs or 3 teas of melted sugar wont fix,it dosnt taste to bad i will chill it and see if i still get the twitches after that.
How did you go with yours.
Cheers for your help

 

[Stuwort]

Ok this is my second GINGERBEER RECIPE atempt and im after some help please.

take 2 ive called it spicy jerk gingerbeer.
The other one was strong aswell to taste but 50% ice and 3 tea of disolved sugar and its not bad .

1kg of raw ginger peeled and washed
4 whole lemons
2cups of sultanas
1 med cayene chilli
BELND THE LOT .
4 tea ginger powder

4 ltrs of filtered water
1kg honey 2kg of raw sugar
500g rich brown sugar.
bring to a heat to melt the sugars,stirling consantly.
2 good teaspoons of jamaican jerk seasoning
1 tea of allspice
5 star annice
5 tea of good vanilla
4 tea of cinnamin

i THEN SIMMERED THE LOT FOR NEARLY AN HOUR THEN PUT THE LOT INTO A HOPS BAG

SG 1050

7 DAYS LATER FG1000
MY QUESTION IS when i first tasted the brew it was sweet with a nice bite , every day i tasted the brew it seemed to get sourer and stronger ,is this because the sugars are fermenting and being used by the yeast, should i remove the bag of ingredients now and let it sit for another week or 2 .Or should i wait until another 2 or 3 days with the fg at 1000 to make sure its stable.
Cheers Rob

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My first brew was a ginger beer made from:
Coopers GB kit
365g brown sugar
640g raw sugar
130g honey
100g thinly sliced ginger
1/2 tea spoon chilli powder (medium)
juice of one lemon
3 litres water for boil
Coopers yeast

Boil water
add ginger and sugar, boil for 15 min
add honey, lemon and chilli and boil for 10 min
take off boil, add can of goo and put in fermenter and make up to 18L
I didn't strain this, it all went into the fermenter at 22c for four weeks. These sugars will take a while to ferment.

Rob,
Don't be put off when tasting at bottling, it will take at least six weeks to come good. Mine has been in the bottle for 8 weeks, but is now magnificent. I actually poured five out after two weeks as I thought it was not going to be any good and then changed my mind and gaave it a chance to mature. How I bloody wish I could have them back.

Stu

 

[bigcroc64]

Gday Stuwort
Thanks heaps for your reply,yer i recon i will try a kit next time and add to that ,thanks for your recipe,Yep your right i had 20 ltr i was going to chuck but i wont say its perfect,but with half ice and half brew,and 2 sugarine tabs it tastes dam nice.This one is a bit more bitey as i have changed a few of the ingredience.But yep im taking eveyones advice and ill just keg it cool it and drink the bassstard,it cant be that bad ,and if its still to ruggered ill add some lemonadde lol