Sweetening Ginger Beer

[Goddo]

Hey guys,

I'm only very new here, and have mainly been lurking a bit.
I have done a couple of brews.. well onto my third.

The latest one I did was a homemade ginger beer, with as much natural and fresh ingredients as I could get, ie. not made from a kit. The recipe and ingredients I kinda pieced together from looking at what others have done on here and other places..

Anyways the problem is that its fermented out and is REALLY dry. I would really like to know of a way to add some sweetness back into it, otherwise I dont think it will be drinkable, the dryness and taste of the spices and lemons overpowers it..
I have some lactose I could add.. but I'm lactose intolerant (milk makes me a bit sick) so I'm thinking I can't really add that. :blink:

So any suggestions of a non fermentable sweetener I could add?

Off the top of my head, the recipe involved:
4 lemons sliced
2 Limes sliced
~400g ginger grated and chopped
500g raw sugar
500g LDME
500g DME
~500g honey
couple of cloves
couple of cinnamon sticks
some dextrose too from memory..

SG was 1042 and FG is ~1002

Cheers,
Goddo

 

[Adamt]

Steep 250-500g of light crystal malt in 65C water for half an hour and add to your brew.

Crystal malt leaves plenty of non-fermentable sugars in the wort increasing the body and sweetness, you will notice an increase in FG. Keep in mind it will darken the brew a bit as well.

 

[discoloop]

I'd suggest experimenting with different yeasts. I'm not experienced enough to suggest a particular one but surely there are some that attenuate less.

 

[poppa joe]

Leave out the Limes..???????????
PJ

 

[Darren]

A bit (100g or so) of lactose should do the trick

 

[Goddo]

Cheers for the suggestions, I'll probably go and get some crystal malt and try that...

PJ, why do you say leave out the limes?

 

[pint of lager]

This has been asked many times over.

Because the sugars are simple, there is no yeast that will leave some sweetness. Using a component of malt extract will help as it will not fully attenuate. But many people don't like the flavour malt extract leaves in a ginger beer.

You can use artificial sweetners, which is what the commercial alcoholic kits use, but many people hate them.

If you keg your brew and keep it cold, you can add some plain sugar dissolved in some water. DO NOT TRY THIS FOR BOTTLED BREWS AS IT WILL EXPLODE.

You can try Stevia which is a natural sweetner that is non sucrose, but no-one has posted that they are happy with the result.

Easiest is to blend some of your dry ginger beer with a plain commercial lemonaid when pouring. Blend to your tastes.

 

[Insight]

Hi Goddo

I've done exactly the same thing before. If you are trying to sweeten the GB after fermentation, your best bet is to use an artificial sweetener like saccarine or aspartame. Neither will add fermentables. Do some test dosing first, and go easy - remember that you can always add more, but you can't get it back out once it's in there.

 

[albrews]

Hey guys,

I'm only very new here, and have mainly been lurking a bit.
I have done a couple of brews.. well onto my third.

The latest one I did was a homemade ginger beer, with as much natural and fresh ingredients as I could get, ie. not made from a kit. The recipe and ingredients I kinda pieced together from looking at what others have done on here and other places..

Anyways the problem is that its fermented out and is REALLY dry. I would really like to know of a way to add some sweetness back into it, otherwise I dont think it will be drinkable, the dryness and taste of the spices and lemons overpowers it..
I have some lactose I could add.. but I'm lactose intolerant (milk makes me a bit sick) so I'm thinking I can't really add that. :blink:

So any suggestions of a non fermentable sweetener I could add?

Off the top of my head, the recipe involved:
4 lemons sliced
2 Limes sliced
~400g ginger grated and chopped
500g raw sugar
500g LDME
500g DME
~500g honey
couple of cloves
couple of cinnamon sticks
some dextrose too from memory..

SG was 1042 and FG is ~1002

Cheers,
Goddo
[/quot

hi, i cannot find on the page, how many litres you are brewing with the recipe. could you let me know?

cheers alan

 

[Goddo]

Oops, I forgot to write the size of the brew before..
I put a bit too much water in than I meant, so it ended up at about 24L.

 

[poppa joe]

GODDO...
I dont think Limes should be in the brew...MY 2 cents anyway...I dont like them
More lemons would be better..My 2 cents.
But you could try adding Buderim ginger Cordial....Maybe that would sweeten it up.
Cheers
PJ

 

[Goddo]

GODDO...
I dont think Limes should be in the brew...MY 2 cents anyway...I dont like them
More lemons would be better..My 2 cents.
But you could try adding Buderim ginger Cordial....Maybe that would sweeten it up.
Cheers
PJ

Fair enough
The limes probably didn't do anything anyway, was a much greater volume of sliced lemon to what there was of lime :lol:

I do have some bundaberg ginger beer cordial.. actually bought it for this brew but ended up using all fresh stuff instead. In any case the replies here have given me a few things i can try.

And I did search around for stuff on this before.. what i found didn't seem to be all that specific, or just recommended using lactose.. So apologies for any reposting, I know when noobs post the same question all the time on other forums i use its very annoying

Cheers :beerbang:

 

[FazerPete]

I completely agree with Pint of Lager. I have had good success adding sugar syrup to the keg (250-300g white sugar dissolved in 200ml of boiling water) but if you don't keg then DO NOT DO THIS. If you are bottling then you will have to put in a chemical sweetener because that won't ferment. I don't think adding ginger cordial will help if you are bottling either because the yeast will eat the sugar in it and it will lose it's sweetness.

 

[Goddo]

I completely agree with Pint of Lager. I have had good success adding sugar syrup to the keg (250-300g white sugar dissolved in 200ml of boiling water) but if you don't keg then DO NOT DO THIS. If you are bottling then you will have to put in a chemical sweetener because that won't ferment. I don't think adding ginger cordial will help if you are bottling either because the yeast will eat the sugar in it and it will lose it's sweetness.

Yeah.. I will be bottling. Wish I had kegs
I'll attempt to sweeten it a bit tomorrow.. I will see how adding some artificial sweetener goes, and will post up the results in any case.

Cheers

 

[Goddo]

Added some artificial sweetener to this today.. about 40g/L, and also added a little bit of ginger beer cordial. I know the cordial will probably just ferment some more.. but oh well
It seems to taste a fair bit better with some sweetness back in it... Although I'm thinking more towards my recipe not working too great, as it still doesnt taste that great.

May as well bottle it and leave it for a while then see how it goes.. I'll write my progress up here too.

Cheers,
Goddo

 

[FazerPete]

The artificial sweeteners taste a bit chemical-like for a while but that should mellow with age.