Yeast Nutrient For Ginger Beer?

[Bribie G]

Making a straightforward 7% ginger beer with sugar (da sugaz ) powdered ginger, fresh queensland ginger and just some spare kit yeasts I have hanging around. Made a couple of nice batches a few months ago and nicely drinkable with ice and a shot of bundaberg Ginger Beer Cordial.
I just used LHBS yeast nutrient, have half a tub left but wondering if there's something more natural and less chemically I can use. I know I could slip in a kilo of LDME which would nurture my little yeasties but I don't want a conflicting taste, I got a really clean taste with the last batch - quite alcopoppy. Would yeast like juices maybe, if I popped in a litre of pineapple juice or something?

Any suggestions? (no, not the vegemite )

 

[Tyred]

I don't think that the juice would have the required nutrients for the yeast. I thought maybe you could use old kit yeasts boiled up, but it would probably be lacking in various minerals that would make the yeast happy.

That said, I re-call that when making a ginger beer plant (for home made ginger beer) you don't need any special nutrients. You just have to feed it for about several days.

 

[Bribie G]

I thought maybe you could use old kit yeasts boiled up, but it would probably be lacking in various minerals that would make the yeast happy.

That might be an idea, I did some research and I see that our noble colleagues in the moonshine production fellowship use 'yeast hulls' or dead yeast when they are fermenting. Sounds like cannibalsim to me but I'm racking a beer into secondary today that used Nottingham yeast and I might just use say a quarter of the yeast cake to start the ginger beer and maybe recycle the proteins etc from the dead stuff. I didn't dry hop this particular beer so there won't be any hop trub in there and I'll try using the bare minimum of chemical nutrient.

 

[MHB]

There are two products sold as yeast nutrient and boiling up of some old yeast introduces a third.

If you are sold a white crystalline powder (looks like salt), either in a jar or in a sachet, then you have DAP, (Di Ammonium Phosphate) think of it as Superphosphate for yeast.
If the wort provides all the required nutrients (beer wort should) then its just like putting super on your lawn it will increase the growth rate of yeast.

The other product is confusingly often also called Yeast Nutrient but could be more properly called Yeast Food is a tan powder that smell yeasty, because in part its made up of autolysied yeast, it also contains vitamins, minerals and trace elements, as well as autolysied yeast and DAP.
When making Cider, Mead or Wine I use this type of nutrient because juice and honey are deficient in some of the products the yeast needs. A small addition (~0.5g/22.5L) ensures a good quick clean ferment and better attenuation.

The third option of making your own Soylent Green by autolysing yeast is fine, if you are sure the wort (or whatever you are brewing) already contains all the other bits and pieces a thriving yeast requires.
In which case whats the point?

Considering the miniscule cost (<10 cents/brew) of using a complete Yeast Food and the benefits, I would look for this type of product, especially considering that if you are making a Ginger Beer without malt, you are virtually assured that the brew wont contain everything the yeast needs.

MHB

 

[Bribie G]

Thanks, I've pitched some 'trub' from the beer brew and put in a few teaspoons of the yeast nutrient (sugary looking so no doubt diammonium phosphate) and will look for some of that complete yeast food at the LHBS tomorrow. I'll be doing some ginger beer brews regularly over the summer as beer brewing is going to be a challenge here until I get a bigger brew fridge and it's a way of getting a pleasant grog for quaffing on the verandah B)

Not to mention 20 cents a litre for the base stock before hollowing out the pineapple, adding the ice, ginger cordial, fresh mint leaves, cocktail cherry and the little umbrella :lol: