Ginger beer with Kick

Sorry to put this in the Cider forum but I know it wouldn't fit in the beer forums.

I made a test batch 8 liters (2 gallons? +/-) of Ginger beer.


fresh ginger grated ( 7cm +/-) should have paid attention.
2 cups of brown sugar
7.9 liters of water.
Local Bread yeast (10grams or 1 packet)(I know most people will object to this but it worked 100%, my land lady had a taste right out the primary and she couldn't taste the yeast)


Procedure:

Grated the ginger and squeezed out all the juice. Then took the pulp and put it in a bowl and added 100 ml of boiling water and put a lid on. apparently you loose flavor if the oils evaporate. Left that for an hour. I went to health store that has a home brew shelf. we dont have home brew shops in South Africa. Dissolved two cups of brown sugar in hot water then added the ginger juice, ginger pulp that had been soaking and the sugar water in my primary. Then filled it up with warm water. I then added 1 pack (10grams) of bread yeast. It was bubbling within 2 hours. After 4 days it slowed right down to 3 or 4 bubbles per minute and they were small compared to when it was in full tilt. So I decided to check the gravity. It is sitting just above 1.000.

So I tasted it and wow it is dry. first sip was not the best. Then had a second sip, it tasted better. So I took it down stairs to my land lady, She has volunteered to be a Guinea pig for all my brews especially the beers. She sipped it, coughed a bit and said that it was dry and could be a bit sweeter. The ginger flavor is there and leaves a nice burn in your mouth and throat, like a ginger beer should.

So Im going to sweeten it with what ever the health shop has that will not ferment and carb it in the bottle with some table sugar or carbing drops. I have some in my brewing kit that i wont need for my beer.


Any comments? I could use another yeast, I could leave it to ferment a bit more but I dont want it any dryer.

Let me know your thoughts.

Evochild

Evochild said:

Sorry to put this in the Cider forum but I know it wouldn't fit in the beer forums.

I made a test batch 8 liters (2 gallons? +/-) of Ginger beer.

fresh ginger grated ( 7cm +/-) should have paid attention.
2 cups of brown sugar
7.9 liters of water.
Local Bread yeast (10grams or 1 packet)(I know most people will object to this but it worked 100%, my land lady had a taste right out the primary and she couldn't taste the yeast)

Procedure:

Grated the ginger and squeezed out all the juice. Then took the pulp and put it in a bowl and added 100 ml of boiling water and put a lid on. apparently you loose flavor if the oils evaporate. Left that for an hour. I went to health store that has a home brew shelf. we dont have home brew shops in South Africa. Dissolved two cups of brown sugar in hot water then added the ginger juice, ginger pulp that had been soaking and the sugar water in my primary. Then filled it up with warm water. I then added 1 pack (10grams) of bread yeast. It was bubbling within 2 hours. After 4 days it slowed right down to 3 or 4 bubbles per minute and they were small compared to when it was in full tilt. So I decided to check the gravity. It is sitting just above 1.000.

So I tasted it and wow it is dry. first sip was not the best. Then had a second sip, it tasted better. So I took it down stairs to my land lady, She has volunteered to be a Guinea pig for all my brews especially the beers. She sipped it, coughed a bit and said that it was dry and could be a bit sweeter. The ginger flavor is there and leaves a nice burn in your mouth and throat, like a ginger beer should.

So Im going to sweeten it with what ever the health shop has that will not ferment and carb it in the bottle with some table sugar or carbing drops. I have some in my brewing kit that i wont need for my beer.

Any comments? I could use another yeast, I could leave it to ferment a bit more but I dont want it any dryer.

Let me know your thoughts.

Evochild

Click to expand...

Good idea, backsweetening.

Every good ginger beer I've had has some residual sweetness. Try using some complex sugars that the yeast cannot convert to alcohol (molasass, brown sugar, lactose) to retain a bit of sweetness.

Good luck, and have fun.

I just finished off my first batch of ginger beer it was quite good had good flavor just not a lot of the ginger bit.
I back sweetened with lactose is came out very nice.
For your yeast try a good Ale yeast or Champagne yeast I used don't think it was quite best for it but it worked.
Also try adding Cream of Tartar for head retention

Getting ready to start my next batch and a whole new recipe.

Can't wait to try a GB. Seen a few good looking recipes. Open South Africa's first home brew shop!

I bottled all of my GB! Was dry as hell, so I backsweetened with a bit of xylitol. Unfortunately getting hold of Lactose is very hard. Even my health store cant get it from any of their suppliers. I think its because a lot of medicines have it in to sweeten.

I took some to a brewing friend, we sampled the dry non sweetened product (had a bit left over after bottling). Every body liked it, there is no yeast taste and all we needed was something sweet to make it awesome. I put some sprite in. So roughly 1/3 sprite to 2/3 GB. Tasted awesome! nice ginger notes with just a little bite in the back of my throat.

All of my bottled GB got a dose of Xylitol and some sugar to carb it. I used 1 liter plastic pet bottles. They are firming up nicely, so I'm hoping for a decent bit of fizz.

Update on my GB.

Backsweetened with Xylitol. (Should have put just a little more in. maybe another 3 grams per liter). That said I only had one complaint about the dryness out of 10 people who tasted it)

Bottle carbination was perfect! The best carbinaton was with the carb drops I used. However 2 - 3 teaspoons of sugar per liter worked well. Took about 5 days to carb nicely. I chilled them and have had no issues with over carbing or bombs.
I used plastic bottles and used them to test the pressure by squeezing them. When they got hard I tested one and chilled them.

10 people tried the GB. Most comments involved people offering pretty much any money they had on them to get more. The response was much better than I expected. I am now going to scale up and do a 28 liter batch and try replicate my success. I will post my final recipe once this batch is finished.

Side effects: The only side effects of the ginger beer is warm ears. Most of the people who drank it said that after the second glass their ears were very warm. One guy had one ice cold ear and one hot ear! lol.

The bonus of sharing with my friends has been that I now have a dedicated force of people looking for and collecting used bottles for me. Sharing is caring!

Thumbs up! Happiness shared is best. Good luck on the next batch.

Cheers!

Hey there,

Recipe sounds good, think I'll try it some time.

Was just a but surprised when you said we don't have any home brew shops in South Africa. We definitely do.

In Cape Town (where your profile says you are from):
http://www.beerlab.co.za/

http://www.southyeasters.co.za/?page_id=1

And Johannesburg:
My personal choice:
http://www.thehomebrewshop.co.za/

But also:
http://www.thebeerkeg.co.za/

Not to mention a bunch of others, those are just off the top of my head.