dry hopping with ginger in secondary - need to sterilize?

[jhurt]

I'm planning on dry hopping my cream ale with some fresh grated ginger in the secondary. Would I need to sterilize or pasteurize the ginger at all before adding? Bear in mind I want to keep as much of the fresh ginger taste/aroma as possible.

I added some ginger to my boil for flavour, but the aroma seems to have disappeared. I want to get some of it back with dry hopping.

 

[goo-gone]

I brewed a ginger beer/ale, including ginger in the fermentor and didnt make an effort to sterilize it. Ive read some people caring and some not about it. Personally never had an issue.

 

[jhurt]

Ok so there's no risk of infection from using it fresh?

 

[goo-gone]

errrr. YYMV on that, there's always some risk. I'm not really positive, but I've never had an infection the 25 times I've done it.

 

[Cbaddad]

Wouldn't hurt to soak it in some vodka first. Put it in a hop sock, soak for a couple minutes, and you should be good. Much better than just throwing it in.

 

[PhelanKA7]

Ginger is a natural anti septic and you are pitching it into alcohol. Just dump it in.

 

[jhurt]

Thanks guys! I'll give it a go and see what happens.

 

[jhurt]

About to do the dry hop this weekend....did you peel the ginger or just shred it with the skin on?

 

[bobbrews]

As a chef, I would advise peeling it, chopping it up roughly into 1-inch chunks, boiling it in a pint of water for 10 minutes, then cooling it down and pitching the whole thing without splashing/oxygenating. Fresh ginger flavor holds when boiled. People make simple teas this way all the time. The loss of flavor you experienced the first time around was due to active fermentation and/or not using enough.

 

[jhurt]

As a chef, I would advise peeling it, chopping it up roughly into 1-inch chunks, boiling it in a pint of water for 10 minutes, then cooling it down and pitching the whole thing without splashing/oxygenating. Fresh ginger flavor holds when boiled. People make simple teas this way all the time. The loss of flavor you experienced the first time around was due to active fermentation and/or not using enough.

I want to try and keep as much of the fresh ginger aroma and taste as possible so I want to avoid boiling it. I'm going to take a risk and not sterilize it, but just wondering if it should be peeled or not before dropping it in. I'm guessing the skin may harbour bacteria etc...

 

[goo-gone]

Peel and grate it.

 

[bobbrews]

I want to try and keep as much of the fresh ginger aroma and taste as possible so I want to avoid boiling it. I'm going to take a risk and not sterilize it, but just wondering if it should be peeled or not before dropping it in. I'm guessing the skin may harbour bacteria etc...

It's not really a matter of fresh aroma and taste when discussing ginger root. This is not the same principle as comparing boiled hops vs. dryhops. Think about Thai food, ginger and lemongrass soup, or any aromatic dish containing ginger. It is being cooked. They don't toss it in raw. Up to you though.

 

[IslandLizard]

I would peel the ginger. A little soak in vodka may put your mind at ease, and I would dump the vodka in too.

The larger the surface, the better the extraction. Razor-thin slices or grating may give you optimum results. If grating, tie a (sanitized) hop bag over your racking cane when you move the brew to the bottling bucket/keg, to prevent transferring the ginger and the cane from clogging.

I wonder if some periodic agitation would be helpful during the "dry-hop/ginger" period. Anyone?

As a matter of fact I boiled ginger in my Christmas Ale (thinly sliced) and the flavor is very subdued after 2 weeks fermentation/conditioning. I may do a dry-hop with some ginger, to get just a slight hint of fresh notes in there. This will be experimental as I have no idea how much to use, so a few tastings along the way may help to decide when it is just enough.

I'm not sure if racking to a second vessel is advantageous for you. I don't anticipate doing mine.

 

[Colonel_Forbin]

I'd just peel it and grate it then toss it in. It is as somebody stated earlier it is a natural anti septic. I am planning on doing just that, this weekend when I rack my ginger peach wit to secondary.

 

[TNGabe]

It's not really a matter of fresh aroma and taste when discussing ginger root. This is not the same principle as comparing boiled hops vs. dryhops. Think about Thai food, ginger and lemongrass soup, or any aromatic dish containing ginger. It is being cooked. They don't toss it in raw. Up to you though.

Good thing he's not making soup, chef!

 

[jhurt]

It's not really a matter of fresh aroma and taste when discussing ginger root. This is not the same principle as comparing boiled hops vs. dryhops. Think about Thai food, ginger and lemongrass soup, or any aromatic dish containing ginger. It is being cooked. They don't toss it in raw. Up to you though.

I'll have to respectfully disagree...I think there's a huge difference between the aroma of fresh ginger vs. cooked ginger. I put almost a pound ginger in during the boil and there is no aroma and almost no ginger taste, just the spiciness.

What I'm really trying to do here is clone the Phillips Ginger Beer, which has an extremely fresh ginger aroma and taste, which I don't believe you can achieve with cooked ginger.

 

[bobbrews]

Again, you're putting it in the boiled wort, which then ferments and drives off the aroma. Totally different than putting fresh brewed ginger tea + big hunks of ginger in the secondary.

 

[goo-gone]

Add some to the boil and some in the secondary/dry hop (ginger). If its a strong ginger flavor you want, you'll get it.

 

[TNGabe]

Again, you're putting it in the boiled wort, which then ferments and drives off the aroma. Totally different than putting fresh brewed ginger tea + big hunks of ginger in the secondary.

So you've made a lot of beers with ginger in them and you're speaking from experience?

 

[brewguyver]

So you've made a lot of beers with ginger in them and you're speaking from experience?

You're going to lose a ton of flavor and aroma in the violent stage of the fermentation. Why do you think people dry hop through the end of the fermentation and not just at the beginning. If that wasn't the case, you could just dry hop on day 1 and get results just as if you waited until the gravity stabilized. This goes for just about anything. It also applies to kegging ... If you do a lot of fill and purge for your force carb, the CO2 takes a bunch of the volatile aromatics along for the ride when it escapes.

If you want to experiment with the ginger, I'd split the batch and try boiled and unboiled in secondary. You might also want to try the vodka approach mentioned - soak for a few days and use it to get the flavor right at bottling time.

Alternatively you could do ginger 3 ways for "full effect" - boil a third in some wort (avoid dilution), add fresh grated, and caramelize some in the oven at 350 and then slice into strips. Add all 3 . And no I haven't done this - I'm just instigating!

 

[jhurt]

Ok I went ahead and added 1.5 cups of peeled and shredded fresh ginger to my secondary. I plan on leaving it there for about 7 days - until I bottle. My airlock started going crazy as soon as I added the ginger and has slowed a bit in the last couple hours. Can't wait to try this beer!

 

[kike_gimenez]

How did it turned out ? Im about to do a test batch and wanna add peeled ginger dry hoped on my keg while force carbing. Let us know if it tasted strong or mild ?

Thanks!

 

[jhurt]

It ended up being quite strong...but in a good way... It definitely needed about 2 months to condition in the bottle before it was drinkable...not sure if that was from the bitterness of the ginger?

Also, just to note, I did end up getting a few bottle bombs from this batch. Not sure if the ginger kicked off a secondary fermentation or not, but a couple of my bottles exploded about 3 months in.

 

[kike_gimenez]

Hehehehe good to know. I might do a smaller dose then... Cheers man. Thanks for replying

 

[jhurt]

No worries Let me know how yours turns out