NA Ginger Beer carbed in 18 hours?

[FatDragon]

First time making soda, I threw together a liter of ginger beer in two half liter soda bottles and naturally carbed with bread yeast. The bottles were rock hard in 18 hours so they're in the fridge now. The recipes I read suggested 2-3 days to be ready. I know my carb came on fast from a warm, adequate pitch of yeast and conditioning around 80F. Is there any other reason to wait a couple more days, or are the recipes I read just counting on slower bottle carbing?

Also, it's quite a light yellow in color. Is the caramel color in commercial ginger ale just a colorant, or is there something I should try next time (brown sugar? malt?) to get the color and maybe a superior product?

 

[Abhishek Dewan]

If you don't wait for 2-3 days, the fizz will die soon after you pour in glass and it'll be flat. I know it can be hard to wait for a first timer but waiting will be worth it. If you bottle condition at cold temperature, it carbonates nicely. But usually you put in fridge after 3-4 days only. Also, keep a watch on pressure or hardness. You must release some pressure daily if it becomes too hard or the cap will blow off from the bottle. Since you didn't mention amount of priming sugar, so hard to say, better feel it by hands. Caramel colour can be due to cooking the sugar or caramelising it. Using lemon peels during boil also add nice flavour and colour. I'd also recommend to use ginger bug or ale yeast instead of bread yeast.
Hope that helps.

 

[FatDragon]

If you don't wait for 2-3 days, the fizz will die soon after you pour in glass and it'll be flat. I know it can be hard to wait for a first timer but waiting will be worth it. If you bottle condition at cold temperature, it carbonates nicely. But usually you put in fridge after 3-4 days only. Also, keep a watch on pressure or hardness. You must release some pressure daily if it becomes too hard or the cap will blow off from the bottle. Since you didn't mention amount of priming sugar, so hard to say, better feel it by hands. Caramel colour can be due to cooking the sugar or caramelising it. Using lemon peels during boil also add nice flavour and colour. I'd also recommend to use ginger bug or ale yeast instead of bread yeast.
Hope that helps.

Thanks. It's not a patience issue, but I figured since they were clearly highly pressurized I should toss them into the fridge to reduce the chance of a blowout. I was going to add some harvested S-04 but it is pretty old and came from a porter so I chickened out and went with bread yeast. I doubt I'd ever drink enough ginger beer to support a ginger bug.

As for the sugar, I used about 2/5 cup for one liter. Since I'm going for a non-alcoholic (or close enough) ginger beer, the intention is to only ferment a couple points worth of the sugar, so off gassing and continuing to condition seems like it would be counterproductive for that goal.

If it's good, I'll probably try batches with various sugars. Unrefined came sugar, brown sugar, Chinese panela/jaggery, maybe DME.

 

[FatDragon]

Tried one of the bottles with some gin and mint today. It's not bad, but fairly one-dimensional. This was a chunk of ginger about twice the size of my thumb grated and boiled with about half a liter of water, 2/5 cup sugar, and the juice of half a lime and half a lemon, then left to steep for an hour, topped off, pitched with bread yeast, and conditioned in a couple 500 ml soda bottles. I'll definitely try some sugar experiments in the future.

 

[Yooper]

I've found that the best ginger ale comes from not boiling or steeping the ginger at all. Instead, grated ginger without heating it gives the best ginger flavor. I've made a LOT of ginger ale over the years, and some lemon zest also makes it shine. Instead of bread yeast, I suggest red star champagne yeast if you can get it. The bread yeast isn't very flocculant and leaves a bit of flavor that I don't like in it.

 

[Abhishek Dewan]

never heat or boil any citrus juice or it'll spoil the taste. add it after turning the flame off. try mango ginger if possible , for an interesting one.

 

[FatDragon]

I've found that the best ginger ale comes from not boiling or steeping the ginger at all. Instead, grated ginger without heating it gives the best ginger flavor. I've made a LOT of ginger ale over the years, and some lemon zest also makes it shine. Instead of bread yeast, I suggest red star champagne yeast if you can get it. The bread yeast isn't very flocculant and leaves a bit of flavor that I don't like in it.

Flocculation is why I considered S-04, but for the old, roasty nature of my harvested yeast. I'll probably try it next time anyway.

No-boil always seemed to me like it would be better too, but all the recipes I read used heat and since ginger is used in a lot of cooking, I figured I must be wrong. What's the process? I don't want a bunch of ginger chunks in my brew, so how do I extract the most ginger flavor in a fermentation that solely bottle conditions (so no primary/secondary to rack off the solids)? My first thought is to chuck everything in a sanitized(ish) blender and strain out the solids on the way into the bottles, or to juice the ginger in some other way and just add the juice.

 

[Yooper]

I just mix the ingredients up in a pitcher, and let it sit for a while at room temperature. If that seems like something you don't want to do, put it in the fridge over night. Next day, strain into another vessel, add the small amount of yeast you need, and pour into bottles. That's pretty much it.

I don't have a digital copy of all the ones I've tried, but I do remember grating a lot of ginger, using less sugar, adding some lemon, etc, until I liked the flavor and then adding the yeast and bottling. Boil/heating ginger definitely mellows the flavor, and if you want a great ginger flavor, macerating/grating it raw will make all the difference.