Trinidad Style Ginger "Beer"

[mattmmille]

I have a brother in-law originally from Trinidad. He was interested in what they call ginger beer, which is not a "beer" at all, but a natural ginger soda. The recipe, in a book from Trinidad, was similar to a pineapple tepache that I have done, but made with ginger. It's a pound of peeled and grated fresh ginger, 4 pounds of sugar, a cinnamon stick and a few cloves...add water and lid and leave in sun/warm place for 24 hours, strain and bottle. Allow to carb and cold crash and keep chilled until ready to drink. (I decided to pasteurize.)

I have taken the strained out ginger and spices and started a "second runnings" fermentation. The ginger was still so fresh and full of flavor, that I couldn't bring myself to just throw it away. I decided to make a hard ginger "beer". Same recipe, but allowing it to ferment. It was frustrating to get it started and I eventually added Champagne yeast to get it going. I finally got the SG from 1.061 down to 1.031 and still very sweet. I'm going to try to push the alcohol up a bit more to 5% ABV or more...then bottle, carb and pasteurize. The color is almost white and cold crashing samples doesn't clear it.

Wondering if anyone else has tried "Ginger Beer" or Hard "Ginger Beer"? All I have seen here are actual brewed beers with ginger. I really don't know what to expect. Any experiences/comments would be great!

 

[mattmmille]

This fermented "ginger beer" has been a pain in the ass. I've had issues...trouble getting fermentation started, resorting to yeast and then overheating and killing it, pitching more yeast...SG drops from 1.061 to 1.031...then, over the next couple of days, it seems to go up, them down, then back up, then down to 1.020...oops, but then the hydrometer slowly floats up in the test tube. Even tried my back up hydrometer with same result. My best guess is that the ABV is somewhere around 3% to 3.25%...but who really knows?! To Hell with it. I bottled that stuff up and got 10 bottles. I'll carb check 'em tomorrow night...I'll pasteurize them whenever they are ready. I don't have any idea if this is gonna taste like anything anybody has ever made before or if anyone is going to like it. Just have to wait and see.

 

[klinus]

I experimented a little with fermented ginger beer a couple of years ago, before i actually knew anything about homebrewing.
I found recipe that I think was jamaican that was quite weird, but turned out pretty good. Cant find it right now but what I did was to grind a lot of ginger, and put it together with squeezed lemon juice, sugar,and bakers yeast (!) in a plastic coke bottle. Then squeeze the bottle and screw the lid on. Everyday for a week i feeded the starter with a teaspoon of ginger and a teaspoon of sugar. After a week i boiled up water, more lemon juice and sugar and then when it cooled down, mixed in the "starter". After that i bottled and waited for a week.

Weird procedure, but it tasted really good, initially, kind of close to the "old jamaican" brand. The problem was i had no control over the sugars in it, so it continued to ferment in the bottle and a couple of weeks later it tasted like wine.

How do you do when you pasteurize? Can you do that to kill yeast and stop fermentation? Can you do it in the bottle?

 

[mattmmille]

I experimented a little with fermented ginger beer a couple of years ago, before i actually knew anything about homebrewing.
I found recipe that I think was jamaican that was quite weird, but turned out pretty good. Cant find it right now but what I did was to grind a lot of ginger, and put it together with squeezed lemon juice, sugar,and bakers yeast (!) in a plastic coke bottle. Then squeeze the bottle and screw the lid on. Everyday for a week i feeded the starter with a teaspoon of ginger and a teaspoon of sugar. After a week i boiled up water, more lemon juice and sugar and then when it cooled down, mixed in the "starter". After that i bottled and waited for a week.

Weird procedure, but it tasted really good, initially, kind of close to the "old jamaican" brand. The problem was i had no control over the sugars in it, so it continued to ferment in the bottle and a couple of weeks later it tasted like wine.

How do you do when you pasteurize? Can you do that to kill yeast and stop fermentation? Can you do it in the bottle?

That sounds like a kind of soda I tried for awhile with the starter being called a "ginger bug". Anytime I bottle anything that has a lot of residual sugar, I check the carb pretty regulary...some carb up in just 24 to 36 hours. You do NOT want to try pasteurizing something that is over-carbed! I don't know about pasteurizing anything plastic, but I have had pretty good success with stuff in 12 oz beer bottles. Yes, it kills the yeast to stop the fermentation. Then you can store it at room temperature and not worry about bottle bombs. Check out the thread on pasteurization and be sure to look at the latest instructions for updates in procedure!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/

 

[mattmmille]

The local brew shop has several things on tap and there was a non-alcoholic ginger beer on tap. Surprisingly, it tasted a lot like mine, except not as sweet. I had the criticism of mine that it was just too sweet and was planning on using less sugar in the future. So, this was kind of validation. I need to try another fermented one and see how those are doing...they were a little more odd.