Ginger Beer

[irish_goat]

Few of the girls in work drink Hollows Ginger beer and I love ginger myself so thought I'd try a brew and made this today. Cheap and takes very little time. Hoping for something around 5% with a nice fiery kick to it.

1.7g brewing sugar
500g extra light DME
1kg ginger (€4 in Asia Garden supermarket)
5 tsp dried powdered ginger
2 lemons
2 limes
1 tsp cream tartar
2tsp yeast nutrient
1 packet US-04

Chopped the ginger, lemons and limes and boiled them for 30 mins along with the DME and sugar then put everything into the FV topped up to 23 litres with cold water. Used muslin bags for the ginger and fruit so it'll be easier to clean up.

[Ciderhead]

Isn't ginger an aphrodisiac, with that amount of ginger, I'm not sure your intentions are honourable

[irish_goat]

Ha. It was actually a struggle to get a recipe. There are loads online but some are for non-alcoholic ginger beer, some are for beer flavoured with ginger and then the ones for ginger beer all had widely varying amounts of ginger and sugar (and other ingredients)in them. Hoping this turns out well.

[Shanna]

Hi Thomas

Please let us know how this turns out (as in how the beer turns out). Also I assume you meant 1.7 kg of brewing sugar?

Quick/ question I assume you peeled both the ginger and the fruit or did you just chop everything and boil it? I wonder how clear the beer will be? It sounds like a nice recipe just not sure I would drink 23 less without help :-)

Shanna

[irish_goat]

I took a sample today and it's nice enough, decent kick of ginger off it. It's seriously lacking body however (I shouldn't be surprised) and I think it needs sweetened as well. Don't have any sweetener on me though so I'll have to postpone bottling,

[irish_goat]

Bumping this as I had a few requests for the recipe.

I was very happy with how this turned out although it needed a shot of sugar syrup in it to give it a bit of sweetness. I might double the malt content next time as well to give it a bit more body. Also I threw in a teaspoon of cayenne pepper which gave it a nice kick.

With the fruit and ginger I just chopped them up and boiled them. I started to peel the ginger and then gave up cause it was taking ages. People online said it didn't matter anyway. Last bottles of it were drunk on Saturday and they tasted just as good so I'd say it's reasonably storeable if you're worried about having too much of it.

[Shanna]

Hi Thomas

I did your recipe about 5 weeks ago but somehow managed to botch the amount of sugar I added.  Think it must have been the manual scales. So I ended up making a sugar water solution from table sugar and it ended up as a 7.5% monster. I used 1kg of raw ginger in with a few chopped oranges and I a lime and boiled for half an hour.  Strained it in a colander and used a muslin bag to contain the chopped ginger and fruit that went into the fermenter.
I back sweetened with stevia when bottling.

Only word to describe it dangerous add it has a ginger kick like a mule. I broughtbs lot of it to work for colleagues to drink and so far it has been mixed reviews but mainly negative feedback.  Ginger taste is too overpowering and it one of those beers where on opening you get a whoosh of Co2 and then it is flat.

Shanna

Ps: hope the new job is working out well.

Bumping this as I had a few requests for the recipe.

I was very happy with how this turned out although it needed a shot of sugar syrup in it to give it a bit of sweetness. I might double the malt content next time as well to give it a bit more body. Also I threw in a teaspoon of cayenne pepper which gave it a nice kick.

With the fruit and ginger I just chopped them up and boiled them. I started to peel the ginger and then gave up cause it was taking ages. People online said it didn't matter anyway. Last bottles of it were drunk on Saturday and they tasted just as good so I'd say it's reasonably storeable if you're worried about having too much of it.

[Greg2013]

Shanna i am on my second ginger beer batch now(none from this receipe btw) and i can tell you IMHO 5tsp is way too mush ground ginger especially with all that fresh root ginger in there For a 20-23 litre batch with 1kg fresh root ginger you should not need to add any ground at all, i did on both batches i have done and i can tell ya that 2 tsp in 23 litres is plenty IMHO.

I may try this receipe myself for my next run at this minus the ground completely.Irish goat great looking receipe m8 but just way too much ground for me

[Will_D]

In all recipes, remember the old addage:

"It is easier to add than remove"

[Shanna]

If memory serves me correctly I did not add the ground ginger as I thought the taste of fresh root would be enough.

Shanna

Shanna i am on my second ginger beer batch now(none from this receipe btw) and i can tell you IMHO 5tsp is way too mush ground ginger especially with all that fresh root ginger in there For a 20-23 litre batch with 1kg fresh root ginger you should not need to add any ground at all, i did on both batches i have done and i can tell ya that 2 tsp in 23 litres is plenty IMHO.

I may try this receipe myself for my next run at this minus the ground completely.Irish goat great looking receipe m8 but just way too much ground for me

[irish_goat]

Hi Thomas

I did your recipe about 5 weeks ago but somehow managed to botch the amount of sugar I added.  Think it must have been the manual scales. So I ended up making a sugar water solution from table sugar and it ended up as a 7.5% monster. I used 1kg of raw ginger in with a few chopped oranges and I a lime and boiled for half an hour.  Strained it in a colander and used a muslin bag to contain the chopped ginger and fruit that went into the fermenter.
I back sweetened with stevia when bottling.

Only word to describe it dangerous add it has a ginger kick like a mule. I broughtbs lot of it to work for colleagues to drink and so far it has been mixed reviews but mainly negative feedback.  Ginger taste is too overpowering and it one of those beers where on opening you get a whoosh of Co2 and then it is flat.

Shanna

Ps: hope the new job is working out well.

Weird it didn't work out, mines had a real ginger kick but nothing that anyone though was too overpowering. Table sugar I believe is a bit more fermentable than brewing sugar(dextrose) so you would have got extra alcohol from that as well.

[Eoink]

I always have to add maltodextrin to my ginger beer otherwise it never seems to have enough 'body', but I have never made one as strong as yours. (Either in alcohol or  ginger)

[onesoma]

Put this on tonight. Differences: no cream tartar, 1kg dextrose, 1.5kg light LME instead of the DME.

And stupidly I didn't cool the boiled up ingredients, so couldn't get the temp down enough by adding water to the fv. Didn't want to leave it hanging around too long in the fv so pitched at 25C. Fingers crossed.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Put together a ginger honey IPA this weekend.

Adapting an English IPA recipe from HBT, but using mostly extract.

Will have to add more LME at the end though, dont think the gravity will be high enough for the hop bill otherwise, which is running at about 140g of EKG. 770g of ginger, boiled and put in the mash.

Scraping the floor of the grainstore with this one, it will be a miracle if it is balanced.

[Fatcontro11er]

That's a lot if ginger! How was it?