Alcoholic Ginger Beer recipes

TinfoilTinman

Hey,

I was wondering if anyone has a good recipe (not a kit) for alcoholic ginger beer. Looking for a bit of body in it and some serious bite. I'm familiar enough with the methods but need recipes or even suggestions.

I've seen one recipe using ginger root and powdered malt extract however I don't know any cheap source of malt extract.

Also, i'm not sure how far malt extract will stretch on it's own:

The recipe uses a kg of pale malt extract to 7 litres whereas most coopers malt extract are supposed to used in conjuction with kits upto 23 litres.


Thanks in advance.

wet-paint

Ooh, seconded.

Philburns

I came across this promising looking recipe in a book I got for Christmas - Make your own beer and cider by Paul Peacock. I'm planning on making a half batch myself in a couple of weeks.

To make 22.5 litres:

1 kg ginger cut into small cubes
1 tsp cream of tartar
Juice of 6 lemons
2kg brewing sugar
1 packet champagne yeast

add ginger lemon juice and cream of tartar to 4 litres of water and boil for 20 minutes
strain then dissolve in sugar
add cold water to make up to 22.5 litres
Pitch yeast, ferment and bottle as per usual methods.

He does also say to release the gas in the bottles after a few days and using PET bottles is advisable as it can be explosive.

c - 13

Have used the following recipe before with a decent very strong tasting result, had the last bottle of it before xmas (was bottled the year before) and was still pretty good

600g fresh ginger finely grated
1KG sugar
6 tsp honey
4 lemons
2 lime
1 stick of cinnamon
1 Pack Yeast

I boiled about 1l of water and added the juice and peels from the lemon and lime , the sugar, the honey, the grated ginger and the cinnamon stick. I simmered this for about 20 minutes

I then chucked it all in a 1 gallon glass demi-john. Topped this up with cold water. Let it cool down and added the yeast

Had to rack twice to get it clear.

If you don't like a super strong ginger taste tone down on the amount of ginger in the recipe - its quite strong.

Carawaystick

do ye not need ginger beer plant?

sharingan

TinfoilTinman wrote: »

I've seen one recipe using ginger root and powdered malt extract however I don't know any cheap source of malt extract.

Also, i'm not sure how far malt extract will stretch on it's own:

The recipe uses a kg of pale malt extract to 7 litres whereas most coopers malt extract are supposed to used in conjuction with kits upto 23 litres.

Well I have done it a few times using just regular sugar, and my next brew will be done with spraymalt. Spraymalt retails for about €5 /Kg online, and 1Kg of malt/7litres is going to give a pretty strong sauce.

I like adding in unrefined cane sugar in small doses, give a nice blend to the brew.

I tend to grate and boil the ginger and leave it in the fermenter. It is going to leave a lot of sediment, but the flavour will at leas extract well.

sharingan

Philburns wrote: »

He does also say to release the gas in the bottles after a few days and using PET bottles is advisable as it can be explosive.

2Kg of sugar WILL be explosive. You are better off letting the fermentation reach stable levels before bottling. Or go with a much milder amount of sugar (weakly alcoholic) if you are bottling straight away.

Other than that, it can be interesting to mix in different kinds of sugar or even fruit juice (even concentrated is fine, as long as it is 100% juice and contains no preservatives)

lordstilton

Don't know if your up to all grain or extract but if you are I've used this recipe many times and it makes a fantastic ginger beer...really good with food..its from an american site so just convert...I never put any ginger into secondary as I found it too much when I did

Ingredients for Mashing
Amount Item Type % or IBU
4.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 48.48 %
1.25 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 15.15 %


Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge

Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Mash In Add 7.88 qt of water at 164.0 F 154.0 F

Drain Mash Tun
Batch Sparge Round 1: Sparge with 5.33 gal of 175.0 F water

Boil Wort

Add water to achieve boil volume of 6.42 gal

Estimated pre-boil gravity is 1.040 (note this estimate includes honey)

Boil Ingredients

Boil Amount Item Type
60 min 1.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (60 min) Hops
60 min 3.00 lb Honey (1.0 SRM) Sugar
30 min 2.00 items Lemon Juice (per lemon) (Boil 30.0 min) Misc
30 min 6.00 oz Ginger Root (Boil 30.0 min) Misc
15 min 1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
10 min 2.00 oz Ginger Root (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
10 min 2.00 items Lemon Zest (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
2 min 1.00 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (2 min) Hops

Cool and Prepare Fermentation

Cool wort to fermentation temperature

Transfer wort to fermenter
Add water to achieve final volume of 5.00 gal

Ingredients for Fermentation
Amount Item Type % or IBU
1 Pkgs Safale (DCL Yeast #US-05) Yeast-Ale

Fermentation

Primary fermentation (14 days at 68.0 F)
Secondary fermentation (7 days at 68.0 F)
Add to Secondary

Amount Item Type % or IBU
2.50 oz Ginger Root (Secondary 7.0 days) Misc

Donadea Leo

ok i had a go at this
750 grms ginger chopped and battered with a pestal and morter,
2 lemons
2 limes
500 grammes unrefined cane sugar
500 grammes light malt extract
1 pack of ale yeast

so i boiled the ginger and lemon and lime juice in about 6 litres of water for 30 minutes
then dissolved the sugar and spraymalt,
dumped into sterilized fermentor and topped up to 12 litres (bit too much i think as og was only 1030)
anyway got a bit inpatient and pitched yeast at 30 degrees as it was a long day. Hoping i got away with it as temp is down to 24 this morning and not too much activity in fermentor yet. Will post up results, i ll probably dry hop with 20 grms of cascade in week or so. Will post up results, fingers crossed i haven't ruined it with the high temp.

Donadea Leo

forgot to say that i put ginger in muslin bag for boil and popped into fermentor after

synesthesia

Hey Guys,

I used different receipes, I brew ginger beer with ginger beer plant.

i get the plan from that guy, it grows over time. i get it there ...http://www.gingerbeerplant.net/ ... here's the dude's advices and receipes :

GINGER BEER PLANT INSTRUCTIONS

<snip - copyright issue - please visit the website for details>

Donadea Leo

oh dear tried a sup of the ginger beer before dry hopping but something wrong, tastes off. No ginger taste at all, think its infected, getting a bleachy flavour to it, maybe bad sanitation or maybe the high temp when pitching the yeast. This one down to experience i think.

Donadea Leo

ok sorry for the monologue had another try and its not bleach its actually the lemon and lime. I mixed in a splenda tab and it improved considerably. There isn t too much of a ginger taste left but there is that bit of zing. Anyone know if i should leave the ginger pieces in it, would there be much flavour to extract after a week the gravity is down to 1.002 so probably not a whole lot of fermentation left. I ll measure again tomorrow and dry hop hopefully. It might mature into something half decent.

constantg

Hi, just wondering does anyone have any nonalcoholic recipes?

um7y1h83ge06nx

Well Mr. G, here you go

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/01/homebrewing-recipe-how-to-brew-ginger-beer-at-home.html

The yeast is mainly there to carbonate and will add a tiny amount of alcohol. Most non-alcoholic beers contain a slight amount of alcohol anyway so nothing to worry about. Reckon it might be about 0.1% or so.

For the yeast, I can give you a little general brewing yeast or else give Cash Convenience a try on Parnell Street if you're want the Champagne yeast or other gear.

Edit: Any of the ingredient mixes can be used above as well. Just follow the steps from the link I sent you as you want to avoid full fermentation.

Donadea Leo

I don't know how many times i was going to dump this batch. Instead i m here drinking a delicious fiery ginger beer. I didn t dry hop in end, just added 2 splenda tabs and some ice. 6 months in the bottle. Very happy with it and worth the effort.

deckie27

http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/chefs/hugh-fearnley-whittingstall/ginger-beer-recipe

Used the above method a load of time. Makes a lovely beer in about 2 weeks.

I used a fermenter making about 25 liters
Leave it ferment for 4-5 days.
Use 5 or 10 grams of sugar in 2liter plastic bottles to prime.

Ya need to mind these bottles for a week or 2 and release gas

You can chill any this will stop fermentation and leave them sweeter.

BeerNut

deckie27 wrote: »

Ya need to mind these bottles for a week or 2 and release gas

You can chill any this will stop fermentation and leave them sweeter.

Suicide. I seriously would not recommend this method. If you manage not to create an arsenal of bottle bombs, you could well find all your ginger beer leaves the bottle of its own accord all at once when the cap comes off.

Ferment it out and then prime with a known amount of sugar.

sharingan

+1 Ferment fully and prime.

While I enjoy HFW TV shows, his advise for home ferments is shocking. Witness the thread of comments on the elderflower champagne recipe on the channel 4 site (currently the top google hit for elderflower champagne).

Lots of people complaining about exploding bottles.

breen_og

Sorry if the information has been stated already in this post. I think I read through most of it a couple of days ago. I've read a bit about exploding bottles.

1. I'm presumming if I ferment to a stable FG I should be fine.
2. What % alcohol do most recipes achieve? (I've seen many variations for sugar and am planning on doing a full brew 20-25L)
3. I'm looking for a bit of body but a decent 4-5% final alcohol content so what is the best sugar to use.
4. Most seem to be using champagne yeast is this to deal with the quantity of sugar used? (Any other reason)
5. Again presumming if a stable FG is reached priming will not = exploding bottles?

Thanks.

Lovely Bloke

If you put too much sugar in to prime, you could get exploding bottles - you need around 3-5g of sugar per 500ml for a good carb level.

If you use about 2.5-3k of light DME you'll get a "beery" beer, with a good body - OG of this will be somewhere around 1048-1055, and should ferment out to about 1008-1015, yielding something from 4.8% - 5.5% or so.

I used champagne yeast because I was advised to.

My recipe
3k DME
2k ginger chopped
Juice of 3 limes
20litres water
packet of champagne yeast
glucose to prime

WaterWolf

I want to have a go at making ginger beer as well. I don't have any malt extract handy so I'll just have to go with the basic sugar recipe, but I plan on adding some chillies or chilli extract too.

It would be nice to be able to prime the bottles, but if I do that then it will have to have a very low finishing gravity. I presume it's not going to taste very nice if it lacks sweetness but I won't know till I've tasted it...

My other options would be:
1. Don't prime the bottles and use Potassium Sorbate to back sweeten.
2. Use splenda to sweeten.
3. Only sweeten at the point of drinking.

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned in any of the recipes is whether you should peel the ginger before chopping it up?

Donadea Leo

WaterWolf wrote: »

I want to have a go at making ginger beer as well. I don't have any malt extract handy so I'll just have to go with the basic sugar recipe, but I plan on adding some chillies or chilli extract too.

It would be nice to be able to prime the bottles, but if I do that then it will have to have a very low finishing gravity. I presume it's not going to taste very nice if it lacks sweetness but I won't know till I've tasted it...

My other options would be:
1. Don't prime the bottles and use Potassium Sorbate to back sweeten.
2. Use splenda to sweeten.
3. Only sweeten at the point of drinking.

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned in any of the recipes is whether you should peel the ginger before chopping it up?

some people seem to peel some don't. If you have a food processor give it a whizz. I chopped mine cause i didn t have one. Priming wont sweeten in any way as it ll just be transferred into alcohol and fizz. I ve made some ciders that work pretty well sweetened with apple juice at time of drinking. Its a pain if you want to give away a few bottles due to having to give instructions but if you re drinking it yourself not a problem.