Ginger beer questions.

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Ginger beer questions.

Postby Fifey » Friday Jul 02, 2010 10:38 pm

What about an all malt GB? I mean all malt as in the added fermentables.

Would there be enough residual complex sugars left from the malt to sweeten a non-kit ginger beer up without using lactose?
Last edited by Fifey on Tuesday Aug 17, 2010 4:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: All malt ginger beer?

Postby Finnagann » Saturday Jul 03, 2010 5:58 am

I made a gingered ale recipe of C. Papazian's that was not overly dry at all, in fact its bloody delicious after a bit of aging but its an entirely different animal than your typical ginger beer.
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Re: All malt ginger beer?

Postby Fifey » Sunday Jul 04, 2010 12:25 am

I had a couple of crates of well aged ginger beer that was the best I've had, ever. Unfortunately it was passed to me through a couple of people, so I have no idea who brewed it, nor what recipe they used. The last of it went a few months ago :cry:, I had forgotten there were a couple of longies left...

On reflection, a standard GB should be good if I can get it half as nice as that one, but this idea has got me interested in doing a gingered ale.
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Re: Ginger beer questions.

Postby Fifey » Tuesday Aug 17, 2010 4:57 pm

I need a recipe.

I had a good one written down in my brewing notebook, but I can't find it at all. I'd like to do my boil this arvo, though it might have to be tomorrow. Got nearly 2kg of Ginger from the Radelaide markets yesterday, soI'm looking forward to some brewing (hopefully enough for two batches).

We will be doing this to 15L or so in a 20L cube, as we have got one spare currently, as well as the heat pad being free (English bitter is currently cold conditioning in the 30L fermenter, also have a lager going over two cubes).

How much ginger should I put in?

Will golden syrup do good things for the flavour? What about honey, or should I just go with all (inverted) sugar?

What about ground ginger? Should I add any to impart a bit more bite?

Should I add a chilli to the boil? I love ginger in spicy food, as well as the flavour it supplements the heat of the chilli. Would chilli do the same for ginger bite in a GB?

Finally, this is definitely a question for the next brew- what grain assists, if any should I add? We need to do a grain and hops order soon, the next lager, being a Tooheys can will likely need quite a lot of help, same goes for the cascade ales we have, so we might as well get something for the next GB while we are at it.
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Re: Ginger beer questions.

Postby drsmurto » Tuesday Aug 17, 2010 5:07 pm

I have made a few GBs including an 'all malt' one last time.

I like to add spices when making GBs.

Normal additions to the fermentables are (per 20L batch)

1.25kg fresh ginger
a few lemons
a few cloves
a cinnamon stick

I find that with this much ginger you don't really need any ginger as it already has a bite, different to chilli but still good. I processed the ginger up, skin and all, chopped the lemons and added it all to the boiling wort and left it boil for 30-60 mins.

You could use limes and/or kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass etc.

Last batch was 100% pils malt and nottingham yeast. It wasn't bone dry but not sweet like Bundy GB either.
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Re: Ginger beer questions.

Postby Bum » Tuesday Aug 17, 2010 5:16 pm

I've got lemongrass in a very recently bottled GB and at this early stage it is looking like a big mistake. One stalk in 20L is way OTT.
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Re: Ginger beer questions.

Postby Trizza » Tuesday Aug 17, 2010 11:39 pm

I’ve made 6 ginger beer's now. I've tried some with coopers kits, some with a bit of malt, some with grain, some with lots of malt and some with fresh ginger.

The best one was the latest, but also quite simple
Coopers Ginger Kit
2.00 KG Dextrose
0.75 KG Brown Sugar
0.75 Kg Honey
0.25 KG Amber Candi Sugar
Wyeast 3522 Ardennes
20L

Incredible hazelnut flavor with the ginger prob from the candi sugar and the Belgian yeast. I've tried adding the spices - its never ended well. Next time i'll try the fresh ginger as a sub for the coopers kit, but I’m really impressed with this one

Give that a crack!
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Re: Ginger beer questions.

Postby Bum » Wednesday Aug 18, 2010 1:04 am

I doff my cap to you, sir.

I've played with cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, chilli, cloves, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass and curry leaves in my ginger beers and to be honest I thought I was doing alright. You are pushing GBs to bold, new levels and have piqued my interest. If you don't mind me saying - of the prior, cinnamon and cardamom is the most successful if you've not tried it. To a certain extend curry leaves was very interesting (one leaf "dry-hopped" per bottle worked best for me) in combination with the cinnamon and cardamom.

I've always considered yeast to be a secondary concern in a GB, having tried all array of dried ale and lager yeasts, but you've opened my eyes somewhat here to something I've never considered. Thanks.

I hope you don't mind me making one suggestion in regard to your fermentables above but my best results with a kit base have been with dropping the dex for 4 parts raw sugar to one part dark brown sugar (usually 1kg to 250g for me). Work nicely, IMO. Also, I very recently tried to sub out the kit in my recipe for more ginger and 2.5kg wasn't enough. I don't think a straight swap works but I have no solution as yet.
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Re: Ginger beer questions.

Postby Fifey » Thursday Aug 19, 2010 7:13 pm

So, I had no access to the internet before boiling it up, but for the next batch I will take all of this into consideration. Had to use ground cinnamon, no sticks left at the supermarket and the café/ delicatessen is closed for renovations, and consequently added a bit too much when a large amount went 'bloop' into the pot.

I also ended up trying the chilli, just one, seeded and then quartered, with what seems to be a success. It was quite subtle when I tasted some of the the wort, imparting a nice warmth but not too much. Might end up being a bit too subtle in the full 15L though.

The recipe is as follows:
500g brown sugar
500g golden syrup
3 large pieces of ginger
1 small chilli
The zest and juice of 2 lemons
Yeast was repitched S-04

Haven't used candi yet; what effect does it have?

The chilli also gave me an idea to do a SE Asiany GB with lime instead of lemon, a bit more chilli and palm sugar as the fermentables.
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Re: Ginger beer questions.

Postby Trizza » Friday Aug 20, 2010 1:08 pm

Bum wrote:I doff my cap to you, sir.

I've played with cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, chilli, cloves, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass and curry leaves in my ginger beers and to be honest I thought I was doing alright. You are pushing GBs to bold, new levels and have piqued my interest. If you don't mind me saying - of the prior, cinnamon and cardamom is the most successful if you've not tried it. To a certain extend curry leaves was very interesting (one leaf "dry-hopped" per bottle worked best for me) in combination with the cinnamon and cardamom.

I've always considered yeast to be a secondary concern in a GB, having tried all array of dried ale and lager yeasts, but you've opened my eyes somewhat here to something I've never considered. Thanks.

I hope you don't mind me making one suggestion in regard to your fermentables above but my best results with a kit base have been with dropping the dex for 4 parts raw sugar to one part dark brown sugar (usually 1kg to 250g for me). Work nicely, IMO. Also, I very recently tried to sub out the kit in my recipe for more ginger and 2.5kg wasn't enough. I don't think a straight swap works but I have no solution as yet.


Thanks.

I've tried a limited raw sugar route also, but I think I can barely taste the difference it makes from having it in there. I have a feeling that all the brown sugar that goes into the batch overpowers the raw sugar taste. I'll sub of dextrose for raw sugar in the next batch and see how things go.

It’s been really hard to sub out the Cooper's Kit - I can’t seem to get an amount of ginger that replicates the flavour to a similar level. I've got plans to make another batch of GB in Sept, so may give it a crack then. I can’t believe that 2.5Kg wasn’t enough to get the flavour right!!!

Also I’ve been noticing the different flavours that come from adding the clear, amber or dark candi sugar with my last couple of Belgian Dark Strong Ale batches. The residual sugars may be a great substitute for Lactose, but I’m going to need to do more testing to work that one out….

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Re: Ginger beer questions.

Postby Bum » Friday Aug 20, 2010 1:59 pm

Trizza wrote:It’s been really hard to sub out the Cooper's Kit - I can’t seem to get an amount of ginger that replicates the flavour to a similar level. I've got plans to make another batch of GB in Sept, so may give it a crack then. I can’t believe that 2.5Kg wasn’t enough to get the flavour right!!!


Yeah, so far (and I admit it is far too early to call it yet) all it seems like is ginger water, you know? There is a definite bite but everything else is seriously lacking for mine.

Look forward to hearing more about your next one.
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Re: Ginger beer questions.

Postby Fifey » Friday Aug 20, 2010 7:24 pm

We brewed a Morgan's kit, I think. It's alright now, but it's still not particularly good. It takes too long for the artificial sweetener taste to go away. I'm worried the Cooper's kit would be the same.
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Re: Ginger beer questions.

Postby Fifey » Friday Aug 27, 2010 9:18 am

It's ended up rather shallow, just like ginger water. We have decided that possibly the best way to rescue it is to rack it to the 30L fermenter, and add another wort with malt and bring up the volume to 24L or so then letting the malt ferment out.
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Re: Ginger beer questions.

Postby Trizza » Tuesday Aug 31, 2010 11:22 am

Fifey,

The artificial sweetener taste in the cooper’s kit can be overpowered by the residual taste from putting 500-750g of honey in the brew.

Morgan's is quite shit – but I’m still a big fan of coopers even though I’ve tried the all-ginger route. I’d give coopers a try, If you like your beer extra gingery make the below recipe to 18L in lieu of 20L.

Just try a simple batch along the lines of:
Coopers Ginger Beer
1.50Kg Raw Sugar
0.75Kg Honey (Yellowbox or similar)
Safale S-04 or any good liquid yeast (you could probably get away with the coopers dried yeast if you had to)
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Re: Ginger beer questions.

Postby rotten » Thursday Sep 02, 2010 9:16 pm

G'day Trizza.
I picked up a coopers ginger beer tin at the shops today and put it back down again until I re-read your post. Never tried one before so was a bit hesitant. Should I do a boil with some fermentables for the above recipe, I won't put it back on the shelf next time.
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Re: Ginger beer questions.

Postby Trizza » Friday Sep 03, 2010 8:18 am

It’s a case of the old school 'coopers' method of just adding it to the fermenter...
I'd heat up the honey / raw sugar / brown sugar / dextrose for a couple of minutes, but the kit doesn’t really require any heating.

You could heat up the kit with the sugars if you’re at all worried about infection, but I wouldnt recommend a sustained boil. Coopers GB is just a simple ‘throw everything in the fermenter’ sort of brew – and it nearly always turns out fine... :P
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Re: Ginger beer questions.

Postby Planner » Friday Sep 03, 2010 9:40 am

Trizza wrote:Coopers GB is just a simple ‘throw everything in the fermenter’ sort of brew – and it nearly always turns out fine... :P


Have to agree, I've done a couple now straight from the tin into the fermenter. Give it a go Rotten, a tin of goop and a kilo of sugar is not a great loss if you don't like it.
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Re: Ginger beer questions.

Postby Fifey » Thursday Sep 16, 2010 1:32 pm

Ended up adding a can each of light and amber malt extract. It tastes promising, will rack at the weekend and add some lactose. There are a couple of floaty patches on top that look suspicious, but they haven't developed yet, so fingers crossed it's just benign.
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Re: Ginger beer questions.

Postby Fifey » Friday Oct 22, 2010 3:33 pm

So it's been in the bottle for a while now, it's still a bit one dimensional. The chilli seems to have been a good idea though, that was quite nice. I'll do one with LDME and some crystal and maybe a touch of choc grains next time.
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Re: Ginger beer questions.

Postby Chris » Friday Oct 22, 2010 8:20 pm

I've done one 'all malt' GB before. It'll be the only one I'll ever do. It came out almost cloyingly sweet.

It was pretty feral.
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