adding ginger to GB

[dragonphoenix73]

Does anyone know what effect adding 150gms (a decent size bit) of fresh ginger will have on GB that has been fermenting for a week and a half?

I'm just wondering if it will help with the thin wateriness of it.

Peeled or unpeeled?

cheers!

[rwh]

As far as I know it won't help with the wateriness, but it will add bite. Also, after seeing all the brown crud in a coopers GB kit, I'd recommend peeled!

To deal with wateriness, think malt or maltodextrin.

[dragonphoenix73]

thanks rwh,

Do you think it would be ok to add maltodextrin at this stage? Thats corn syrup right?

[Chris]

You could, if you want to risk opening up your fermenter. It'll probably be ok, but do you want the risk. I suggest leaving it until your next brew.

[drsmurto]

Once its finished fermenting you could add some ginger (either pureed and boileed or juiced). Kind of like a dry hopping......

No real risk in opening your fermenter once its finished fermenting IMO. you have a 5% alcohol solution so risk to oxidation/infection is greatly minimised. This is why you can rack (more than once if you wish) without any real risk. You could rack onto a solution of it when bulk priming and bottle since corn syrup isnt fermentable.

[rwh]

But the ginger contains some sugar, so you'd have to wait for it to finish again...

[KEG]

You could rack onto a solution of it when bulk priming and bottle since corn syrup isnt fermentable.

yikes, are you sure it's totally unfermentable? cos if it's not, bottle bombs ahoy

[drsmurto]

rwh

Are you sure? I would have said no and tired adjusting some of my recipes in beersmith by adding as much as 1kg of ginger and get no change in gravity or alc. Could be that its not entered as an ingredient correctly but i dont think ginger does contain much if any sugar. I could be wrong tho.....

[Rod]

Ginger beer

I have only made Kit ginger beer , the last being with a morgan kit , coopers works as well ( I think they are the same )
and 1 kg ultrabrew

I made the beer as normal but when it came to bottling I added Buderim ginger beer syrup cordial and dextrose to bulk prime .

I added 180 gm of dextrose less the sugar content in the syrup ( 12.6% on side of bottle ) so as not to over prime
(300 * 12.6% = 40g near enough) so 140g of dextrose.

I added 10 ml of syrup to each bottle or 300 ml to the bulk prime

I then added 5gm of freshly grated ginger to each bottle

I Kit
1kg of ultrabrew or sugar of your choose

Priming
140 g dextrose
300 ml buderim syrup
5g of freshly grated ginger per bottle

leave for at least 6 weeks , matures even better

[yardglass]

try the crystalised ginger from any 'pick n mix' at Coles, Woolies etc, i threw some in each bottle of my first GB, no bombs.

[dragonphoenix73]

Its finished fermenting, and I was planning to bottle tonight. The bottles are in the bathtub now being sanitised, and everything else is ready to go. Have to cook dinner and put kids to bed first....

Unfortunately I dont have any spare fermenters or any other sort of tub to rack into for the priming. Not to mention I dont have any maltodextrin either, or ginger syrup, etc etc....

I wish I had a chance to read all this first - bugger!!

I haven't done any bulk priming before, and I think its going to have to be my next mission, because by the sounds of things, this could be the way to fix the thin-ness of the drink. Too late now....

Planning to use Brown sugar though - at least it'll have fizz.

At the end of the day, its ginger beer and its gluten-free, so partner will be happy (hopefully), and it means I can divert my attention to more important things (like BEER!!)

The upside is I have a free fermenter....

For those interested, the mead is happily bubbling away and has lost its turps-like taste and taken on more of a wine taste. Still not thick like a port (like the meads I've had in the past have been like). I plan to rack that and add spices.

Anyhoo, the feedback has been awesome! Thanks all.... I'll let you know how the GB goes.