Ginger Beer

[Dan]

Does anyone here have a recipe or process for a succesful non alcohol ginger beer using root ginger?

I started a couple of weeks ago with a kit, threw it in the kettle and added some lemons and about 100grams of root ginger for 10 minutes, 150 grams of sugar chilled decanted pitched the dry yeast supplied and bottled.

It came out ok, quite lemony with only a hint of ginger even with the additions, very mild, but quite drinkable.

Last weeks one was no kit, 1.3kg's of root ginger, a few lemons and water, enough honey to carbonate a projected 25 litres.
I boiled half of the ginger for 30 mins and boiled the other half for 10 minutes, chilled decanted pitched wyeast 1968 yeast and bottled 25 litres.

Its taking along time to carbonate, its fiercely gingery but thin and tasteless, like water with ginger in it, not a good outcome, im wondering how to leave residual sweetness to balance the ginger.
Ive read about these ginger beer plants, kinda like a yeast starter, it seemed unnecessary to me, when ive got gear to boil and ale yeasts to condition.

Any ideas?

[David Wood]

This thread has inspired me, I'm going to brew an alcoholic ginger beer next week - just wondering about a few things.
Here's as far as I've got recipe wise, I think I just need help when to add things and how much to add:
4kg Golden Promise
20g Hallertau (boiled 60min)
150g Ginger root (boiled 15min)
1pkt Greggs powdered ginger (boiled?? ??min)
2kg sugar (boiled ??min)
5 Lemons (No idea when to add the juice or rind)
Some candied ginger, perhaps in the boil.
US-05

Any thoughts? This is my first foray outside of traditional beer ingredients...

[Chris Banks]

Dont be afraid of root ginger I do a ginger beer that has 1200 grams in 23l which has a nice bite!
My personal preference would be to sub the sugar for honey?

[David Wood]

Here we go then, I've spiced it up a bit. Should be an... interesting... beer... thing... Think I'll stick to sugar on this one, and try honey on the next one and see the difference.

Amount Item Type % or IBU
4.00 kg Golden Promise (2.3 SRM) Grain 80.00 %
20.00 gm Hallertauer, New Zealand [6.50 %] (60 min) Hops 13.4 IBU
22.00 gm Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
30.00 gm Ginger Powder (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
100.00 gm Candied Ginger (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
300.00 gm Ginger Root (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1.00 kg Sugar, Table (Sucrose) (1.0 SRM) Sugar 20.00 %
Plus rind and juice of 5 lemons

[Reviled]

How much ABV do you want this to be? Cos all that sugar and malt will ferment out, no doubt some of the lemon juice will too... If I were you, id probably leave the sugar out untill the end, and use it to backsweeten it in case it turns out too dry - which it definately might...

Remember the higher the ABV the less refreshing it will be and the more noticable the alcohol will be!

Do you keg? Cos if you dont backsweetening might be an issue...

[David Wood]

I don't keg but I'm gonna mash quite high so I get lots of unfermentable sugars which will hang around at the end, and I'll ditch the lemons I reckons.
It'll probably be 4-5%

[Reviled]

I reckon IMO thats too high for a GB, youll be able to taste the alcohol...

Allthough youve got malt in there, and hops which sorta changes everything I guess??

For a normal alc GB I wouldnt wanna go past 3% or you start to taste the alc...

[denimglen]

I've seen a couple of massive threads on 'gingered ale' on Homebrewtalk and AussieHomeBrewer. May be worth a look if you haven't already?

[Pamela Richards]

I have a great little blog, fairly new that just deals with brewing ginger beer. All sorts of methods and ingredients.
My mum collected the recipes from cuttings over many many years. Our family really loves ginger beer and its so economical to make. It feels good to put the recipes online so they don't get forgotten.Some are close to 100 years old.
There is quite a debate going on at the moment about real and not real ginger beer plants. Frankly if it tastes good then that is the expected outcome.
Have a little look and try to brew your own. Ginger Beer Recipes

Pamela (aka Bonnie)

[Brendon]

Ok… brewed some ginger beer last night.

Ingredients:
‘Wort’:
700g CaraHelle
1.5kg sugar
Juice of 10 lemons
1 x 30g packet of dried ginger
300g of grated fresh ginger (skin on)

‘Dry gingering’:
Zest of 10 lemons
200g of grated fresh ginger

Bought about 7 litres of water to 70 degrees and steeped the Carahell malt for about 10 mins. Decanted off the wort into a pot (first runnings if you like) which ended up being maybe 4 litres worth. Boiled for 10 mins. Added sugar, lemon juice, dried ginger and 300g fresh ginger and boiled for 5 mins.
Strained into the fermenter. Topped up with water. Added a good slug of SO4 yeast and then a bouquet garni of lemon zest and fresh ginger at day 0 (couldn’t be arsed waiting till it fermented out so unsure how ‘wild’ it will get).

The reasoning for the carahell was to leave residual sweetness so I could use less sugar as well. First impressions was that it smelt very malty (carahell malt – no surprise there) and very little ginger so hopefully with the sugar dropping away and the dry gingering taking over it ends up being ok.

Will let you know how it turns out.

[Hillman]

I have been using ginger beer plant. It works kind of like a yeast but with some other organisms that love ginger. It does have some alcohol in it but it's low enough that it doesn't count for the purposes of the Sales of Liquor Act. There are instructions for making it online, I've never tried that method though as I bought mine off of ebay (I'm a kiwi living in the US, where ginger beer is hard to get). You can also buy it online here.

 

There was a recipe in the Guardian a while back. Basically, you put two cups of sugar, half a gallon of distilled water, half a teaspoon of cream of tartar, juice of one lemon, and some fresh grated ginger into a vessel and let it ferment for a few days. I tied the grated ginger up in muslin cloth so that it can be easily removed. The longer it ferments the drier and more alcoholic it gets -- I usually wait about three or four days. Then bottle it to let it carbonate, and after another three or four days you'll have delicious ginger beer.

 

For the fermentation, I use half gallon flagons -- it results in about five 330ml bottles a week. I put an airlock on it but apparently it's not strictly necessary. I also don't bother with sanitization and haven't had any problems. I highly recommend this method as I'm pretty sure it's the cheapest once you have the plant, it's the traditional method, and is absolutely delicious. The catch is that you have to keep making it.