Recipe for Fiery Ginger Beer

*Admins**
This post originally came from The other place a year or so back, hopefully I won't be treading on toes and causing agro.
Please remove it if you think it will.

I can't remember who originally posted this recipe but I've made this GB 5 or 6 times now and I've increased the amount of fruit to 10 of each Oranges,Lemons and Limes. Apart from that my brews have remained faithful to the original. Its a fine recipe to be recommended, it is fiery so beware.

Fiery Ginger Beer 5 gallons

1kg Fresh grated ginger
5tsp Dried ground ginger
1tsp Cream of tartar
6 Oranges
6 lemons
6 limes
2.5kg Sugar
2tsp Yeast nutrient
1 sachet champagne yeast

Really quick and easy (and cheap) to do - ginger was donated so very cheap

First i grated the ginger into a large pan

[img]http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/ag143/LeithR/photo1_zpsece9b76d.jpg/img]

Then added the sliced and squeezed lemons and limes, cream of tartar and dried ginger - topped up with boiling water and simmered for 30mins (lovely smell )



Next i dissolved all the sugar in the ginger liquor and then put everything into the FV and topped up with cold water



The temp adjusted OG was 1045


Dry pitched the yeast......done


Dependant on what it ferments out to it should be between 6 and 8%

Already bookmarked your earlier post. Sounds and looks great!

How did you strain it? I guess a hop sock will suffice?

I actually brew it in a bag. Just use the same process as I do for beer without the long mash and boil. I would think a hop sock would work well.

Have you ever noticed a residual taste of ginger in your boiler after you've cleaned it? I'm a little worried about that but maybe I should just clean it properly.

Does it matter what yeast you use? I imagine not, as you are only really fermenting the sugar down. I'm thinking of using anything I have to hand which flocculates well.

Do you boil it or just top up with water? Could the fruit go in hop socks? Sorry for the questions I've never made any thing that's not beer!

@Bad 'Ed,
Yes, I have noticed a residual smell of ginger, I think it is down to the oils in the fruit which aid the persistence of the ginger smell. I use a good scrubbing with soap to get rid of it, I've found that works well. I've used Champagne yeast as I had it available and I harvest it for future use, but as you say any good yeast will work fine.

@Asalpaws,
I boil for 30 - 45 mins then transfer to the fermenter and top up to 23L, if necessary I add additional sugar to get my required SG. Yes, I use my BIAB bag, so your hop sock should work ok.

Thanks Leith will give this a go at some point. T

I'm going to give this a go this weekend. Just a few questions...

What does the ground ginger do that more fresh ginger wouldn't? Are you trying to get a spicy tinge to the brew without increasing the ginger flavour?
I was going to zest and juice the fruit to add the acid and flavour without adding the bitterness that the pith imparts. Do you think this is unwise? Does the brew need the bitterness?

@Bad 'Ed,
Ground Ginger - I think its to do with the spicy tinge effect, I haven't experimented with that, just the increased fruits so far.
Agree with your comment about the pith, I've zested the fruit, then pealed and it makes for a mellower brew. Its pretty time consuming so on the last batch I went back to just running the fruit through the food processor.

Good luck with your brew.

Ive been experimenting with a few recipes recently, are you leaving some of the fresh ginger loose in the FV?

I haven't done that, as I put all the fruit and fermentables into my BIAB bag I just take the lot out at the end of the short mash.

When do you think peak conditioning time is? More like pale beers or wine?

I imagine it will last me a long time if I brew 5g so it's a bit of a moot question, but I'm interested to know.

Also, I think I'm just going to put fresh ginger in as I don't have any ground ginger and may as well buy the real thing rather than the powdered backup.

Yes Ed, it drinks fairly young.

adding a level teaspoon of chilli powder to the fv adds a great firery kick, but when i added a tablespoon in error that was TOO much, the resulting beer needed diluting 50/50 with juice to stop your mouth tingling with a sup

@Robdob,
Yes, I put everything into the bag then boiled.

That's great thanks LeithR, looking forward to this one...

I made 12l to 1.040 and pitched 11g of dried yeast. I was expecting it to ferment out really quickly but a week later it was still at 1.020. So I upped the temp to 20 and it'll stay for another week.

I also dunk sparged the grist in more boiling water and made some hot lemon and ginger drink for SWMBO. She enjoyed it so I have high hopes for the actual ginger beer!

Think I over diluted mine! Got 23ltrs of mildly ginger bitter water.. Destined for the drain!

Mine was also more bitter than I expected. Perhaps I boiled for too long; I definitely didn't zest the fruit - I put the whole lot in.

I also think mine is not gingery enough and too much alcohol (it was 1.040 OG and 0.994 FG) although I imagine these flavours will meld together better as it conditions. It has only just been bottled so I'll report back in another month.

Just checked my brew book notes, like you Bad Ed, I didn't zest, whole lot got chopped and boiled for 30 mins. My OG was 1.052 and finished at 1.000,so strong like yours. Perhaps I'll leave it then and see if it improves. Mines not very fruity though.

Mine's pretty fruity. I think did 3 lemons, 3 limes and two oranges in a 12l batch.

I've had another one of this again tonight after being in the bottle a bit longer.

It's not fizzy enough which is annoying. But other than that the overriding flavour I'm getting is the bitterness from boiling the pith of the fruit too long. Next time I'm going for more ginger, possibly less fruit and definitely juicing or zesting the fruit. Also probably less alcohol.

I had another of my ginger beers today; another three months in the bottle and it's actually turned into a pretty decent drink. The bitterness and fruit have mellowed, the ginger has become much more prevalent and the alcohol taste has disappeared.

I will definitely do this again (avoiding adding the pith this time) and hopefully it will take less time to mature into a nice tipple.