Ginger beer

[Philipek]

I've been drinking my TC fermented with cinnamon. It's delicious. I was never really into cider, but this stuff is almost as good as beer. I've since obtained 20 litres of pressed cider apple juice, which I'll ferment by the yeasts already present in the juice. Some people on the forum say that TC is rubbish saying it's nowhere near as good as the real thing. If I like TC this much, I can't imagine how much I'll enjoy the real deal.

I've been glued to Victorian farm since it started showing on TVO, not least because they seem to do homebrew each week in what looks like the least sanitary of conditions. One week they made ginger beer, which inspired me. I only like two soft drinks - ginger beer and malt drink. I thought that, considering how much better tasting beer is to malt drink, adding yeast to ginger beer would do it the world of good.

I used this recipe http://www.netcooks.com/recipes/Beverag ... .Beer.html scaled down to 12 litres and erred on the high side with the ginger. Forgot to add the cream of tartar, though. Anyone got any ideas what this is adding to the beverage?

There's also recipes on the net for making a ginger plant. Has anyone tried this? This, apparently, is the traditional way of making ginger beer. I may give this a go at some point.

I'll report back when I'm drinking the stuff.

[wgardner]

Wow great recipie - gonna get a brew on this for the weekend.

One question, the recipie does not mention priming... I was going to put this into a barrel.

Let me know how it goes anyway, good luck!

[Philipek]

It's still fermenting. I forgot to put the cream of tartar in. I don't know what it's for, but a brief search on what exactly this cream of tartar is shows that it's not cream and it's certainly not tartar sauce. I think it might work as some kind of yeast nutrient, but that's little more than a wild guess.

Yeah, it didn't mention priming, but I'd like fizzy ginger beer. The guy says bottle it after a week. It's been over two weeks, I checked the gravity and it was at 1.020. Because it's table sugar, I would expect this to ferment down to 1.000 or lower, so I'm not going to risk putting that in bottles. But I have the feeling that he's stopping or slowing the fermentation by chilling it.

Phil

[wgardner]

How's the brew looking Phil?

[trucker5774]

As I recall from attempting nettle beer, the cream of tartar along with the lemon is to provide acid. As the brew is not a true beer due to not having any grain in it. The mistake I made was to add the acids to my nettle beer along with grain. It was way too sour

[Philipek]

How's the brew looking Phil?

Just bottled it yesterday. It went down to .999 in the end and it took almost three weeks rather than the one mentioned in the recipe. I wonder if that guy was bottling at 1.020 and slowing the fermentation by chilling it. Either that or he had it going at a higher temperature, my kitchen is between 16 and 18 degrees.

I didn't use any priming sugars because it was still bubbling out the airlock, so I reckon there are a couple of degrees to go. I had a glass from out the bottling bucket. There was no sweetness but was gorgeous - much better than the barely gingery syrup that passes for ginger beer. Don't think I could drink a pint of the stuff in one go. It's potent. There's a lot of ginger sting in there and it works out at about 7%. Don't know how I'm going to get through the 2 litre pop bottles.

Here's an idea to give some sweetness to TCs and ginger beers: my LHBS sells lactose in 500g bags. I understand that yeast doesn't do lactose. Do you suppose I could add some of that prior to bottling to avoid the 'one lump or two in your pint?' situation.

Thanks for the info on cream of tartar, Trucker. It's quite sour as it is with the lemons and the ginger has so much sting, I don't think it could benefit from more sourness.

[trucker5774]

That's interesting to know about the lactose. Ive been looking out for it but keep missing it of my shopping list, I can think of a few brews I would have used it in. Where is your local shop, Philipek?

[Philipek]

Sorry Trucker, my LHBS is in East Toronto.

They didn't always have it. Since I started brewing in March, their selection of goodies has blossomed. I think the recession is boom time for them.

So you'd agree with me that lactose would be a viable way of sweetening up a beverage that would normally ferment dry?

[trucker5774]

Just as I hit send............I remembered you were in Canada,............we have a lot of your geese here at the moment (noisey buggers) but very tastey!
Yes I think that lactose would be a good way of sweetening. I add apple juice to my TC when I serve it. To add a non fermentable early on would be a better way to go. Let us know how much yhou use so we can compare notes in the future.

[Philipek]

There we go, I just edited my profile. I caused a bit of consternation on another thread where some earnest retailer thought I'd bought a faulty bucket from him/her.

They're not my geese, you can't prove it. Do you really eat them? Isn't that illegal? Or is that swans? I can never remember which waterfowl you can kill and which you can't. I don't suppose you'd be very popular down at the park duck pond with your bow and arrow but it'd save a few bob come Christmas.

My family don't exchange gifts, so they have more than enough money to shell out on a goose for Christmas. We sit in the kitchen so as to avoid Christmas telly, raising innumerable glasses of port and mulled wine in our traditional Christmas toast - 'bah humbug'. I won't say I hate turkey, but I adore duck and goose. It's the only way to go for Christmas dinner.

My Canadian family, on the other hand, go in for the gifts in a big way. We've only just sold the last bit of junk from last year's consumer fest.

Back on topic

I saw it on sale, but didn't buy any. I have added apple juice but found that I prefer it as is, as do my closest friends. I much prefer dry cider to the very sweet stuff, but I might get some anyway, as acquaintances seem to want a bit of sweetness. The plan was to add eight degrees worth of lactose so that it finishes at around 1.008 - the same as beer. That would take the dry edge off hopefully without being too sweet. But I will let you know how this turns out.

[trucker5774]

That reminds me of a guy who was accused of killing and eating an eagle. "It was already dead when I found it", said the accused..............."What did it taste like" asked the judge "A bit like swan", came the reply

[Philipek]

Just tasted the ginger beer. It's good stuff. A great ginger taste and prickle. I was a bit worried about it because it's not sweet, but it's turned out great.

Might see if I can post a photo.

[wgardner]

Just tasted the ginger beer. It's good stuff. A great ginger taste and prickle. I was a bit worried about it because it's not sweet, but it's turned out great.

Might see if I can post a photo.

Very interested - am going to make some this weekend.

[LemonD]

Phil,
Did you add the boiled lemon rinds & ginger to the FV? Or just the wort?

Jeff

[Philipek]

I had quite forgotten about my ginger beer. I put it away with my conditioning ale on a high shelf in the basement. Thanks for reminding me. I went and checked on my beer as I took a pint of the ginger beer down - clearing nicely. This cold conditioning is great.

I'm drinking the ginger beer as I write this. It's delicious, but I am a big fan of ginger. It's quite dry but not as dry as nun's crochet (never understood that expression) and it's got a great ginger bite. I dare say it would make a great mixer for those that like that sort of thing.

Here's a picture of my ginger beer.

LemonD, one of the guides I read to making ginger beer said not to add the lemon and ginger bits, so I put the 'wort' through a sieve into the fermenter. I actually ate about a third of the ginger, it took on a lot of sweetness and lost a bit of its ginger bite because of being boiled with the sugar. It was delicious. It took bloody ages to ferment, but the kitchen was quite cold and, other than sugar and oxygen, I don't think there's much for the yeast to chew on.

ChisX1, I saw the episode where they drank the beer they made. That was hilarious. There was some instinctive face screwing that was suppressed and some polite comments - "well, it's beer", but they did drink it all, so I surmised that it was awful, but drinkable - like Heineken. It's surprising that it turned out so bad considering they shoved straw in it and used a chamber pot as part of their brewing set up.

Interestingly, their other brewing experiments turned out quite well. Their cider was a hit, as was their ginger beer. It kind of mirrors my brewing career

It's been remarked on in tap room, but I must say it here - I thought it was an excellent series. University book bods trying to live their subject and failing, but being terribly excited about everything. That's what reality TV should be, not tarts and twits pawing each other. In fact, when I come to power I will institute national service. Every able bodied young man and woman will spend two years in another historical epoch.

Oh god! I'm rambling, the ginger beer must be quite strong, but I can't taste the alcohol because of the massive ginger taste. Actually, it was 1.050 so it must be around 6.5%, isn't it?. That's murderously strong when you're a lightweight like I am.

Drunk posting - hurrah!

Edit - I just re-read the thread. I said that I couldn't imagine drinking a whole pint of this stuff. I polished off a pint in about 20 mins while wandering about the web. I mixed about one gil of it with PC Naturally Flavoured Cranberry Sparkling Soda (reading off the label) to see how it goes with a soft drink. It's okay. Anyway, I just want the 2l PET bottle (got to bottle some guinness and I'm out of glass bottles - had to go dustbin diving on recycling day).