Ginger beer - Failure?

[Old Speckled Ben]

Hi everyone,

I've finished making my first dj Ginger Beer following this recipe:

http://productsfromnz.com/pics/pdf_1419.pdf

It says to ferment it for 48 hours....so I fermented it for 162 hours (yes, nearly a week)

I bottled it, left it for 24 hours to fizz up, then in to the fridge for three days

I decided to trial one of the bottles after one day in the fridge

With baited breath I put some ice in to a glass and gingerly (no pun intended) opened the bottle...

...a very satisfying fizz greated me and I poured it in to the glass

Tasting notes: Well, it ended up being about 4.5% abv and I could taste the alchohol.....and nothing else lol

It was as dry as a dry thing and had next to no flavour at all lol very fizzy, though

I've still got the rest of it in two 2l bottles in the fridge that I haven't opened, yet...got some folk coming round for a Christmas cheer evening, tomorrow night, so I might wait until they're all fairly 'merry' before I inflict this on them lol

I think I may have fermented it for far too long and lost all the sweetness

Oh well, I'm trying a Vimto TC in a couple of days, so, maybe, I'll get that one right lol

[Sooty]

looking at the recipe, it appears that it relies on you drinking it before fermentation finishes to stop it getting too dry, and leave some sweetness. There's nothing really in it, just sugar to make it alcoholic and ginger to flavour it.

[EoinMag]

If it's going to be drunk tomorrow, take some out of the bottle, make up a syrup with some sugar and add it back to the bottle, experiment with small amounts first, it won't have time to ferment out again and will be sweet when it's drunk. If you try to add sugar granules to a fizzy liquid it will go all over the place and foam over madly.
Store it in the fridge after sweetening and it won't ferment very fast at all.

[Old Speckled Ben]

Hi EoinMag,

Thanks very much for that, I'll give it a try

[Philipek]

Really? No ginger taste at all? No ginger prickle at the back of your throat?

I made this for a christmas party last year and left it for four weeks, and let it bottle condition for two. Suffice to say it was quite dry. It was very popular, and it fairly stunk of ginger. No one cut it with sprite, despite my having bought 3 bottles of the stuff for just that purpose.

[Old Speckled Ben]

Sadly not, no

I served it up, and people took a couple of sips, then gave up

My first proper attempt and it was all for not

I'm not going to give up

I'm starting a TC with apple juice and Vimto from a recipe I found on here, so, wish me luck lol