Fiery Ginger Beer - First non kit brew!

[ceejam]

Well after 3 kit beers I had been looking at ginger beer, so tonight I got on with a brew. I adapted the "Fiery Ginger Beer" recipe from viewtopic.php?f=39&t=5982&start=0&hilit=fiery+ginger

Fiery Ginger Beer - 1 gallon
300g Fresh grated ginger
1tsp Dried ground ginger
2 lemons
600g Demerarra Sugar
1/4 tsp malt vinegar (substitute for Cream of Tartar)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (just for interest, and to take some of the dry / bitterness away)
1/2 sachet champagne yeast

Boiled up the ginger and lemons for 45 mins, strained through a muslin sock into my Asda 5L PET Demijohn (95p for 5L of Scottish Water with Free demijohn - bought a bubbler airlock from LHBS)

Rinsed out the stock pot, then poured the liquor back in, added the Demerarra sugar (bought it for priming my Irish stout) then back into the Demijohn.

Topped up to 4.5L (ish) with cool spring water (which had been decanted into sterilised coke bottles), given a shake to mix, then pitched the Young's Champagne yeast (around 20 degrees C). Left for 15 Mins and given a shake.

Stuck it beside the radiator in kitchen, and now got signs of the yeast starting, so we'll see.

OG was 1052, so could be a strong one!

 

[mrfrosty]

Sounds good Jamie, always fancied trying a ginger beer :clap: Wait till you move to AG :

Rob

 

[Grumpy Jack]

Might give that one a go! Cheers :

 

[Muddy Funker]

I did a similar recipe and was really disapointed.

I think it was the champagne yeast, it just totally stripped out the sugar and left it way too dry.

I hope yours turns out well though! :thumb:

 

[ceejam]

Well, not sure if it's the champagne yeast, or too much lemon juice, but there is no gingr aroma or taste, just the heat at the back of the throat.

I added 3 teaspoons of sugar to a 100ml sample, and it tasted much better, so guessing I need to "back sweeten" - with sugar or sweetener?

Anyway, it was 1012 yesterday, and 1002 today, which makes it 6.7% in my book, and quite pleasant with the extra sugar :

 

[crisparmour]

my Asda 5L PET Demijohn (95p for 5L of Scottish Water with Free demijohn - bought a bubbler airlock from LHBS)

I picked up four of these today for brewing ale, thinking of doing a few small test brews from extract to see how I get on. Can you confirm if standard demijohn bungs with airlocks fit these? Probably easier to use them than to start drilling the lids I imagine...

 

[ceejam]

Don't know.

I just bought an airlock, drilled the lid and use blu tack tro seal the airlock to the lid

I bottled the Ginger Beer tonight - was rather dry, so I've added some caster sugar, and keeping an eye on the bottle pressure (empty coke bottles, so can squeeze them and release pressure if required)

Tastes darn good, but hoping a wee bit time will allow the ginger / lemon flavours to infuse with each other!

 

[timbim]

The seal in the top of a normal demijohn is just an electrical grommet. From memory it's 13mm, but I don't have one to hand to check. Ask a friendly electrician and you might get a load free :thumb: