My Crabbies clone

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keith1664

Bewildered
Joined
Sep 13, 2010
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Location
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I made this last december and finally got around to sampling it! :eek:

recipe as follows.

800g dark soft sugar
500g white sugar
450g honey
200g root ginger - grated
340g jar of stem ginger in syrup - syrup and all
juice and zest of 4 oranges and 2 lemons
3 cinnamon sticks
1 grated nutmeg
2 cardamon pods
3 star anise
5 cloves

The whole lot was brought to the boil in the biggest pan I have then simmered for 30minutes.
Then I fished out the cardamon because I thought it might be too strong if left in and topped it up to 10L with cold water.
Fermented on the pulp for a week before straining (yeast was Nottingham)
Forgotten about for a year, then I added wine stabiliser and campden tabs, sweetened to taste (700g of sugar :hmm: ) and force carbed it to 20psi in a cornie.
SG was 1068 FG 998 which would put it at 9.3%!!! :shock:

Tastewise it's not far off and it hides it's strength well.
 
7BBF0515.jpg


Mine on the left, a real one on the right.
 
Tempted to give this a go. I'm strongly considering a corny, almost entirely so I can sweeten and force carb things like this.
 
That looks very interesting Keith. Did you get the required level of carbonation and if so what was the technique. I used a cornie last summer for some ginger beer and never really got what I was looking / tasting for. ;)
S
 
Once the yeasties were knocked out by the stabiliser / campden it was sweetened to taste and then left for a week at 20psi, it's also being dispensed at 20psi but with a length of 3/16th tubing before the tap.
Carbonation level is fine according to SWMBO.
 
I've wondered about this for a long time. I'd be tempted to add a little malt, maybe wheat or something, for a head and a little residual sweetness too, and I reakon there's almost definitely passion fruit in there.

Awesome stuff mate, you've gave me a lot to think about...looks delicious too :)
 
Yeah, the wife and I had a bit of a discussion about whether to use malt, she didn't want it to taste "beery" so I didn't use any. Like I said the end result is pretty similar to Crabbies - but there is no head when poured.
If I do it again I'd reduce the sugar to get it closer to 5%.
 
Thanks Keith, I think I missed out the length of pipe, and didn't leave it long enough at the pressure, tended to get a lot of foam and not much carbonation :D
S
 
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