What unfermentables?

[TheRedDarren]

Hiya,

I made a batch of ginger beer last week and pitched some champagne yeast. It's a simple recipe with not much in the way of unfermentables...

10 litres.
1.7 kg of fresh ginger.
5 tsp ground ginger.
1kg of brown sugar.
2x oranges.
2x lemons.
2x limes.
OG of 1.040
FG of 0.997 (ish)

It's fermented out but drier than Gandis sandles...
So before bottling I'm going to add some unfermentables to sweeten it up a bit.
I have lactose which might work well but wondered if the collective had any ideas on what I might use?

 

[IainM]

Hiya,

I made a batch of ginger beer last week and pitched some champagne yeast. It's a simple recipe with not much in the way of unfermentables...

10 litres.
1.7 kg of fresh ginger.
5 tsp ground ginger.
1kg of brown sugar.
2x oranges.
2x lemons.
2x limes.
OG of 1.040
FG of 0.997 (ish)

It's fermented out but drier than Gandis sandles...
So before bottling I'm going to add some unfermentables to sweeten it up a bit.
I have lactose which might work well but wondered if the collective had any ideas on what I might use?

There are two things here. Body, and sweetness. I added 1tsp glycerine for body, and didn't sweeten as I don't mind dry, but served it with lemonade to those that I thought would. You can use artificial sweetener to backsweeten, just as you would with a cider. You could use lactose, which would help with body, and also sweetness a bit but less so.

 

[braziliain]

I made a very similar recipe recently and added 4tsp/L Splenda.

 

[TheRedDarren]

Is splenda not fermentable then?

 

[Pfeffer]

The maltodextrine fillers in splenda would most likely slowly ferment, but I'm pretty sure the sucralose will not ferment. As the maltodextrine is different from sucrose (complex glucose polymer vs simple disacharid) I can imagine it will metabolize slower and that it might give off flavors.

For example Americans use corn syrup to sweeten softdrinks and candy; the exact same stuff tastes different/off in Europe, as we're used to beet sugar. So I'm not too sure if I'd risk brewing a big batch with it.

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi!
I've made a ginger beer to roughly the same recipe, and it's as dry as a Pommie's towel.
I plan to leave it dry and add a little sugar syrup when serving, rather than back-sweeten with artificial sweetener.

 

[Pfeffer]

I think that's would be the safest and tastiest option; plus everyone can decide for him/herself how dry they want to drink it.

 

[braziliain]

Is splenda not fermentable then?

I was led to believe that it wouldn't. All I can say is that my bottles didn't explode after 2 weeks in the warm priming and still haven't exploded yet!!