Finnagann wrote:drsmurto wrote:Did the same with my ginger beers.
Brewed them to 7%. Dry as a bone but diluted with ~1/3 by volume of lemonade and it went down a treat in summer a few years back.
I like the sounds of that doc, cuts right past the sweetness problem. Do you have a recipe kickin around here anywhere?
Probably but since its so simple i store it in my memory
For 20L
2.75kg raw sugar
1.25 kg fresh ginger
1 stick of cinnamon
6 cloves
2 lemons
champagne yeast
Nutrient (a few packets of old kit yeast will do)
OG 1.054, FG 1.000. 7.0% abv.
Process the ginger, skin and all. Slice the lemons. Throw everything but the champagne yeast (kit yeast goes in) into a pot and add enough boiling water to dissolve the sugar. Boil for 30 mins.
Strain into a fermenter, top up to 20L, aearate and pitch yeast.
Champagne yeast is very temperature tolerant. It wont form much of a krausen so don't panic if it doesn't look like its doing much. Check the SG to work out whether fermentation is taking place.
I carbonate this high. ~3.0 volumes of CO2 so bulk prime with 180g of dextrose.
I drank this as is but a few mates (males and females) thought it was a touch dry so i starting watering it down with lemonade. Doing this adds sweetness and also brings it down to a more manageable 5% (ish).
I recall going to bbqs with an esky full of longnecks of these and a few 2L bottles of lemonade. Always went home with an empty esky.
One thing i did find when playing around with ginger beers is that the taste of ginger changes with time. If you leave it in the fridge for a few months it loses its aroma but the spiciness increases. So i started deliberately 'blending' the ginger. My favourite ratio was 0.75g fresh and 0.5kg 2 month old ginger. I always have ginger in my fridge for making curry/stir fries etc so i was used to making adjustments to my curry pastes according to the age of the ginger.
