Ginger beer

[CrealCritter]

Made up 3 gallons of ginger beer. Just completed and its in the primary fermenter. Shooting for 4% ABV, seeing a little bubbling action already

Recipe:
http://phickle.com/fermentation-basics-ginger-beer/

 

[CrealCritter]

Day 2 - ginger bug yeast is most definitely a top feeder like ale yeast is. This is probably why ginger beer is also called ginger ale. Its not an extremely active yeast either, which is good for me. From what I've read so far it has a low alcohol tolerance @ 4.0 ~ 4.5% before it becomes inactive. So if you want a hard ginger beer, skip the ginger bug and go with a champagne yeast, something like White Labs WLP715, which in neutral tasting and has a high alcohol tolerance of 17% would be a good choice.

Sumi's recipe called for cream of tarter. This is for head retention, like what you would expect from a cream soda or cream ale. I may try this, for my brew of root beer. After my 2nd ginger bug comes to life. Also her recipe calls for raisins, raisins are another type of sugar or food for the yeast to eat through, producing an additional flavor. tartaric acid is also an additional food producing an additional flavor but I used juice from fresh lemons instead.

I suspect this batch of ginger beer will take 7 to 10 days to fully ferment. Before I bottle it along with priming sugar, I may add cream of tarter during bottling. It's interesting to note how ginger yeast behaves, as it eats trough the sugars, it does so in colonies. Cream of tater would definitely help bind it all together better. But 1/4 cup of active bug juice per gallon of water, seems to be a good ratio for yeast reproduction.

You can see we have yeast reproduction occurring and the beer is starting to clarify somewhat. So far so good... Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[CrealCritter]

My daughter said it tastes like "gari" or pickled ginger that they serve when eating sushi in between dishes. IDK... I've never eaten sushi. She took 8 bottles so she must like it.

But something really strange has happened... My hands and fingers don't hurt. It's been years since I haven't had pain in my fingers and hands. My daughter googled health benefits for ginger and said reading off some webpage

Ginger may reduce muscle pain and soreness. The anti-Inflammatory effects can help with arthritis.

Had I known this, I would have brewed this stuff up years ago.

 

[sumi]

Oh, lovely! I haven't had ginger beer in years, but used to drink it a lot in S.A. where they even sold homemade in the restaurant in town.

Funny story: My mom tried her hand at making some one day. She managed to let the brew get quite alcoholic in the process. A day or so later she came home from running errants and found my dad out of his wheelchair, lying in the doorway to the bathroom. She ran to check on him and discovered he tried and enjoyed her ginger beer and, not expecting it to be quite so potent, drank quite a bit of it. He got quite drunk as a result and on his way to the bathroom fell out of his wheelchair and decided to stay on the floor and sleep it off!

Needless to say that was the last time she tried her hand at making ginger beer!

(My dad was left an "incomplete quadriplegic" after a botched back surgery following a car accident. Hence the need for a wheelchair)

 

[CrealCritter]

Day 3 - nice peacefully top ferment going on in there. The bug yeast seems happy chewing though the sugars and producing co2 & alcohol in its wake.

There is a fair amount of sediment (trub) dropping to the bottom already, which is good.

No visual evidence of any secondary infection. Sanitation is #1 rule of thumb when fermenting. So far so good, fingers continue to remain crossed.

 

[CrealCritter]

Day 5 - some notable condensation forming inside the carboy. This is totally expected and means there is alcohol present. Alcohol floats on top of water, where the top feeding bug yeast is present. As the bug yeast produces co2 there is a tiny amount of alcohol within the gas. As the gas hits the side of the carboy, the alcohol collects as a vapor. gravity will cause it to run back down into the beer.

If you look right below the bubbles there is a line of alcohol, might be hard to see in this picture though. Again no visual signs of secondary infection and no off smell when I sniffed the air lock. So far so good

 

[CrealCritter]

Bottling.

After sterilizing all my gear and syphoning just the good stuff from the top. I was left with a bunch of trub in the bottom of the carboy. I took a final gravity reading with my hydrometer and calculated the alcohol content of 4.1% I couldn't believe it so I measured again, yep sure 4.1% egads.

Trub

About 3 gallons of ale syphoned in to the bottling bucket.

Then poured myself a test taste glass, gave it a good snifaroo. Smells delicious, good amount of ginger and just a little lemon. I took a big mouth full and sloshed it around in my mouth. It wasn't overly sweet and kind of reminded me of some kind of spiked lemonade drink. I swallowed and my ears started to heat up, closely followed by a sinus clearing. Phew Its tangy hot going down, not like hot pepper hot but most definitely tangy hot! So I finished the rest of the glass and it was quite enjoyable actually.

Next I added my 3 cups of blueberry flavored bottling primer to the ale and gently stirred it in. And poured myself a taste test of it. Now we're talking... This is more like a soda should be, some what sweet and tangy and a little less hot.

Then I proceeded to bottle, I yielded about 22 and 1/2 pints. I'll let these sit until the plastic pet bottles get hard, indicating that they are carbonated. Then stick them in the refrigerator. To slow the carbonation down.

Right now I'm drinking what's left from the 1/2 pint from the bottom of the bucket. Its not carbonated but tastes pretty good. We'll see how it does over time. I'm pretty confident it will mellow some over time.

 

[CrealCritter]

@CrealCritter I'm not seeing raisins in there? That's how I learned it's made. Or maybe it's an S.A. thing? Recipe from "home" https://www.my-easy-cooking.com/2008/03/09/3-cheers-for-ginger-beer/

So many different recipes out there

Day 1 - its alive... We keep the house cool (62 ~ 65 degrees) so hoping for a nice slow, non explosive ferment . It's a pita to have to install a blow off tube.

 

[CrealCritter]

Thanks, FEM. It was incredibly hard for him, but though he struggled, he stayed positive too. His favourite radio station called him one day and interviewed him. He told the broadcaster, "I can do ANYTHING! I just can't climb stairs" He passed away nearly 13 years ago and we miss him so much...

And yes, he did really enjoy that ginger beer! Gosh, we teased him and my mom over that incident for a long time afterwards...

You are a lady of high character, glad your our admin!

 

[CrealCritter]

Cool process! Hope it turns out really tasty!

It is kind of a cool process to go from ginger root to fermented drink.

1lb Fresh organic ginger root

Ginger root shredded with food processor

Boil ginger root & 4 1/2 cups white sugar in 1 gallon water for 30 minutes. Allow to cool.

Add juice of 1 1/2 fresh lemon to pot through strainer.

Pour into carboy through strainer, add 2 gallons water. Shake carboy for 5 minutes to airrate. Add 3 cups strained ginger bug juice. Install bung and airlock. Sit in a dark place that will see no sunlight. Don't touch, cross fingers and let it do what its going to do.