Ginger Beer From Scratch

[Gillies Brewing]

I've seen plenty of people doing ginger beer from cans, which is great but I want to make my life difficult.

Enter Colin in one of the BrewArt FB groups:

Before I launch into it I have a couple of questions I want to run past the brains trust with my plan:

Firstly, I only have m54 and m66 yeast. Also a smattering of BrewArt yeasts and I'd be interested in hearing opinions about what kind of YX would work best, but for this one I'd rather do one of my jacks or order something in since all my Y sachets correspond to a brew I have ready to go. Anyway, I'm leaning to the M54 since it's more like the 34/70 listed, from what I can see. Interestingly, that yeast is apparently lager style but operates at ale temperatures (I guess like a California Steam Ale), so I'd bump up the temp a bit from Colin's recipe.

Secondly I can see this is going to be one dry son of a mother. Kits use artificial sweetener, and commercial brews mostly pasteurize the beer and add sugar. As I see it, I have 3 options: firstly, enjoy my bone-dry ginger beer; secondly, add a few dissolved sachets of splenda or any sweetener other than Stevia because I hate it (and risk it tasting like a kit or pepsi max); or thirdly cough up for some lactose which I don't have at home but I know is sometimes used for ciders by people on here.

Thirdly I was just going to use some wine yeast nutrient I got a while back at the brew shop, are they all adequate? I haven't used them before.

I don't know what hot cubing is, but my plan was to probably not strain the ginger out and just use my dry hop filter, and I'll use ~800g because my local shop sells it's discount ginger in ~400g packs

Interested to hear people's thoughts - I know it's been a hot topic over the years

[Gillies Brewing]

Well, I put this on last night. I am... optimistic is the wrong word. Delusional?

Anyway, this was the process:

1. chopped the ginger (800g), kinda roughlyish. chucked it in a pot with hot water. Didn't peel the ginger, just gave it a wash. Figured a) the boiling would take care of any yeast or bacteria, and b) the people who make like kombucha and stuff always talk about making a "ginger bug" out of the natural yeasts on the skin. 

2. chucked in a small cinnamon stick and the whole thin peel of a lemon. I juiced about half the lemon in too, but it was pretty dry and bitter so I didn't do much of it.

3. brought it to a boil, then dropped the temp to about 75c (a good rolling simmer) for about an hour. I added 1/2 a cup of nice honey which I'm hoping will give it a bit more "body" and complexity to the taste. then took it off the heat and let it sit til it cooled.

4. filled up the droid most of the way with cool water. Added the wort. Didn't strain it, just left everything in there. Added the 1kg dextrose in powder form, like if you added 4 X5s. checked the temperature and added the M54. Set the temperature to 20/18/18/4, in line with the recommendations for that yeast which was 18-20c (weirdly high).

5. Forgot to add the yeast nutrient until this morning. Added 8g of wine yeast nutrient because that's what I had, it said do 12-18g per 23L batch. Brew was definitely very active. Got the Fermentation Detected notification shortly after. 

Will update again after bottling. I went the "dry" option, because I figure if it needs sweetness I can add a little sugar syrup to the glass before pouring.

[Thagomizer]

@Gillies Brewing: Thanks for a fine contribution.  My Bride loves ginger beer and I see this as a golden opportunity.  When I try this, I am sure I will be adding some sweetener.

[Gillies Brewing]

I'll let you know how it goes!

For sweetener I think you can just put some splenda or whatever artificial sweetener you like. I believe the way to do it is dissolve it in some hot water and pour that in at the start. Or lactose but that's pretty light sweetness.

[Rob Courtney]

I know I'm late to the party here but I wonder what honey would have done as a sweetner

[Gillies Brewing]

15 hours ago, Rob Courtney said:

I know I'm late to the party here but I wonder what honey would have done as a sweetner

From what I know, it doesn't really sweeten much, just adds flavours. Like if you drink mead it's not sweet. If you pasteurised it and added honey that would work, or I could dissolve a spoon of it in water and put that in my glass before pouring.

I tasted a little out of the droid yesterday just to make sure it hadn't gone too wrong, and it was delicious so far. Obviously still super sweet but I just wanted to make sure it didn't taste weird already.

[Wazza_wantsbeer]

Also late to this party but didn't want to miss out on all the fun as I've been plannig to do a fruit with ginger selzter in the near future as my inlaws very successfully grow their own ginger and we have just received a whole heap of it.

@Gillies Brewing your process to make ginger beer is essentially the same as how I make hard seltzer. I've made more than 25 of those in my Droid now and I've learnt a few things.

First, I'd say you don't need to pasteurize as long as you are, 1 hour is overkill from all the reading I've done, 20-30 minutes at 75-80°C is more than enough.

The one thing I've noticed making seltzer is that you want to get as much of the fruit exposed to your water to impart the flavour. So much so that I smash, mash, slice, etc. the fruit as much as possible.

From what I've read and seen on the interwebs, I'd suggest that you thinly slice and or crush the ginger into the smallest size you can to give the greatest surface area exposure between water and ginger to extract every ounce of flavour.

In terms of yeast and yeast nutrients, I've been using a variety of both and I've pretty much settled on the following for the hard seltzers:
Yeast:  Omega Lutra (a Kveik strain), LalVin EC-1118 (Champagne/wine yeast) and LalBrew Voss Kveik

Any Kveik yeast will brew hot and fast, the Lutra is clear and very nuetral whilst the Voss brings a orange/citrus flavour when fermented at 30°C.

The LalVin EC-1118 is something I've only recently been using and have had great results.

In terms of nutrients, I can't go past Lallemand Yeast Life O which is "the yeast nutrient of choice for fermentation of high sugar/nutrient based fermented beverages such as hard seltzer or very clean beer styles such as lagers and pilsner". On top of that, I also use DAP,  Diammonium Phosphate.

I also use double the recommend amount of Yeast Life O and a full 10g of DAP as the one time I skimped, I ended up with a seltzer with horrible rhino farts, that sulfer smell and flavour produced by yeast that is under duress.

[Gillies Brewing]

Hit EOF last night at 8 days. I'm going to give it at least 2 more days at kegging temp to clean up - I suspect the ginger bits might have some more sugar hiding inside, and I really really don't want to explode any bottles. Then I'm going to cold crash because it's looking very cloudy and I want all the ginger floaties to sink if they can. When I bottle I will be using the white (finest mesh) bouncer filter to hopefully keep as much out as possible.

Had another little taster out of the droid to see how things are progressing because I have poor impulse control.

Interesting now that it's not sweet. Definitely happy with the ginger level. Nice and spicy. I am suspecting the other flavours might be a bit thin, could put a teabag or 2 in next time. Carbonation will help that too. I'm already thinking about a variation with kaffir lime and lemongrass.

A little bit of an eggy smell straight out of the droid that cleared up quick. Will follow @Wazza_wantsbeer's advice and not skimp on the nutrients if I'm doing something like this again. Any chance that will off-gas and clear up a little over the next couple of days?

The surprising/concerning thing was it was a little sour. I'm not going to pop the lid. I'm leaning towards thinking that's the natural flavours (after all there's the peel and half the juice of a lemon in there) now that the sugar isn't balancing those flavours out, but it could be an infection. We'll find out in time. Anyway it wasn't *unpleasantly* sour and no other off tastes, so even if there is something in there it might not be so bad...

The main reason I cooked it for so long was to extract flavour, and also because I was hoping to round out the flavour a little with cooking it, less of a raw, grassy taste.

[Gillies Brewing]

Bottling day today on day 13, after 2 days on keg and 2 days on storage.

Firstly, out of the droid, holy moly is that clear!

It also definitely wasn't infected which was good.

Taste was gingery. A little watery. Could definitely taste some body, but could do with a bit more. I think fizz will help it a lot. Looking forward to the final product!

[Wazza_wantsbeer]

On 14/08/2024 at 7:14 AM, Gillies Brewing said:

Bottling day today on day 13, after 2 days on keg and 2 days on storage.

Firstly, out of the droid, holy moly is that clear!

It also definitely wasn't infected which was good.

Taste was gingery. A little watery. Could definitely taste some body, but could do with a bit more. I think fizz will help it a lot. Looking forward to the final product!

Looks excellent, great result.

I also wanted to add a couple of things to my last post with a couple more suggestions as I've been thinking about my next seltzer which will definitely incorporate ginger.

After watching my wife cook with ginger resently, I'm thinking a good way to extract as much taste and flavour from the ginger is to grate it. And not just grate it but use a bowl to grate into so you capture the juice that comes out as that is quite powerful.

Another is that I always use a half or full whirlfloc tablet which will help with clarity (not that yours needs it from those pictures).

And, if you want to back sweeten, make sure you use a potassium metabisulfite (the main ingredient in a campden tablet) to kill any remaining yeast before kegging or bottling or you might end up with a fizzy bomb from secondary fermenation.

[Gillies Brewing]

Ok today was the day!

(I will confess I had a bottle early, warm, because I found an imperfection in the bottle and didn't want to risk it...)

Chilled both the beer and glass pretty cold for this one.

I cannot overstate how clear this is! In the picture, the glass is foggy since I chilled it and it's still clear!

I found this very enjoyable. I definitely have notes for improvement, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The amount of ginger is perfect in my opinion. Strongly gingery. If you drink the whole bottle fairly fast your tongue feels a little funny from the ginger. Carbonation has greatly improved the taste. The lemon is important and I would consider adding a little more zest and/or juice - it adds a nice bit of citrus and a little bit of bitterness. Can't taste the cinnamon at all, would consider using powdered or breaking up the stick, or using a bit more. I wouldn't get rid of it because I'm trying to add flavour not take it away.

Apparently the bit of sulfur must have off-gassed or something because I didn't taste or smell anything eggy or farty at all.

I found the yeast taste quite strong from this one. It's a very "bready" and clear tasting yeast, I would use the M54 again. The yeastiness and carbonation make up a large part of the "body" flavour. If you used a yeast that aims to eliminate yeasty taste, you would probably find this recipe quite watery.

The dryness is about right for me. It's definitely very dry, but there's a little lingering something, maybe unfermentables from the honey and other ingredients, maybe it's from the carb drop and going to disappear and I'll be puckering my lips in a few weeks, I'm not sure. Anyway, I like it. If you like sweet ginger beer you won't like it. I haven't tried it with a bit of sugar added to the glass yet so I can't comment on that.

The "texture" is a lot like drinking a soft drink, but so are most commercial ginger beers. But it doesn't have that sugary syrupiness, which is a win in my book.

Booze content should be about 5% by my calcs - 4% from 1kg dextrose, 0.5% from 2ndary carb drop, a bit under 0.5% from the honey, and rounding up because you never know with adjuncts and I'd rather overestimate than underestimate. In saying that, I had 1 stubbie and it did have an effect so maybe I missed something, or maybe I'm just a lightweight tonight 🤷

My thoughts for future experiments:

- keep the same yeast

- a bit more nutrient

- consider adding more lemon, maybe do a lemon and a lime

- I'd consider more honey. I don't know if I'd reduce the dextrose to compensate.

- On that note I'd consider using cane sugar instead of dextrose, maybe raw sugar? More unfermentables, more flavours and body hopefully, and maybe a bit more sweetness.

- I'd definitely put a bit of tea in, I don't know if I'd steep it when I cook it, or chuck it in the fermenter when it's cold, but I like tea and I think it could add some more "background" flavour

- maybe more spices, could try a couple of cloves and an anise, or go some south east Asian flavours.

Overall, I'd say a great success. I'd recommend this method, but with whatever modifications you feel necessary.