I have fallen for housemade ginger beer at a very neat place in Charleston, SC over the weekend called The Rarebit, great cocktails.
I came home from our short vacation and decided to make some home made ginger beer with what we had in the fridge.
I boiled and steeped 8oz. of peeled and chopped fresh ginger with 4 cups of water and 3/4 cup of packed brown sugar. Once to a boil, I killed the heat and let the mixture steep for an hour. I then strained and cooled, added approximately 2 liters of cool water and pitched some dry yeast and the juice of one lime and two lemons. My recipe said to keep at room temp for 48 hours to carbonate and then refrigerate. It called for champagne yeast.
The recipes said that the beer would not keep for very long, maybe a week in the fridge. If we followed brewing sanitation procedures, why wouldnāt the bottles keep indefinitely? Not taking flavor loss into consideration, what do commercial ginger beer makers do that makes their safe for the shelves? The recipe also warned of exploding bottles and over carbonation, but the recipe is fairly dryā¦ I canāt imagine them continuing to carbonate to that point.
My other question is, I saw another recipe that open fermented (air lock, saran wrap topped bottle opposed to a capped bottle) a ginger, sugar, water mixture at room temp for 24 hours, then strained and bottled. This procedure is more intruiging to me because I feel the ginger infusion is better than the āginger simple syrupā method above. I want some of that sediment in my beer to keep it spicy and gingery.
I add ginger to a cream ale recipe, keep the hops really low and add ginger at the end of the boil. The light malt flavor of the beer is a perfect balance to the ginger flavor. What youāre making sounds more like a ginger wine.
The recipe that lets the mixture ferment at room temp with a breathable seal says that it could ferment to around 1% ABV. Iām not sure any alcohol would be produced with a sealed top, putting too much stress on the yeast. I also saw a wild fermentation method as well.
I want to make a few batches of this for a bourbon cocktail/punch I will be making for an upcoming BBQ. If it has any ABV at all, its no problem (for me :twisted: ).
Iām going to experiment with a few different ways of making it, will report back with some findings.
I think I may stick one good peeled piece of ginger into the finished bottles so that the ginger-ness keeps on coming.
My guess is because they werenāt bottling it? Most likely any open fermented product, even if refrigerated would likely get contaminated after a week or maybe two. Also, if it ferments to completion(check your SGs) then bottle bombs would not be an issue.
Last year I did a Wheat beer that I added 8oz. ginger root to in the last 5 min. Have a few bottles left. The ginger is very strong, not much beer character at all. Not a particularly good beer, but it does make a good stomach tonic!
That looks good. I like to make Dark nā Stormys with Reedās Ginger beer and Myers rum.
If the OP is talking about NA ginger beer, I would guess a commercial version might be force carbed or pasteurized.
Iām sure you could treat it like a brewed root beer if youāre fermenting to carb, not for alcohol.[/quote]
Thatās what Iām looking to do. Although I havenāt made a brewed root beer either, so its all new to me. Iām kind of interested in the open fermentation method, I assume it changes and develops the flavor drastically. Iāll have to experiment with different types of sugars too. I think I want it to be low ABV since I want to pair it with bourbon or dark rum.
If I do start measuring gravity, are there any handy online calculators one could use to calculate priming sugar additions so as to avoid bottle bombs? Or would that differ for different types of base fermentables?
From my googling, I actually found out that in the UK they make a fairly strong alcoholic version.
Hey , i also love ginger beer but rather then making it i prefer to order different ginger beer for making my Moscow Mule.
Ginger beer takes pride in its ingredients. There are no substitutes to quality ingredients when making ginger beer. No ginger essence is added, no artificial carbonation and no high fructose syrups as sweeteners. Only fresh ginger is used here and cane sugar as a sweetener.
My personal favorite ginger beers are:-
Barrittās Original
DG Genuine Jamaican
Cock ānā Bull
The Great Jamaican Ginger Beer
You can find more about ginger beers from below:- https://advancedmixology.com/blogs/art-of-mixology/best-ginger-beer-for-moscow-mules
And if you only looking for homemade ginger beer then these are my Ingredients:
1 oz. Fresh Ginger Juice (freshly grated or store-bought)
2 oz. Fresh Lemon Juice
3 oz. Simple Syrup
12 oz. Warm Water
25 Granules of Champagne Yeast
I make homemade ginger beer very less.
