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Ginger

Slobrew

Master Brewer
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Mar 2, 2014
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Beverly Hills, Florida
I'm making an all grain pale ale and was going to add ginger to the recipe. I'm guessing I just grate some ginger (2 0z) and add it to the grain bill and go through the normal mash process. Anybody have any experience or suggestions with using ginger?
 
I've always added it at the end of the boil. Has worked well for me. Basically I've added it at 15 minutes left.
 
I'm with Scott. Add it at the end. Raw ginger can be harsh, so you probably want it to cook a bit, but you don't want to boil away the aroma and flavor. Think about hops for a minute. The ones that are there for the full boil add bitterness and some flavor, but no aroma. Hops added at the end give aroma and flavor but little bitterness.  What do you want from the ginger? I'm guessing you want aroma and flavor, not bitterness. So add it at the end of the boil.
 
The last beer that I used Ginger in was a Gingerbread Lager.  I used an award winning Gingerbread Ale recipe and changed the yeast to a lager yeast.  I used 3 ounces of grated fresh ginger root at 10 minutes and it's tastes wonderful. 

I also used it last summer in a Holiday Spice Beer.  I only used 1 ounce at 10 minutes with that one and the judges said they wanted more spice flavor and hit it pretty hard for the lack of spiciness.  That beer had only been in the bottle about 3 weeks when it was judged.  In February of this year, my nephew still had a 22 ounce bottle of it and we opened it and the spice was much more prevelant with the extended aging!  I think if I had held a couple of bottles of that back and entered them the following year (this coming summer" it would have scored closer to 35-40, instead of the 25 that it scored last summer.

The lesson learned is to have patience with a ginger spiced beer.  The ginger flavor and aroma will come out with aging!
 
Thanks, Scott and Maine. I'll be adding at the end of the boil. I was at my local homebrew shop today getting the grain and hops. He said that when he used ginger he added it to the fermentor. Sounded interesting but I like the idea of cooking it a little so I'll go with the boil.
 
Hey Scott, 3oz. in how many gallons? I don't do many spice beers but, just wondering.
 
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