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Ginger beer recipe

merry miller

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As an irregular visitor to the forum I have only just spotted last September's post by Tim, alias boyzey86, requesting a good recipe for ginger beer at about 5% ABV.  If this is still needed I have one which I could offer the forum.

David
 
Well it sounds like something I would be interested in, along with any comments about the amount of ginger flavor you ended up with.
 
SharpsRifle
I have just uploaded my recipe to the cloud as Merry Miller's Ginger Ale, although I note that BeerSmith Cloud has changed a lot of ingredients' weights from metric to Imperial - which gives it an odd appearance.  I tend to be a bit fussy with multiple grain types but you could probably simplify the recipe and get a similar result*.  Built into the uploaded recipe are the amounts of ginger and my taste notes for your guidance.
*I made a few changes when I brewed it a second time because of shortage of some ingredients but it made no discernible difference.

Enjoy

Merry Miller
 
Thanks! I'll go check it out. 
I don't mind if the conversation caused odd grain amounts. .
I'm going to be weighing and milling anyway.
 
When the recipe says 0.5 items lemon juice, would that item be tablespoons?
Same with say orange or lemon zest.  1 items of something is a little vague for me.  How much do you use?
 
Here is one I did last year and it turned out very good...Now I make it ever January for my lawnmower beer.
Use fresh ginger! The prepackaged stuff gets really "hot" in the bottle and kills the brew taste.
Next batch, I think I am going to add a bit of honey to the recipe and see what happens.
 

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  • GINGER ALE IV.bsmx
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Specifically to SharpsRifle - sorry for the delay, as I said I am an irregular visitor.
1 item lemon zest = the zest of 1 lemon
1 item sweet orange zest = zest of 1 sweet orange
0.5 lemon juice = the juice of half a lemon
Sadly I could not work out a better way of fitting these items into BeerSmith.

I hope this is not too late for your brew.

And re Billy Brew's comments, it is a very good 'lawnmower beer' which is why I brew it myself.  Also I agree, the ginger has to be freshly grated root ginger.

Merry Miller
 
I made a Ginger spice beer on May 26, 2013 with my nephew.  Since he paid for the ingredients, I got a six pack and he got the rest.  Out of mine, two bottles were entered in a competition.  It only scored 25, mostly because the ginger was lacking in it.

About three weeks ago he cracked open a bottle that he had been saving.  It had aged for 18 months.  The ginger was finally there.  It was an awesomely refreshing beer with the added aging.  I wish I had two more bottles of it to enter into a competition now.  I believe it would have scored 35 or higher with the proper aging!

I learned a lesson with that brew.  When brewing with ginger, give it time to age!  We used 1 ounce of fresh grated ginger root in the boil.

I will make that beer again!!

I have a gingerbread lager in my carboy (lagering) at 40F right now.  This is also my nephews beer.  I tasted it when it was racked over to the secondary and there is a hint of ginger in there, which I fully expect to come out more and more with age.

Lesson learned.  Give ginger time to come out.
 
we did a ginger beer a few years ago but it was before we were doing all grains. we augmented a can beer kit we got on sale so if we messed up it wouldn't have mattered. we used real ginger and alot of itand it wasn't as sweet as we would have liked. i like the idea of the citrus fruit. i think if i do one again i will add lactose to give it a unfermentable sweetness that comes with ginger beer
 
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