Ginger Beer - Alcoholic Version

Step 3 Mixing the Beer

Now that your plant has had plenty of time for the yeast to grow and for the flavor of the ginger to diffuse into the water it is time to dilute it and put it into bottles.
This set is based completely on your personal taste, and how long your plant has been growing - the longer you've been feeding it the more ginger flavor there is...the good news is that if you get it wrong you can fix it later.
The process is to take ~1-2 gallons of 'clean' water (boil tap water) add sugar until it is sweet - like juice, maybe a little sweeter.
Now using a paper towel strain the plant liquid out of the rest and add the plant fluid to the sweet water.
Bottle the mix in the 20 oz bottles - only fill them 2/3 full because a LOT of CO2 will be produced and the bottles will explode if they are too full (air compresses more than fluid).
Place all of your bottles in an opaque rubber maid tub and place it in a warm area. Check it every day, squeeze each bottle and if you cannot compress it crack the lid and let off the pressure - the soda bottles will take ~100 psi before they explode, but if they do explode you will be cleaning sticky ginger juice off the walls for ever. Alternately you can get a fancy carboy with a water lock and carbonate your beer later.

Comments

[jimmik]

This recipe sounds really good. What is the best type of yeast to use?

[kazzarry]

Brewers yeast is the best for flavor and alcoholic content but you need to keep the temp pretty constant bread can have more variation

[czestmyr]

After reading a few articles on the Internet, I decided to use wine yeast, because it can withstand higher alcohol content in its environment. Not sure how it's in your place, but in Czech Republic, you can buy wine yeast at the chemist's (but not those where half of the shop is filled with deodorants and the other half with shampoos). Plus they sell a thing called "breeding salt", which is important (though not necessary) for the yeast as they use it to grow their cell walls. As I understand it, virtually all of the yeast used in the food industry is the same species - saccharomyces cerevisiae. For different uses, you need a little bit different properties of the yeast, so different strains are cultivated to suit the given application.

[ChrisVincent]

I've always used bread yeast, but some kind of brewing yeast might give better results and probably have less chance of getting off flavors.
You might try some basic beer yeast or maybe a wine yeast - wine or champagne yeast is usually capable of reaching higher alcohol content.

[kazzarry]

Hey good recipe just wondering how much plant juice i should ad to my batch i have a Carboy and a water lock Whats a good ratio? Also if i use all my plant do i need to make another plant to make another batch? This is my first time brewing and i was just a little confused at this point Thanks

[Jesse G]

This sounds like an awesome recipe and I can't wait to try it. I have a glass carboy with a fermentation lock and I want to bottle it in those glass beer bottles with ceramic flip tops, what is the best way to do it with this equipment ? Should I just do it like you did, but bottle it at the 'dry' stage, or ferment until it's done completely and add sugar to each bottle?

[ChrisVincent]

I've only ever done it the way that I described it above - let me know how yours turns out. If you ferment it and then bottle it you could have greater control over the flavor and add additional sugar or ginger to it when bottling. If you want a sweet flavor you can add lactose (milk sugar) it is unfermentable.

[Jesse G]

Cool, thanks. I put the mix in the carboy and it is fermenting. When would you think I should bottle and how would I carbonate it? Adding some sugar to each bottle maybe?

[wolfe.chris]

Wait until the bubbling in the airlock stops, then it's time to bottle it. Bring about two cups of water to a boil and add about 1/8 cup of sugar per gallon of ginger beer to the water. Allow it to boil for about ten minutes and then let it cool. Add the cooled sugar/water solution to the carboy and gently mix it (don't disturb the yeast cake too much). Let the yeast settle back down and then bottle it. Leave about 1/2 inch of head space in each bottle before capping and wait about seven days for the ginger beer to carbonate.

[mizunakat]

I started my plant on Sunday. I used a 24 oz. jar, and it's filled almost to the top. I've got it covered with a few layers of cheesecloth and secured with a rubber band. After it's been sitting for a while, everything appears to settle at the bottom. I'm hoping that this is okay. When I give it a stir after adding the 2 tsp of ginger powder and 4 tsp of sugar, it's got something like a fizz/lots of tiny bubbles, so I'm assuming that this is cool. I'll take a picture on Wednesday to show progress after 3 full days of feeding/growing.

[ChrisVincent]

That sounds right. When you stir it you release carbon dioxide gas that the yeast have produce and that has been absorbed into the water.

[SCF336]

I left my plant on the counter in my kitchen for the last three days and now Im not sure if my plant got too cold or what- can I jump-start the yeast if it seems like they've stopped producing CO2?

[2morrow]

How do you know how much pressure to release every few days? I'm making my plant now, but don't want to screw it up once the bottling begins.

[ChrisVincent]

you feel the bottle... if it is hard let off some pressure. To allow for more expansion space I squeezed the bottles until the fluid was at the top then put on the cap. The first week or so you need to watch the bottles more closely and have then in a secondary container to contain any possible explosions.

[2morrow]

ok....cool. Do you know anything about adding too much lemon juice to the plant? I suspect that may be the case right now. How could I counteract this and de-lemonize this batch?

[ChrisVincent]

Why do you think that you have too much lemon juice? How much did you add? and was just lemon juice or lemon rind/skin? From what I understand you would have to have almost pure lemon juice to mess up the yeast (although I'm not sure on the limits of yeast tolerance of acid). The lemon juice acid should help prevent other bacteria from taking over the plant and allow the yeast to do it's job. I would continue with feeding the plant and then instead of making a whole batch and bottling it, just make one bottle (reduce the amount of plan accordingly) if it carbonates then your good to go and can make the rest of the batch. If your worried about the taste being too lemony just dilute it till it tastes right.

[2morrow]

I added ~1/4 cup squeezed lemon to 300mL of plant....I personally think it's "too lemony" because of the smell (and comparing the smell to my 2-day batches of ginger ale)...I suppose this might not be the case once I add this to the simple syrup, so maybe I don't have an inherent problem after all. My plant has some bubbles on top and the raisins are floating...day 3! Hope this works.

[ChrisVincent]

Sounds like things are going fine - you can just keep adding syrup until things taste right. I though that mine needed stronger flavor and more lemon, so you should be fine. Let me know how it tastes.