Alcoholic Ginger Beer

[Guest wanted]

It is important to give these several flushes through with clean water if you have been using them for testing boat batteries, before you actually use them for your beer testing.........

I wiped it under my armpit, does that count?

[Dovetail]

OK, I start mine today.

I'm planning to use some of those bottles you get for buying draft beer to take home. They've got pressure release caps so I'm guessing it won't get very fizzy, but it might save me worrying about the carpet (if I had one).

 

I haven't got any honey - is it vital?

And I'll be using Allinsons baking yeast.

 

 

Honey whats all this talk of Honey I have not seen this mentioned and as a beekeeper my ears have pricked up and my interest levels increased.

 

Honey is the food of gods and should be treated with the utmost respect then turned into lovely Mead similar to the bottle I am working my way through tonight.

[Guest wanted]

Honey whats all this talk of Honey I have not seen this mentioned and as a beekeeper my ears have pricked up and my interest levels increased.

 

Honey is the food of gods and should be treated with the utmost respect then turned into lovely Mead similar to the bottle I am working my way through tonight.

 

Honey in ginger rocks.

 

Go on then, share your mead recipe. I'm well getting into this homemade booze lark.

[Dovetail]

Simple Mead Recipe

 

Mead

 

3.5 lbs Honey (or un ripe honey if you know a beekeeper and you have one at Brentford or empty hives as I have seen them )

1 Gallon Water

1 Lime

Wine Yeast

Yeast Nutrient

 

 

 

Chop and lightly crush the lime into fermenting bucket.

 

Pour about two pints of boiling water over the lime and stir.

 

Add the honey and about 3/4 of the remaining water, the water can be hot to help dissolve the honey.

 

Check the level with a hydrometer and adjust to 1.100 by adding more honey or water.

 

When the must is lukewarm add the yeast and yeast nutrient

 

Cover and leave in a warm place for three days.

 

Remove the pieces of lime and put the liquid into a demijohn and fit an air lock to seal the jar.

 

When the fermentation has ceased rack the mead into a clean jar and leave to continue fermentation.

 

When clear siphon into bottles and try to leave to mature (fat chance)

 

 

Its not just Mead but English fruit wines are reasonably easy to make but not as easy as the Ginger Beer it seems and on the whole cheap and most of the ingredients free from the hedge row

Edited May 4, 2012 by Dovetail

[Leni]

Your lime keeps changing backwards and forwards to a lemon! And don't you need to skim off the wax at some (early?) stage if you use "un ripe" honey? Also, I must say also that 3.5 lbs of honey does seem a lot!

[Dovetail]

Thanks for the mistake leni it should be Lime in this case perhaps the result of to much Mead.

 

Some people use lemons and oranges it’s the citrus that’s important but depending on what you use can influence the flavour.

 

Un ripe honey is honey that has a higher moisture content than the normal 18 – 20% above this point the honey has a strong possibility to naturally ferment in the jar . The bees cap of the comb with wax when they reduce the mc down to approx 18-20% so in the hive any un capped honey is considered un ripe, it may be at 18-20% as the bees are yet to fill the cell and depending on the time of year have no available nectar to forage on. Say now for instance with this wet weather .

 

The un capped honey can be tested with a honey refractometer but I prefer to make Mead and Marmalade from it as you get plenty of capped honey anyway.

 

You simply extract the un ripe honey first in the extractor and put it to one side and you should have no wax mixed in you are then free to un cap the ripe honey and then

extract the frames .

 

Another way of getting the honey for making mead is from the cappings of the ripe honey. As the bees have sealed the comb with wax one method to get to the honey is to cut off the cappings along with some honey this honey and wax is allowed to fall into a container and later washed with the water for the mead and the wax is removed. This is a very messy job and everything can get covered and not my preferred way.

 

3.5lbs or a bit more even a bit less it all depends on the hydrometer to adjust to 1.100 or personal taste this year I am going to try a blow your socks of brew and go for a high alcohol content with plenty of honey and champaign yeast as an experiment

[Ange]

Dave told me he tried posting on this thread and got a "FORBIDDEN" message. Just checking for myself

 

Hmm he did say he tried under my sign in as well and reported it, maybe it got fixed. He did say he had a very important input to this thread - await with baited (or is it bated) breath all you alcoholic ginger beer lovers for Dave's next post!

Edited May 5, 2012 by Ange

[davel]

According to my calculations (or rather CJJ Berry's), Wanted's recipe will have an A.B.V. of about 3% assuming all the sugar is fermented out (converted to alcohol).

 

To calculate the A.B.V. deduct the final S.G. from the initial S.G. (taken before the yeast is added) then divide by 7.36.

 

So Dovetail's Mead with an initial S.G of about 1100 and a final S.G. of 1000 (if all the sugar is fermented out) would be calculated thus;-

 

1100 - 1000 = 100 / 7.36 = 13.6 %. In practice it would not be as strong as this as you would not want all the sugar fermented out as Mead is usually quite a sweet brew.

 

Hth

 

 

Dave

[Guest wanted]

According to my calculations (or rather CJJ Berry's), Wanted's recipe will have an A.B.V. of about 3% assuming all the sugar is fermented out (converted to alcohol).

 

To calculate the A.B.V. deduct the final S.G. from the initial S.G. (taken before the yeast is added) then divide by 7.36.

 

So Dovetail's Mead with an initial S.G of about 1100 and a final S.G. of 1000 (if all the sugar is fermented out) would be calculated thus;-

 

1100 - 1000 = 100 / 7.36 = 13.6 %. In practice it would not be as strong as this as you would not want all the sugar fermented out as Mead is usually quite a sweet brew.

 

Hth

 

 

Dave

 

Hi dave, Just racked off all of the Ginger Beer and it is all weighing in at about 5%. I don't think I was massively accurate with the sugar and am wondering if the honey I also put in has upped the strength a bit? Either way it is really tasty and cheap! I will report back on the effects tomorrow

[davel]

Hi dave, Just racked off all of the Ginger Beer and it is all weighing in at about 5%. I don't think I was massively accurate with the sugar and am wondering if the honey I also put in has upped the strength a bit? Either way it is really tasty and cheap! I will report back on the effects tomorrow

 

Mine stopped working this morning after 3 days fermenting, I drew off a pint or so so I could add some sugar syrup (I am aiming for about 6 or 7%) and it is now hubble bubbling away again next to the stove. The bit I drew off is very tasty (though with a bit of a farty nose) but goes well with the cheap whisky I am drinking.

 

Enjoy

 

Dave

[Chertsey]

I have sampled mine and it is quite drinkable, very gingery and very dry, with just a subtle tingle of fizz (I made it in an unpressurised container). It is now sitting in the fridge waiting until I feel brave.

 

Have others been filtering to remove ginger bits, or simply pouring off?

Edited May 6, 2012 by Chertsey

[Guest wanted]

I have sampled mine and it is quite drinkable, very gingery and very dry, with just a subtle tingle of fizz (I made it in an unpressurised container). It is now sitting in the fridge waiting until I feel brave.

 

Have others been filtering to remove ginger bits, or simply pouring off?

 

Sounds like you have achieved about the same as me. Sort of like traditional style lemonade but ginger beer if that make sense.

 

I strained mine with a standard sieve so there are a few bits in it still. Once fermentation has finished you could filter it and put a tea spoon of sugar back in and it should carbonate it a little more if you like it fizzy.

 

So how much homemade booze have we made between us this week?

 

6 litres for us.....

[Leni]

So how much homemade booze have we made between us this week?

 

6 litres for us.....

 

We only made 2litres so that we could adjust the recipe depending on what we thought of the first attempt! We're going to have another go with slightly more ginger 'cos we like it *hot*

 

Ours was quite alcoholic, using the wine yeast. We stopped it while it was still a bit fizzy, and it was also a bit sweet, but we didn't want to wait any longer!

 

 

ETA We filtered it through a coffee filter

Edited May 7, 2012 by Leni

[chazzy]

A J cloth makes a good filter

[Grace and Favour]

A J cloth makes a good filter

 

When we were young(er) we used to use a piece of nylon stocking material to filter through - - - was very effective - and it allowed the tiniest yeast particles through so it would carry on fermenting, and one would have a resulting fizzy brew that was slightly cloudy like trad lemonade....

[Chertsey]

I made 2 litres and some of it is still sitting in the fridge. I found that once it was cold it settled well and there was no need to filter. It does need more sugar to make it really palatable, but I'm not sure if I'll bother.

 

Would a similar technique work for making alcoholic lemonade?

[Grace and Favour]

I made 2 litres and some of it is still sitting in the fridge. I found that once it was cold it settled well and there was no need to filter. It does need more sugar to make it really palatable, but I'm not sure if I'll bother.

 

Would a similar technique work for making alcoholic lemonade?

 

Yup! - - although I suspect you'll need a slightly different process, for acid will (I think??) kill the fermentation process if the acid level's too high

[Leni]

We've just started a second batch (again only 2 litres until we get the recipe just how we like it), this time with more ginger and slightly less sugar. Still using wine yeast though, as we seem to have plenty of that!

[Dovetail]

I can imaging fridges filling up with all this Ginger Beer and I am getting close having a go myself so if the fridge is getting a bit full you can try using Campden Tablets to kill the yeast.

 

I have a gallon of blacberry wine to start. The blackberry's in the freezer were supposed to be jam but it never quite happened got enough to do a couple of gallon's so may still do a bit of jam.

[Guest wanted]

I can imaging fridges filling up with all this Ginger Beer and I am getting close having a go myself so if the fridge is getting a bit full you can try using Campden Tablets to kill the yeast.

 

I have a gallon of blacberry wine to start. The blackberry's in the freezer were supposed to be jam but it never quite happened got enough to do a couple of gallon's so may still do a bit of jam.

Fantastic! I have managed to avoid tucking into the demi john of sloe gin that we started in the winter, I'm aiming to leave it a year, which will be a first. I found some sloes last year that were only accesable from the roof of my boat.

 

Its cool enough here to put the ginger beer outside to stop what little fermentation there was at the end.

 

I like the idea of lemonade, I'm also wondering if rasberry would work as well?

[Dovetail]

The cold may stop the fermenting but not kill the yeast and then it warms up and then BANG the bottle you have in the back of the cupboard (fat chance I hear you think) but the Campden Tablet will kill the yeast.

 

I was told about Blackberry Vodka the other day after I mentioned my freezer full of Blackberrys I think made similar to Sloe Gin and delicious was mentioned. I have been promised the recipe in time.

 

Personally not a fan of spirits apart from single malt before walking the dog in the depth of winter mmmmm.

[Grace and Favour]

The cold may stop the fermenting but not kill the yeast and then it warms up and then BANG the bottle you have in the back of the cupboard (fat chance I hear you think) but the Campden Tablet will kill the yeast.

 

I was told about Blackberry Vodka the other day after I mentioned my freezer full of Blackberrys I think made similar to Sloe Gin and delicious was mentioned. I have been promised the recipe in time.

 

Personally not a fan of spirits apart from single malt before walking the dog in the depth of winter mmmmm.

 

You'll need one of these then (Clicky)

[Dekazer]

At the moment we're still drinking our way through the vats of blackberry vodka, brandy and whisky I made last year. The thing with blackberries is you have to remove them after 3 months otherwise the taste gets very woody.

 

Impressed you've left the sloe gin Rob - mine always gets tested a bit earlier than that I justify it because it matures just as nicely in the bottle after straining...

[Leni]

We currently have elderberry, elder flower, plum and grape wine plus the new lot of ginger beer all waiting to be bottled! Also several bottles of a previous years elder flower waiting to be drunk

[Dovetail]

Yes but I fancy keeping my eyesight