05.24.11 Home Brewed Ginger Beer Take 3

Ok, so this is the 3rd attempt at the ginger beer, see the first and second attempts for more information. I've learned something new with this batch, and that is write down the directions and don't try to follow the ones in your head. Since this was the 3rd time I tried to have a go at it just using my memories...  Which caused me to forget the correct number of teaspoons needed to feed it each day, I used 4 instead of the 6 the recipe calls for. It ended up not being too big of a deal, I had pre-measured everything out and was just spooning the ginger/sugar mix into the plant. As it was I just poured in what was left and waited another day before bottling.

This time I had made sure to strain the plant properly and even left some of the liquid behind in order to avoid getting any yeast into the bottles. I noticed as I was mixing the liquid into the water and sugar I that some yeast still made it through past the cheese cloth... It didn't seem to cause any problems with the carbing and they are now sitting in the fridge after two weeks. Next time I'm thinking that I'll try to double filter to try and limit the amount of yeast at the bottom of the bottles.

The batch tastes much the same as the first one, fairly sweet with a nice ginger taste without any sort of bite like commercial ginger beer has. Which if that is what you are going for it's nice and refreshing, I on the other hand would like for it to have just a little bit of a bite. I've read that some people have added habenero or bird's eye peppers to try and accomplish this. Next time I'm either going to try adding a pepper or maybe use real ginger instead of the powder (or just more powder >.>).

06.13.11 Cider tasting

I brought the remaining cider I had to a friend's place for a party at the beginning of the month and got a some feedback on them.

Concentrate Cider

Out of the two ciders there was less of this cider left at the end of the night. I'm not sure if it was just because people were turned off by a dry cider or because they wanted to try something different. (It has been explained to me that most commercial ciders in the area are pretty dry.)

It was described as having more taste then the Turbinado cider, which would make sense considering the can of concentrate that was used to back sweeten and carb it. When I had some it still seemed to be a little bit sour to me. And I believe that if I could reduce the sourness a little it would make for a more refreshing drink and something you could have more then one or two of at a time.

Turbinado Cider

This one had a muted apple taste to is and since it was lacking the concentrate turned out to be smoother. Although the dryness gave it an edge of its own. And from what I remember it seemed to be a little more winey then the other, I've heard that this has something to do with boosting the ABV with the turbinado sugar.

That's all I can remember about this one, not many people tried it so I wasn't able to get many opinions other then it was better then the concentrate cider. I'm thinking that it might be worth trying to either back sweeten it a lot with turbinado sugar or try priming with a little bit of concentrate.

Over all I think that both of these need more work. I want to either let them sit longer before bottling, or try a different yeast strain. From what I understand people have had some good results using ale yeasts. If I can find an easy source of them in town I'll give them a go next time instead of the wine yeast.

04.02.2011 Turbinado Cider

When I made the second attempt at the Concentrate cider I also tried making a dryer apfelwien like cider. The recipe was the same as the apfelwien, only instead of racking it and letting it age I gave it three weeks and then primed and bottled it. I tried to guesstimate the right about of sugar to prime it with from looking at beer recipes and came up with 35g. Looking at the finished results it carbed up nicely in about three weeks and maybe could have used just a little bit more. The carb was fine, but when compared to the Concentrate cider it seemed a little lackluster, though the concentrate cider was probably over carbed. When I make this again I'm thinking that I might try it with 40-45g of sugar to see if I can't find the upper limit.

Recipe:

4 cans Allen's apple juice

200g turbinado sugar

Lalvin 71b yeast

(On a side note, it might be worth while to dissolve the sugar in some warm water. Otherwise the foam from shaking takes too long to settle and causes problems when pitching the yeast. Though with saying that it is always possible to pitch the yeast on top of the foam and just shake it again to mix... )

Primary for 3 weeks and then prime with 35g turbinado sugar and bottle condition for 3 weeks.

SG: 1.056

FG: 1.000

ABV: 7.3%

When asking which one people preferred between the concentrate and the turbinado ciders it was always the concentrate one. They said that it had more apple taste where as the turbinado cider was a little bland. Which makes sense because of the concentrate that is used to prime the concentrate cider with. I'm not sure how I can increase the apple flavor of the turbinado cider. I have two idea right now; One is to back sweeten until it reaches the level of the concentrate cider, and the other is to try adding some spices to the primary (like cinnamon or cloves). Of course, I could just try both and see how they turn out.