4.14.2013

Ginger beer?

Light dry malt extract 425 g
White sugar 200 g
Ginger, finely sliced, 50 g
Munton's ale yeast
Dilution to OG 1.050, ca. 1 gal total volume
Intended backsweetening w Splenda.
What's left? (updates posted)
Fermented to 1.012 or so
Added potassium sorbate to kill residual yeast
let clarify
Currently waiting for it to clarify.
add some sugar back to ca. 5% by weight
bottle and force carbonate in pet bottles with this.
Right now??
It's perking along, I'll put it on ustream soon (haha).

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds delicious! Though curious about why using Splenda to sweeten? Do you hdd pre- or post-fermentaion?

Dave said...

I'm not sure about the splenda yet. The problem is any sugar added at the end of fermentation results in further fermentation, not sweetness. There aren't too many ways to arrest the yeast activity without ultrafiltration. So, I'm still reading to find an alternative.

Anonymous said...

How do u get a sweetened ginger beer with potassium sorbate and have a fizzy product?

Dave said...

After the initial fermentation, the K-sorbate knocks out the yeast activity which allows one to sweeten it by adding sugar. The K-sorbate prevents the fermentation of the additional sugar. Then the flat, sweetened, alcoholic drink is added to bottles and force carbonated with a tank using an adapter like The Carbonator.

Similar treatment to that of a fermented cider.