Loosely based off https://aussiehomebrewer.com/threads/ginger-beer-recipe-scratch-brew-no-kit.30492/
This is my third shot at it, and this go is pretty damn good
I was a bit rough with my measurements, but it has
- Around 1kg of peeled ginger
- 1kg honey
- A couple of cinnamon sticks
- 2 habanero chillis
- 1kg brown sugar
- 0.5kg ldme
- Juice from 5 limes
- Zest from a couple of those limes
Is it distinctly chilli or that blends into the bite of the ginger?
This one has a distinct chilli bite, although no noticeable chilli flavour.
In my previous attempts I used a small handful of birdseye chilli, but it ended up being a bit too subtle for me.
From what I’ve found, the spice level doesn’t really change much during the brewing process, so tasting and adjusting before fermentation works well.
Also worth noting that in my previous attempt, I tried to stay closer to the linked recipe. It ended up taking close to 2 months to ferment, and ended up with something close to 7.5% abv, and was pretty dry – to make it sweeter I ended up killing off the yeast by heating, and adding sugar, then force carbonating in a keg.
In this batch I:
- Decreased the overall sugar
- Substituted some sugar for ldme and added yeast nutrient
- Added extra lime rind
After these changes, the result was much less dry, and I didn’t end up having to add any additional sugar