Yeast for a real Ginger Beer.

Most ginger recipes call for a baker's, brewer's, or wine yeast. But a true or as you put it a "real" ginger beer should finish around 11%. IMHO that would call for a champagne yeast so that it can finish as dry as you need.

Good luck, Wild

Thank you Wild, as you may have guessed I'm not a regular brewer and most of the finer points escape me. I've used a bakers yeast on most previous occasions.

I'll go for a champagne one on my next attempt.

With the ginger beer (ale) that I make, I use WYeast 1056. It turns out quite well and very clear. I have entered it in a few comps and gotten fairly good scores (32 in one and 38 in another I believe). I made up an extract/grain recipe. For the ingredients, I use carapils, light liquid malt, honey, sugar, lemons, fresh ginger root, and hops.

Do you have quantites for that recipe DragonTail? Sounds like it could be very nice...

Ditto, Dragon Tail, post the recipe.

Here ya go:

1.5 gal water 1 lb. Carapils (steep 30 min @ 155F) Sparge/rinse with 8 cups 170F water Bring water up to 2 gal Bring to boil 1 oz. Cascade (60 min)

After 30 min add:

3 lbs. Light Liquid Malt Extract (LME) 2 lbs. Honey Juice of 2 lemons and rinds (minus zest) 30 oz. Fresh Ginger Root (grated)

After another 15 minutes: Irish moss

1 lb. Cane Sugar Remove rinds

After 5 minutes:

10 oz. Ginger Root Lemon Zest 1 lb. Honey

After 8 minutes:

1 oz. Willamette (2 min)

Cool, Strain into Primary, top up to 5.5 gal and pitch WYeast 1056 American Ale Yeast (or you favorite equal) Bottle with 3/4 cup Priming sugar

I know, 2.5 lbs of Ginger sounds like alot, but with the "cooking", it isn't as hot as people thought when I talked about this recipe last year. The "heat" is actually minimal. I've actually had "hotter" Ginger Beer Soda before. If you want it spicier you could "dry hop" some fresh ginger in the secondary, just don't overdo it.

Enjoy :)

SNIP

That does sound like it could be quite good. Thanks, DT!

PopeCoyote

Really looking forward to giving this one a try. Sounds so refreshing...

Hi,

The best ginger beer I've ever had, I made using a genuine ginger beer plant "grains" as a yeast and bacteria starter. It made really good ginger beer. I didn't have to use bakers' yeast or any other kind of yeast. I got it at:

They have a nice recipe for lemon-lime ginger beer on their site. I like it very much. You might want to try it. Hope this helps you.