Novice has started making ginger beer using this on-line recipe.
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He suggests adding a little honey. Would there be any purpose to this, other than very slightly changing the taste?
I'm using Allison's dried baking yeast which I know is not as alcohol tolerant as wine yeast. I understand that 100 gm of granulated sugar to one litre of water gives about 5% of alcohol by volume roughly.
I would like to increase the alcohol content slightly, so just as a rough guide; what would likely be the most sugar I could add per litre at the onset of the process, without the fermentation process choking up?
It appears to have an effect on bubble size in carbonation, IME.
Without getting too far into what I think of your process (beer/wine yeast is cheap and easy to find, for a start...)
Per some reference, 2.7g sugar in 1 liter increases specific gravity one point(0.001) Water is 1.000 and beers tend to be easy in the 1.030-70 range, not too bad 1.070 to 1.100 and starting to get dodgy (but still manageable with care, and perhaps some nutrients) from 1.100-1.130.
So, 270 grams per liter should work without difficulty, and you might be able to manage a bit more. Most people find that making rocket fuel (maximizing alcohol content) is less satisfying than lower alcohol content beverages that are pleasant to drink, but do what you like, and draw your own conclusions. It may need 4-6 years of aging to get to a drinkable stage if you push it too much. Drinking two pints of something that's half the % alcohol will get you just as drunk as one high % pint, and takes a lot less time to reach pleasant drinkability.
You can also play games with the yeast by adding more sugar gradually as the ferment progresses.
========================================================================= Thanks. So 270 gms per litre is about 10% of alcohol by volume? I had no idea bakers yeast could ferment to such a high level.
Actually in the question i was wondering more what would be the maximum sugar level bakers yeast could tolerate, when adding all the sugar *at one go*. (rather than adding it in stages). Any idea on that one please ?
Also since i would only want to go up to say 5% by volume of alcohol at the most, is there any advantage in paying more for a wine yeast as opposed to a bakers yeast ? Would there for instance be any difference in the taste of the final product?
Right, now you sound suspiciously trollish. You're making 5% but your wondering how high it can go...Feel free to experiment. 10% is no big deal. Not an experiment I care to run - results may vary with the brand, and also the lot, of baking yeast, since it's not selected for alcohol tolerance particularly, so it will probably vary from lot to lot. 12% or so is generally a safe bet for the low end for almost any yeast, with adequate time. Take a bunch of clean half-litre or litre bottles, load them up with varying amounts of sugar, inoculate with yeast, cover the tops, come back and measure in a few months. The highest ones will take a long time to finish.
Yes, otherwise there would not be 50 or more easy to find and hundreds slightly less easy to find varieties of beer (ale & lager) and wine yeasts. Bread yeast is more or less like a mongrel dog - all it's selected for is the ability to eat sugar and generate carbon dioxide. Ale, Lager and Wine yeasts are all selected for flavor produced - alcohol tolerance, when it is even a factor, is secondary. They also eat sugar and produce carbon dioxide, but that's not what they are selected for. The oddballs that have been selected first for high alcohol tolerance (25%+) for the home-distilling and fuel-ethanol crowd are generally reported to produce a vile-tasting product (which doesn't matter so much if all that is being done is to get the alcohol out of it with a still.)
For 3-7% work at room or warmish cellar temperatures, I tend to choose ale yeast. It often doesn't cost any more than bread yeast, and the ingredients cost far more than the yeast. If you are feeling particularly parsimonious, you can re-use the same yeast for several batches, if you are careful about sanitation. If you have a cold cellar, lager is good.
If you're really, really cheap, you can just toss in some unwashed grapes (with stems and all is better) or apples and play natural yeast lottery with them. People sometimes get great results, other times not so great - that's why there is a fermentation yeast industry for more predictable results...
Two pounds sugar per gallon of water will max out the bread yeast at around 12% if all goes well..but would require some yeast nutrients other than the small amount of ginger in the wort or at least would seem so. Now this guy seems to think yeast love ginger so maybe not..lol. If the yeast cant handle all the sugar the finished product will be real sweet to the taste. If they can handle all the sugar it will not be sweet but will be below max on the ABV (alcohol by volume) Not sure what the honey could add other than expense. Here is a recipe for a ginger hooch sugar wash for a moonshine run. Might give you some ideas to work with. If you skip the final essential extraction it should wind up as some version of ginger wine..beer or whatever a person might want to call it. The cereal in the recipe should be a good yeast nutrient even though the ferment it is well below the threshold of maximum sugar content. Should also add some extra flavor.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Ecnerwal" thanks for your detailed response. you might be thinking about trolls too much and no longer appreciate there is a lot for a beginner to get their mind around all the variables. Thanks for your help.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- I will experiment, but if you know the basics you won't be falling off the edge disaster-wise. A friends girlfriend went to a great deal of trouble recently to make a brew, but didn't know about keeping the lids on all the time; so the vinegar fly got in, its the simple things that trip the beginner.
One last question which i guess might sound even more trollish.. Does it make any real difference whether you add a lemon at the beginning or at the end? I've tried a google on this but can't phrase the question in a way that brings results that obviously relate. Adding at the end will bring a fresher lemon taste i guess, but does adding at the beginning add in any way to the actual fermantation process? Thanks.
I don't know about Ecnerwal's reaction about trolling, but is there some reason you want to go with this recipe?
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Because it's a ginger ale recipe. It doesn't seem like it's supposed to actually ferment out and have anymore than incidental alcohol content. I admit I haven't tried, so maybe I'm off base here, but it sounds a little revolting if you are planning on seriously fermenting that out to have a lot of alcohol. I'm imagining Zima or something. I would at least consider making a mead or something like that - something that's popular, well documented, and you can get help and advice with. Preferably, I would suggest buying a simple extract beer kit to start. Get the process surrounding mashing down, then try mashing, then try doing other odd things.
Most probably, but I have no idea how. ;)
My best jab at that question: it will ferment out more completely if you put it in at the beginning, and have a smoother and mellower flavor. But the truth is, change anything and you change your outcome, and since I never did this, I don't have a grasp on what the results will be. And....
....what do you call and "end" anyway? If you put it in at the beginning, it will ferment longer. If you put it in before you bottle it, it will ferment in the bottle, contributing to carbonation, besides other flavors. You don't say if you're doing a secondary fermentation.
Anyway, if you're still not convinced to try something else, I suggest just putting the lemon in at the beginning to reduce risk of a sour lemon flavor. Also, read up on yeast nutrition and buy the proper nutrients because table sugar and a little bit of fruit/ginger is not going to ferment much.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thanks. However Grated ginger, yeast, table sugar, and lemon and it ferments like crazy.
I'm not 100% sure how to answer this, but I'll try to answer pending a better answer from someone else....
Could be good, but I'm not sure. Lots of things are good. I'd be more concerned about whether or not it's complete in your case. Maybe you're thinking of...
...yeast ghosts/hulls/extract. This supposedly works with mead, anyway. It's a nutrient derived from yeast themselves, perhaps found in health stores. Add an ounce or so per 5 gallons. My friend who made mead used diammonium phosphate, not sure how much. He has also used some kind of nutrition tablet.
Maybe you already mentioned not living near a homebrew store already, but they have various yeast nutrients for sale usually containing a mix of zinc, gypsum, vitamins, and other things.
Things might also depend on your water, and maybe ideally you would know your water's chemistry.
Many thanks. Would you be able to explain to a complete novice why the dried baking yeast is not advisable? I've made a couple of batches now using
125gm sugar per litre, one lot using baking yeast and one using a wine yeast.
For the life of me, i cannot tell the difference between the end results of the two; either in terms of taste, length of fermentation or anything else.
The baking yeast is a fraction of the cost, so in terms of making this simple low alcohol brew (6.0 ABV approx) brew; would you still suggest I really need to spend the extra on the wine yeast? Thanks.
Home brewing forums are filled with comments that it's horrible, terrible, no good, very bad idea, but more research says it's just not the best idea.
Baking yeast has been used to make good quality beer. Here's a video on basicbrewing.com about using bread yeast to make beer (and beer yeast to make bread).
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They said the beer was good stuff.
There are reasons not to use baking yeast though. The temperature ranges for brewing aren't clear, so there's sort of a roll of the dice as to making weird tasting stuff. It's also unclear whether the sanitation is as good for bread yeast as brewing yeast, so there's the possibility of a higher risk of spoiled brew. It also sounds like baking yeast tends not to settle as well as brewing yeast, and suspended yeast can give a bunch of unpleasant flavors.
It's possible to reuse yeast several times, so it may be cost-efficient to buy a cheap packet of brewing yeast and then re-fermenting with the sediment left after a batch ferments. Google the words --> repitch yeast slurry
Several years ago I posted a recipe for Cheateu Trailer Park and, without searching for it, I am certain the recipe used bakers yeast. Why bakers yeast? Because I didn't care how it tasted, how sweet or how dry its finish was, and whether or not it had fruity, earthy, or no esters. So if you don't care about those issues, go ahead and use bakers yeast.
That settlement point is interesting. I've heard a lot of people complain about bread yeast in beer that the aftertaste is a bit like a burp after having some really yeasty bread. It sounds like it can be done, carefully, but doesn't sound like something worth the trouble.
Maybe finings and a crash cooling would help, but if you're too cheap...
...to get a proper yeast, I doubt you want to drop the money on finings or a freezer. :-p
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