Ginger flavoured pale ale

[micmacmoc]

I have decided my next brew will be a ginger one it'll be as follows (ish) unless theres any advice to the contary:

Ginger Leftover use ups brew
4.500 Coopres Pale Malt Extract
200g Crystal
30g Goldings(60)
50g Root ginger (30)
20g fuggles (30)
10g styrians (5mins)

Being new to this malarky I'm assuming I have to mash the crystal grains....does that mean for my 200g it will be 1/2 litre of water?
I'm still a beginner here and having fun making a terrible mess from which there will (I hope) emerge some drinkable liquids. My Wheeler book should arrive Tuesday so I'll be a bit more informed after that.
After my nightmare start at all grain I thought an extract brew may ease me back into a more enthusiastic frame of mind!
Cheers folks!
stew in mevagissey

[OldSpeckledBadger]

For the crystal, steep for about 30 minutes at about 65C. You're just dissolving the sugars so the volume of water isn't critical. I tend to put about 5 litres in the boiler, get it up close to temperature then plonk the grains in and bring it up to 65C the switch the element off. I find I need to it a little boost about 5 minutes.

[booldawg]

However you decide to add the ginger, a quick note on how best to extract the flavour.

I've often brewed a Ginger Beer and picked up a handy tip from the 'other brews' section on this forum.

Freeze the ginger overnight and thaw out; this will burst the scent fibres in the ginger root and really let the flavour seep out. You'll find the ginger root quite mushy after defrosting but this is partly due to the effect of the ginger oil leaking out.

[critch]

im doing a ginger spiced porter for the micros christmas special this year. just experimenting with a few different minibrews at the mo...