Ginger flavoured pale ale

[yashicamat]

Just enjoying a fantastic bottle of Badger Blandford Fly at the moment. The ginger overtones are fantastic so I'm looking to create something along those lines (hopefully!) next weekend. With any luck my H&G boiler should be here by then too.

I'm not entirely sure on how to go about adding ginger flavour, so how's this for starters?

22 litre brew size (est. 27 litre boil size)
3.8kg pale malt
250g wheat malt
22g target 11.3% for 70 mins
15g EKG for 12 mins
15g EKG for 5 mins
15g Fuggles at flamout for 10 min steep
100g of crushed fresh root ginger (using garlic press?) for 30 mins

OG 1047, FG1012 (ish), 41 IBUs, should give a 4.5% abv beer

Thinking the slightly spicy notes of the EKG would work well with the ginger?

[MightyMouth]

I reckon that should work but I would be tempted to add the ginger to the FV maybe after boiling in a little water for a few minutes.

[yashicamat]

I reckon that should work but I would be tempted to add the ginger to the FV maybe after boiling in a little water for a few minutes.

Thanks for the feedback. Perhaps do that as well as some in the boil for a little while? Not sure what would extract the ginger flavour the best . . .

[mysterio]

I think at the very end of the boil would work well. The time it takes to cool the wort should be enough time to extract the flavour. You can always dose with powdered ginger later if it's not enough flavour.

[RabMaxwell]

I often use Ginger root in my Pale Ales after being told at my local micro that they use it. It also adds a little bitterness allowing them to cut back on the bittering hop addition with hops being fairly expensive now.I have used 120g in 120 litre brew it was a bit strong so now use 90g it's in the back ground.In my opinion 100g + 41ibu in 27 litres would be a bit strong & overpowering the late hop additions & increasing the bitterness a fair bit also 30 mins is too long don't add any longer than 15 mins from switch-off. Cheers

[ianmagson]

I'm looking to create something along those lines (hopefully!) next weekend

I know its been a while yashicamat but I was wondering if you had any luck with this type of beer?

[yashicamat]

I'm looking to create something along those lines (hopefully!) next weekend

I know its been a while yashicamat but I was wondering if you had any luck with this type of beer?

I've not actually managed to get around to attempting this one yet. There are so many things I am attempting! I have some East Kent Goldings in at the moment so rather than do a (slightly boring) Summer Lightning clone, I might attempt a ginger style beer instead! I really want to brew my stout before that though.

[tomU]

The Dark Star method for ginger beer is to prime each firkin with 'a jar' (dont know what size) of balled ginger in syrup. I'd try that - maybe adding to a secondary rather than priming with it though.

[yashicamat]

The Dark Star method for ginger beer is to prime each firkin with 'a jar' (dont know what size) of balled ginger in syrup. I'd try that - maybe adding to a secondary rather than priming with it though.

Don't think that'd work in a corny - the ginger balls would block the dip tube.

Interesting idea though, maybe even just add at flameout so the temperature is hot enough to steralise the ginger syrup. Extract ginger balls first and consume though.

[tomU]

I bottled up a batch of a pale bitter on monday and decided to have a little experiment with priming and flavouring with ginger and orange oil.

In a couple of bottles I primed with quarter of a piece of stem ginger in syrup, in another I tried half and in another I've gone for a whole piece.

In a couple of others I've tried just using the ginger syrup the ginger comes in.

In a few others I've tried using orange oil with either sugar or ginger syrup. I'm a bit worrried the oil will kill head retention, but I'll soon find out!

The rest of the batch I just primed with sugar as I normally do. This is going to make for an interesting side by side tasting in a couple of weeks...

[yashicamat]

I bottled up a batch of a pale bitter on monday and decided to have a little experiment with priming and flavouring with ginger and orange oil.

In a couple of bottles I primed with quarter of a piece of stem ginger in syrup, in another I tried half and in another I've gone for a whole piece.

In a couple of others I've tried just using the ginger syrup the ginger comes in.

In a few others I've tried using orange oil with either sugar or ginger syrup. I'm a bit worrried the oil will kill head retention, but I'll soon find out!

The rest of the batch I just primed with sugar as I normally do. This is going to make for an interesting side by side tasting in a couple of weeks...

I will be intrigued by this. Please video the pouring of the bottle with the whole piece of stem ginger in though - could prove amusing.

[PhilWA]

G'day everyone just a quike mention about the Ginger I have used as much as 1.25kg at begining of boil for a very nice ginger burn , if you know what I mean ? So don't be shy with it

[Benjy Edwards]

I make a Christmas Ale every year with grated ginger in the boil and add grated ginger to taste in the cask or keg. For a corny keg you can use a Surescreen on the end of a shortened dip tube to filter it out, or a muslin hop bag. The fresh ginger in the serving vessel is more gingery than what is obtained from the boil.

Surescreen: http://www.northernbrewer.com/stir-strain.html
(at bottom of page)

For the Christmas ale, I use 1.5 oz. (42g) in the last 5 minutes of the boil, and then 2 oz. (56g) grated ginger in the keg. The batch size is 10 US gallons (9 UK or 38 litres), while the corny keg is half of that (4.5 UK gal./19 litres). This beer also has cinnamon in it.

[SiHoltye]

Surescreen: http://www.northernbrewer.com/stir-strain.html
(at bottom of page)

That looks a handy little gizmo. Just sanitize it along with the corni in the normal routine. No hop bag or marbles to boil up. If anyone's ordering one I'd like one too please. Can't justify the shipping on it's own though.

Edit.

That was lazy of me...must be able to find a length of s/s sheathing over here and cut to size.

[flytact]

I have a small piece of ss braid on one of my cornie dip tubes that I use as my dry hopping keg. Works great and cost way less than $8.