Topic: Anyone else out there doing some home brewing?

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks Ken, that was an interesting read. I don't think it's an issue though, the flavour of my first batch of "Ginger Toe" has only continued to improve with time, so if there was some kind of degradation I would have noticed it by now. It might be more of an issue for folks brewing regular beer, perhaps? Were you aware of this Spotty?    

[spotty]

None of mine lasts long enough to degrade but from what I've heard most brews will improve up to at least the 12 month mark and generally stay ok for a while after that
The ginger toes, containing fresh ginger as an ingredient, may have decomposition issues but there's only one way to find out

[Terry in Australia]

Yeah, I've drunk (as opposed to, "I'm drunk"....) about 40 bottles of my first batch, and they're only getting better with age, so while I'll keep that info in mind, it's not an issue. I've still got about 10 days to go before I try batch #2 (Ginger Ho) and if it tastes as good, batch #3 (Ginger Bro) will be a similar recipe, with maybe a few more ingredients, for good measure.

The Ginger Ho's were fermented for 5 weeks before bottling, mainly because I didn't have enough empty bottles until I drank the first lot, but it'll be interesting to see how the longer fermentation time improves (or otherwise) the brew. The proof of the pudding, will be in the drinking.....

[ken65]

A group of fanatical home brewers I met would put aside half a dozen bottles of each batch so when visitors popped in they could try different drops. Sort of like  wine tasting.
 As spotty says 12 months is what they said to me too although some their beer was a bit older.
All tasted magnificent. IMHO

[Terry in Australia]

Yep, sadly I've got real beer that is older than 12 months, and it tastes like Donkey piss. (don't ask me how I know, amigo............)

[bear]

Yep, sadly I've got real beer that is older than 12 months, and it tastes like Donkey piss. (don't ask me how I know, amigo............)

Don't ask you what?
How old the beer is?
Or how you know what donkey piss tastes like?

[jgger]

B

[Terry in Australia]

I've just spent two hours with the beautiful Dr Laura, while she filled out reams of paperwork for a Veterans Affairs permanent impairment assessment, and if you think you've seen some stupid questions on this forum, the DVA's questions are a wh ole 'nother level of "WTF?" again.

Anyway, I'll jump thru their hoops if it helps me retire a little earlier than I'd planned, I lost interest in working about 40 years ago, but now it's  really getting in the way of my bike projects and delicious home brew.

[bear]

Anyway, I'll jump thru their hoops if it helps me retire a little earlier than I'd planned, I lost interest in working about 40 years ago, but now it's  really getting in the way of my bike projects and delicious home brew.

I've got to agree re the work caper, I'm not sure how I managed to fit it into my life style now I look back.

[Terry in Australia]

Very true Brian, the company I work for have to pretend that they give a flying fcuk about their wage slaves, so every couple of months I have to fill out an "anonymous" survey on how much I love working for them.

I made the mistake of filling out the survey at around 6am today, about the time that most working folks are still thinking about getting out of bed, and most of my mates, who have pretty much all retired, are still dreaming of when they were 10 foot tall and bulletproof, and planning gentle rides on their shiny new Harleys or over-restored 750/4's. As you could probably imagine, my mood was dark and it was reflected in the survey. I don't know how many more of these surveys I'll be doing, especially if the company works out (and it won't be hard) that I'm not particularly interested in career prospects, professional development, promotion, etc. I suppose writing "Leave me alone, all I want to do is fcuking retire" might give them a hint. Oh well, it was a stupid survey anyway.

The only problem with retirement, is it happens in the last quarter of your life, and your health determines the quality of those scant few years before you're carried out of church, feet forward. I'm really hoping that I have a good 10 years or so of motorcycle building/riding/home brewing before I end up in the high dependancy ward of the shady acres nursing home. The sooner I can start my post working life, the better.

[Terry in Australia]

Well I forgot to mention last night that  had 3 hours of medical stuff yesterday, and overall, things are looking pretty good. One item of concern to both my GP and my surgeon was my episode on the day after I was discharged from hospital, where I had my "drunk off my head" episode. My GP suggested that I might have had a "mini stroke", and the surgeon didn't want to go that far, but sort of agreed that that's what it looked like, but she couldn't be sure.

I don't know if the surgeon was worried that I was going to claim that it was a stroke, and it was brought on somehow by the surgery, but that wasn't my angle at all, I was just interested in knowing what it was, and how I could prevent it's re-occurrence. They both said that we'll just have to keep an eye on it and if it happens again call an ambulance, which I was intending to do before I blacked out.

I have a suspicion that I might have been very lucky that I came to, 4 hours later, in good condition. On a more negative note, I seem to have run out of batch #1. This is very disconcerting, as batch #2 isn't ready for drinking just yet. I did have to drink a genuine Ginger Joe (not a "Toe" or a HO" or a Bro") tonight but when I'd finished that one (warm day) I had to drink my last Toe, so now there are only 3 Joe's left before I need to break into the HO's. Bugger...........

[RAFster122s]

Terry, wow!  I hope it wasn’t a stroke but it is good you don’t have any apparent side effects.
Hope batch 2 turns out tasty. Do you have batch 3 started?
David

[Terry in Australia]

G'Day David, thanks for that mate, yeah, it was freaky, one minute I was hot and sweaty, (it wasn't hot weather) I had blurred vision and loss of coordination, and the next minute I wake up (albeit 4 hours later) and I'm fine? Leo climbed up on my lap and went to sleep, my wife came down to check on me a couple of times and thought I was just snoozing, so no-one knew that I'd actually been in distress, then blacked out.

Anyway, all good now. No I haven't attempted brew #3 as yet, but I better get one going, as I've been doing my time and space, and if I don't make a new batch soon, I'm gonna run out of batch #2 in 4-6 weeks? (seasonally adjusted for the warmer weather) So yeah, maybe tomorrow I better go buy some ingredients and whip up a new batch? Oooh, I've got 2 empty fermenters, maybe I should make 2 batches, just in case? 60 litres of finest grade Ginger Hooch! Oh wait, I don't have enough bottles, or storage space for them in my industrial oven......... Oh well, 30 litres will be fine. Cheers!

[Old Moe Toe]

Very true Brian, the company I work for have to pretend that they give a flying fcuk about their wage slaves, so every couple of months I have to fill out an "anonymous" survey on how much I love working for them.

I made the mistake of filling out the survey at around 6am today, about the time that most working folks are still thinking about getting out of bed, and most of my mates, who have pretty much all retired, are still dreaming of when they were 10 foot tall and bulletproof, and planning gentle rides on their shiny new Harleys or over-restored 750/4's. As you could probably imagine, my mood was dark and it was reflected in the survey. I don't know how many more of these surveys I'll be doing, especially if the company works out (and it won't be hard) that I'm not particularly interested in career prospects, professional development, promotion, etc. I suppose writing "Leave me alone, all I want to do is fcuking retire" might give them a hint. Oh well, it was a stupid survey anyway.

The only problem with retirement, is it happens in the last quarter of your life, and your health determines the quality of those scant few years before you're carried out of church, feet forward. I'm really hoping that I have a good 10 years or so of motorcycle building/riding/home brewing before I end up in the high dependancy ward of the shady acres nursing home. The sooner I can start my post working life, the better.

I like that paragraph.

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks Moe! OK, so on Friday after work I drove over to the South Melbourne Market to buy some ingredients for batch #3, "Ginger Bro". The ingredients required apart from the ginger are fairly flexible, so as the small Limes (that I used last time) were a ripoff at 2 for 5 bucks, I thought, "fcuk that!" And apart from the kilo of ginger (2.2 pounds) I bought a kilo of lemons, a kilo of navel oranges, a kilo of fresh Australian honey and 6 kilo's of raw and white sugar. I then dropped by the home brew shop and bought a kilo of light malt extract, a kilo of Dextrose, and a couple packets of yeast. 

I spent the next hour or so chopping up and simmering the ingredients in two big pots on the stove top, then put lids on them to keep the flies and cats out. In the morning I strained it through a colander into my fermenter and added all the water needed to make 30 litres of delicious ginger brew. As I used hot water to move the sugar rich concentrate through the colander the mix was a bit too warm to add the yeast, so this morning after checking the temp inside the fermenter was down to 22 deg C, (72 F) I added some more sugar, and a packet of yeast.

For the first time since I started my home brewing I heard some strange bubbling sounds to my right, and after confirming that it wasn't Emily the big fluffy cat sleeping on the chair next to mine, I wandered over to the fermenter, and was 'rapt to see lots of bubbling action! Woohoo! It does work! I just hope it doesn't overflow, it is pretty full............

   

[spotty]

By fook that's a lot of sugar, using that much in an equivalent beer mix would shove out about 13 or 14%, well done

What sort of yeast are you using ?
I've had a request for a generic ginger beer recipe that can be customised much as yours , honestly you'd think a chef would know how to make dodgy alcohol.....

[bear]

Just about all of 'em know how to drink it.

[Terry in Australia]

By fook that's a lot of sugar, using that much in an equivalent beer mix would shove out about 13 or 14%, well done

What sort of yeast are you using ?
I've had a request for a generic ginger beer recipe that can be customised much as yours , honestly you'd think a chef would know how to make dodgy alcohol.....

Thanks Spotty, I used Champagne yeast, dunno the brand because the packets gone into the bin outside, but it was enough to do up to 100 litres of champagne, so 30 litres of ginger beer sounds about right. Yep, lots of sugar makes for a fine brew. Here's a recipe I used, but only as a guide.

https://www.thehopandgrain.com.au/brew-ginger-beer/

As I said, only as a guide, nowhere enough sugar for alcohol production, and I still haven't bothered with a cinnamon stick, but I do put a decent shake of mixed spice in mine, and I can't complain about the finished product!

[Terry in Australia]

Well time moves on, and home brew doesn't last forever at my place, so it was time to make some more. I was less than happy with brew #2, I strayed too far from the original recipe and added lots more flavours with honey, limes, mixed spices etc, assuming that they'd enhance the taste, but in reality, it tasted like sh1t. I'd also made brew #3 and once again I'd added to it with oranges rather than limes, and I bottled it last weekend. I tried an early taste test last night, and although it wasn't particularly fizzy, it was bearable.

Bearable isn't the ideal, so I yesterday I made another batch, but went back to the original recipe, which made a delicious brew. I bought a bigger pot to cook the brew, in the past I used a 6 litre pot and a 4 litre pot but it wasn't ideal, so I spent $60 on a big sucker, and it worked much better.

Saturday #4 brew 7 Dec 2019 4 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I left it overnight to cool, as I wasn't keen to attempt to tip 10 litres of boiling ginger mud into my fermenter. With my recent history of self damage, I decided to err on the side of caution, everyone here knows that "Safety" is my middle name............. Anyway, this morning, it looked, and smelled, magnificent.

Saturday #4 brew 7 Dec 2019 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I'd also bought a big arsed steel strainer that as it turned out, was a great fit inside the top of the fermenter. I'd previously been using a plastic strainer with bigger holes, and I had a lot of floaties in the earlier brews.

Saturday #4 brew 7 Dec 2019 2 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

It worked very well. I had to add more sugar, so dissolved another 4 pounds of sugar in 4 litres of hot water, then poured it thru the ginger "mash" in the strainer. I continued to add the necessary water through the mash to make sure that all the gingery goodness was extracted. Some guys on youtube would then use the ginger mash to make ginger cakes etc, but I'm not really all that interested in ginger products that aren't liquid and alcoholic (like me) so I dropped it in the rubbish.

Saturday #4 brew 7 Dec 2019 3 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I'll let it cool to room temp (tomorrow) before I add the brewers yeast, and I'll only let it ferment for 2 weeks before I bottle it. I don't have a lot of bottles at the moment, so I'll have to buy a couple of dozen bottles of Ginger Joe and drink them as quickly as possible. It's a hard job, but necessary, so I'll just have to do my best..........

Ginger Joe by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

[Gordon]

My homebrewing slowed down a lot once the kids came around about 12 years ago, but it's picked back up a lot in the last few months.  Right now I have an English brown ale in the primary fermenter, a Bavarian hefe-weizen in the secondary fermenter and a chocolate stout in the keg.  I saved a gallon of the chocolate stout to bottle-condition and give out at Christmas.  I've never done a ginger beer, but it's something I've always wanted to try.

[Terry in Australia]

Thats a nice set-up mate! I'm not a real beer lover, but I've had some good home brews from a guy I sold a couple of CB750's to. I fell in love with Ginger beer a couple of years ago but it's pretty expensive, hence my attempts to make something close to acceptable.

My first brew was a success, if not a little over-carbonated (I had to be very careful opening each bottle, lest I lose half of it to the gods of home brew) but the second batch was sh1t due to me straying too far from the original recipe. #3 tastes better, but not as good as #1 yet, so for the fourth batch I went back to the original recipe, so hopefully, it'll be delightful.

[Don R]

 Is ginger beer like an alcoholic ginger ale?  If so, I should find some to try. 

[spotty]

Would Terry be drinking it if it wasn't ?

[ken65]

Ages ago when I worked in the brewery . I took home a few litres of ginger beer(6%).
Drank a couple of glasses then went into town to pick up one of the kids from the train station.
On the way home I was pulled over for a RBT.
Been drinking today? No mate.  Never fear, blew my lungs out. Copper said geez mate your just under.
Then it dawned on me, Alcoholic ginger beer. Never even gave it a thought. Tasted just like normal ginger beer.
Bloody lucky. Just plane forgot.

[Terry in Australia]

Ha ha, yep, if it's not alcoholic, I won't drink it, even my coffee has to have Irish Whisky in it, if I'm not at work!

Stones "Ginger Joe" is 8% alcohol, so a 500ml bottle is the equivalent of 3.2 standard drinks. I wolfed one down on Sunday after my big ride on my Swamp Rat K2 as it was quite warm and I was a bit dehydrated, and I almost fell flat on my face. Good stuff!